By: Melina Mallari

Some things that have stuck with me so far: the giant ant hills; the nostalgic smell of a humid, bustling city that resembles where I’m rooted in the Philippines; the liberating feeling of my bare feet dancing on wood and the rhythm of the drums underneath them; and the bonding moments we share during our late evenings on the floor of the living room. But what I expect will linger the longest for me and many of my peers was the short visit to the Anani Memorial International School.

Nestled in Nima’s crowded, under-developed community, the school holds mostly orphaned children through grade six who come from various regions of West Africa. We navigated through winding alleys and crossed bridges over large polluted gutters to reach its entrance, where we greeted around a hundred children waiting for us with a performance. We danced, hugged, took pictures, offered gifts, and were on our way back out of the slum within an hour. As much as giving and receiving love and excitement with these children has been the biggest highlight of my trip thus far, none of us could quite ignore how heavy the air felt afterward. 

This wasn’t my first time walking through a slum community in another country; I experienced that sense of culture shock during my first visit to the Philippines. Still, I had always viewed such an experience as a time to check my privilege and move on. I was prepared to take that usual mental shortcut, but this time, upon reflecting on it with everyone else on the way to our fancy buffet lunch, I let it weigh on me a little harder. While I have conversed with locals before and built connections with other youth, I had never taken the time to truly learn from the community itself. Learning from Principal Anane and our local guides about the state of Nima and the school, in addition to spending time walking along the same paths the locals take every day, allowed me to sit with the discomfort of living a sheltered and opportunity-filled life in the United States. It’s moments like these that inspire me to keep learning from the rest of us and hopefully do some good where I can. While I’ll never forget the struggles that communities like these face, I will also never forget those smiles on each of the children’s faces. I had the time of my life meeting them, and I hope they did too.

Despite the collective frustration we felt from grappling with our own privileges and feeling that our efforts to help the school would affect no significant change, it feels good to be working for an organization that continues those steps in the right direction. In Osu, Accra, Penplusbytes is a non-profit media organization focused on civic challenges and helping citizens keep in touch with governmental policies and new media technology. One example of this work is executed through a project in partnership with an organization in Mali, called HERE (Health, Education, Resource Equity) and Now. This project focuses on simplifying the nations’ education and health policies for citizens and subsequently challenging them. By creating a space for the public to report on which policies have worked for them, the organization can use this information to advocate for reform in these areas. This includes monitoring projects in education, such as those intended to aid children in the least developed communities, and making transparent their efforts and successes.

Upon learning everything that this organization does for the community, I felt proud to be helping them continue this work. While I have yet to discover what my role will be in this company, making these personal connections after my visit to Nima makes me already excited to contribute to the necessary work they do.