"Often, falling ill means depriving their
families of an income, and this is exactly where the vicious circle of poverty
and cancer starts."
Nina Matt Intern Student, Netherlands Served MAKNA from July to September 2005
During
my stay in Malaysia, I was asked many times what is the benefit of travelling
around half of the world from the Netherlands to Malaysia only for a two months
stay in this country. In the beginning, that was an easy question to answer: an
internship at Makna.
But during these two months, it took me more and more time to provide people
with a complete answer. The benefits of my stay in Makna kept adding up: it was
not only some internship at some NGO, it was much more:
There was the direct contact with cancer patients. This taught me to look at
the whole picture, not only cancer in the narrow sense, but cancer in
relationship to poverty, and everything this means to these people. For them,
falling ill is not only the absence of a healthy body; it puts their own and
their family's lives at pause, in the anxious awaiting of eventual healing.
Often, falling ill means depriving their families of an income, and this is
exactly where the vicious circle of poverty and cancer starts: Being ill you
cannot earn money, and having no money you cannot afford treatment. Makna does
a great effort in breaking through this circle by helping their patients.
Poverty is multidimensional: it is not only the material deprivation, it also
is low human development; it's the lack of having a voice in society; it's the
acute vulnerability to adverse shocks average people can relatively easily cope
with: economic crises, natural disasters, epidemics; and it's the lack of
opportunity to make substantive choices affecting their lives: we choose a job,
a family, a house to live in, friends, a car, we choose to live the life we
want; once fallen ill, these people do not have a choice. By not only
addressing the treatment of cancer patient's but also the economic situation of
the whole family and education possibilities, Makna has set itself a
challenging goal: not only to eradicate illness and poverty, but also to
empower people to have a voice and a choice.
My internship at Makna also showed me the whole picture of the role Makna plays
in the international community. Since cancer hits everybody throughout the
world equally and unexpectedly, it is my strong believe that the international
community has a responsibility to cooperate in order to provide for the
possibility for poor people to live in dignity and health. A major shift of
responsibilities has taken place in the international community. Global actors
are no longer only governments; it is civil society and especially the NGOs who
play an important role in taking the international community's responsibilities
by cooperating in tight networks.
I really hope Makna will carry on and keep growing at the same speed as I
witnessed it. From my side, I will try to implement everything I learned here
in my future career in the not for profit sector, which hopefully will lead me
back to Malaysia one day.
My sincere thanks to everybody at Makna
