17 September 2008

Monrovia, Liberia: Unimaginable things happen daily. What was considered impossible just fifty years ago is already a celebrated global phenomenon, an anthem that moved - albeit slowly - from fantasy to reality.

Thoughts of the popular speech "I have a dream" echoed in my mind as I wondered away in the world of the imaginary. I was never in doubt why a single man's dream was strong enough to change the entire world. It was a dream backed with an undying passion.

Deep in me as I pondered within, I knew I had a dream too, one that will in its due course change the status quo of the common man. It was a dream of equal access to safe drinking water and improved public health outcomes for the world's poor.

This is my dream…

"…Having graduated with a distinction in microbiology and several awards, I still rejected the chance of a highly-paid career in industry. Although I was from a humble family, pecuniary rewards meant far too little to me compared to a life of significance, devoted to improving the lives of others in the developing world where I myself was born and bred. As I left university, the clarion call to mount the platform of service became increasingly loud in my heart. I had a dream too. It was a dream to serve!

"The mandate was clear. The battle against mortality associated with unsafe drinking water in my continent has to be won. Paramount to achieving this feat is planning and implementing programmes and policies that identify and meet water and sanitation needs.

"In a bid to promoting the achievement of the much-publicized Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the major objective of my Master's degree research in the United Kingdom was to give policy recommendations that would ultimately improve water quality and access to alternative sources in developing nations where the public supply of drinking water is deplorable.

"Having gained years of experience monitoring drinking water quality in different local and international settings, I enlisted as a UNV volunteer and was afterwards deployed to serve as a Water and Sanitation Specialist. The role involves maintaining and operating a water analysis laboratory, taking samples, conducting standard water analysis tests and preparing reports for the mission, maintaining a water quality database and intensive potable water checks throughout the mission.

"In addition to these core duties, together with other relevant stakeholders, we were able to strengthen efforts aimed at controlling water-related infectious diseases. This involved planning, designing, monitoring, coordinating and evaluating health promotion programmes, policies and stratgies at the micro- and macro-levels. Collaborating with other institutions in later years, we championed  the introduction of several capacity-building funding schemes specifically targeted at the disadvantaged.

"Furthermore, as we were fully aware of many 'successful' global and national policies that remained failures at the community level, together with relevant stakeholders, we partnered with other not-for-profit organizations to help reach the grassroots. We facilitated public awareness campaigns and outreaches to rural dwellers which in turn spurred genuine community participation and sense of ownership for subsequent projects.

"Given this considerable community involvement, we promoted sustainable interventions that improved access to safe water and improved sanitation. In nations where literacy levels were significantly low, we embarked on intensive 'catch-them-young' approaches; nipping the problem at the bud by instilling sound values of hygiene and sanitation into schoolchildren who subsequently conveyed the message to their nuclear and extended families. Again, through the support of external funding agencies, we did improve the health status of the poor by encouraging the distribution, delivery and use of effective and affordable pro-poor health services at the community level.

"Having played key roles in the various public health interventions in my continent, water-associated diseases are today at a record low. A major secret to this success has been an unwavering passion that fuelled my big dream to serve. My early years, battered with a livelihood of poverty and the denial of basic facilities, spurred in me a sustained determination to succeed, and more importantly to contribute to improving the lives of others.

"Fifty years later, I reviewed the impact I have been able to make in the lives of many and concluded; it was a life well-lived and a dream utterly fulfilled…"

Hardly had I finished soliloquizing when my desktop beeped at the sight of an incoming mail. I had in previous days maintained an eagle eye on my mail box in expectation of a positive response from the UNV office with whom I filed an application weeks before for the position of Water and Sanitation Specialist.

Fortunately enough, it was a 'yes'. It was a yes to a dream that initially never left the four walls of my apartment.  Four weeks after, I was aboard a plane destined for Africa singing the sweet melody… Liberia here I come! As two of the theme songs from an anime movie portrays, all I am simply doing as a volunteer in Africa is 'dancing away' and following my dream.  I have a dream!