HWS Reports on Medicine Suitcase

To view this story (with photo) on the Hobart and WIlliam Smith Colleges Website, click here:
http://www.hws.edu/dailyupdate/NewsDetails.aspx?aid=11191

Saving the World after Graduation

Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008

After graduation, Martha Pigott '06 left campus to help save the world. With her Peace Corps application in place, Pigott was recruited for a program in Malawi, Africa that left in May 2007.

When she arrived, Pigott found her post at a health center in a rural African village 15 km. from a tarmac road with no electricity. Still serving her two-year position, Pigott explained, "I mostly work at a youth club in my village where we make peanut butter as an income generating activity to serve most disadvantaged members of the community such as people who are living with HIV and orphaned children,"

"I also do a bit of health education with my health center staff mostly surrounding safe water and safe drinking water practices," Pigott said. However, she admits that, "the best part of my experience has been the local boys' soccer team, whose players make up half of the youth club and have since won two league trophies since our start in September of last year."

To aid her efforts, Pigott's brother has created the Brick Foundation, an organization that collects donations for medical supplies and other projects at the health clinic in Malawi. "It was truly amazing," Pigott said of her brother's gesture. "In the days that followed, they [the Brick Foundation] did indeed reach their goal of $1,000 and lugged two suitcases full of medical supplies to my health center which the community welcomed with open arms. They couldn't have been happier."

You can visit it at www.thebrickfoundation.org.

Pigott holds a bachelors degree in public policy and a minor in Spanish and writing. While at William Smith, she became a writing colleague and Spanish tutor, played on the girls' club ice hockey team and performed in the Koshare Dance Collective. She also participated in the Washington D.C. internship program and interned for a congressman in the fall of 2004. In the spring of 2006, she also studied abroad in Geneva, Switzerland where she interned for an Intellectual Property Watch Publication.

 

 
Martha Makes The Buffalo News

To view the story (with photo) on the Buffalo News website, click here:
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/buffaloerie/story/398570.html

Bridging two worlds through soccer

By Jessica Vosgerchian NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 07/24/08 6:36 AM

In Dzoole, a rural village of sub- Saharan Malawi, Martha Pigott’s soccer ball caused a small sensation.

Every day, Pigott said, teenage boys in the village where the Peace Corps stationed her last year borrowed her ball to play for hours on a makeshift field.

“When I told them they could just keep it, they were like ‘Oh my God, you own our team now. You have to watch us,’ ” she said.

To help more of the village’s youth play the sport, Grand Island native Pigott is working with the Delaware Soccer Club to tap the masses of discarded soccer equipment stashed away in Buffalo basements.

“It seems that every family has a ball and a pair of shin guards in their basement, so we’ll see what we can get,” Delaware Soccer Club President Jeff Lebsack said.

The club is planning to have a donation drive for the Dzoole teams and underprivileged Buffalo players Sept. 13 in Delaware Park.

Shoes, jerseys, shin guards and practice materials will be sent to Malawi to be used in a children’s soccer camp run by an older team Pigott founded.

The village’s first team — called the Dzoole Medicals after the village health center where Pigott works — went from barefoot pickup games to winning a regional championship after Pigott registered them in a local league.

Pigott said she was able to purchase 11 jerseys for the team to wear in the finals, but many players still played barefoot or with one shoe worn on their kicking foot.

With fewer shoes than players, and a 1z-hour trek to the tournament, the players’ enthusiasm won them the championship.

“When we knew that we were going to win, it was just pandemonium because so many people watch these games, because it’s the only entertainment,” Pigott said.

The team won $12,000 Malawi Kwacha, or about $90, which Pigott said they want to use to buy their goalie a jersey and gloves.

While on home leave from her Peace Corp mission in June, Pigott approached the Delaware Soccer Club for donations and received three full uniforms and a box of trophies along with the club’s support for collecting more gear for her players, Lebsack said.

Lebsack said the club had been considering community service projects, and Pigott’s cause struck the board as ideal.

 		  
2008 The BRICK FOUNDATION. All Rights Reserved.