Marigold Fund sows seeds of hope abroad
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AMHERST - Few student projects on how to successfully design a tuberculosis clinic for a Third World country would bring tears to someone's eyes.
But after hearing Jacqueline M. Brown speak on just that topic, Debbie Knight could scarcely choke back her emotions.
Knight is the chairwoman on the Marigold Fund's board of directors, an Amherst-based nonprofit supporting social services, health and education programs in rural Afghanistan. Brown's free research, provided along with other Afghan related studies through a University of Massachusetts honors class, may be the only way of getting such data for the burgeoning organization.
"This is huge. Huge," said Knight to a room of about 20 students on campus Thursday, as she wiped away a tear. "This is a huge gift for us. There's no quite adequate way to thank you."
Reaching out
This month, students in a UMass winter session class called the "Dean's Book Course," a Commonwealth College class, teamed up with the Marigold Fund to provide research to support programs that include training midwives, building and staffing a tuberculosis clinic and launching a furniture-building school.
Students dug into statistics on Afghan culture, the overall population's health, medicinal and building best practices and successful training methods, to compile their reports.
Knight described the students' work as a "relief" for her and other Marigold staffers. Meanwhile, the partnership gave students an opportunity to do meaningful research.
"Our resources are short," said Knight, who added that Marigold has a goal of raising $500,000 for projects in Afghanistan this year. A large portion of that money, $162,000, is needed to construct the tuberculosis clinic.
"We wouldn't be able to do without what they did for us," Knight said. "This is of critical value to us."
Afghanistan is one of 22 countries with the highest tuberculosis rates in the world, according to the World Health Organization. Tuberculosis can be easily cured with a six-month antibiotic regimen, but can be deadly if left untreated.
Marigold and UMass entered this three-week research partnership through an old friendship and a desire on the course instructor's part to have her students engage in community service learning.
UMass lecturer Carol Soules has known Marigold Director Gary Moorehead for more than 20 years. The two met in Northampton through mutual friends, she said. Soules said her course requires students to conduct research. Having them create papers and projects that could have implications for a nonprofit in need seemed like a great use of the students' efforts.
UMass "students have access to hundreds of databases and volumes of information that most people don't have access to, never mind being in Afghanistan," said Soules, referring to Moorehead, who spends most of his time in the war-torn Central Asian nation.
"I'm thrilled with what they've done," Soules said. "I'd love to do something like this again."
Undergraduate research rarely resonates outside a classroom. Students said they enjoyed the opportunity to produce work that could help people in Afghanistan.
"It was a really humbling experience," said Julia M. Concannon, a senior. "I look at the research I've done and how they (rural Afghans) live in that corner of the world where things like chairs, desks and food are scarce, and here I am complaining about having to get up at 11 a.m.
"It was refreshing to do research that wasn't the same old same old," she added.
Marigold's work
The Marigold Fund was established four years ago when Moorehead was in Afghanistan serving as a construction manager for schools and homes through Shelter for Life, International Inc., a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that provides shelter for needy people across the globe. Moorehead met a group of impoverished, ill, orphaned children and began taking up a collection for them in America and the United Kingdom, according to the fund's history statement.
Eventually Moorehead turned his fundraising into a nonprofit for improving the lives of Afghans in the rural Takhar province, situated in the northeastern section of the country.
While Marigold is expanding its programs, Knight said the fund has no intention of blindly instituting initiatives that may or may not resound in Afghan's Islamic culture. Research is needed, but it's often time-consuming and an added responsibility for Marigold's small staff.
"When you're trying to wear five hats, everything takes longer," Knight said. "I'll quality check their data, but I'm OK with doing that and not having to find all the information. It saves time on critical projects."
Over two weeks, students created five-minute presentations and physical reports on a variety of subjects. Jason B. Defuria weighed the quality of education given to midwives through Marigold's first training session last year. Another student developed a list of midwife "best practices." Someone else compiled data on the regional vocational education needs of rural Afghans.
Concannon and Tara L. Williams created a pamphlet featuring short biographies of successful Afghan women in the hopes of encouraging young girls to stay in school and pursue their dreams. Only 12.6 percent of Afghan women can read, according to the Central Intelligence Agency's "The World Factbook."
"We wanted to try to make something uplifting," said Williams. "This is something they (Marigold) can build off of. It's one small contribution that can go a long way."
A number of the reports were detailed. Brown's tuberculosis clinic, for example, included information on everything from window placement energy sources and wall colors to how to explain tuberculosis to an uneducated population.
About 42,000 new tuberculosis cases were reported in Afghanistan in 2006, the most recent information available.
Brown said she spent 48 rewarding hours researching her project.
"It just grabbed me and let me put my work to good use," Brown said. "One thing that kept me going during this project was learning a lot, but also knowing that I was helping the Marigold Fund to do great things. Every little step you take, it all adds up."
