Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to visit some of the volunteer community workers with Alex, St. Gabriel’s chief Home Based Care nurse. We brought the Community Health Worker (CHW) backpack and handwashing system for the patient visits. Our first stop was in the Chileka village where I met Lucy and Claudina. These two amazing women lived in the area and had been community volunteers for almost five years. They also had CHW backpack of their own to treat patients in the community. We treated two patients in this village using materials from the CHW backpack and then used the Handwashing system to clean up. I was extremely excited to see how well it would work in the field. The volunteers and Alex both liked the system and said it would be useful for future outreach trips. They said the design was easy to set up, and the only thing they needed was a bar of soap. Just from my short visit, I could see the tremendous impact the backpacks have had on communities and volunteers. As Alex said, “The CHW packs give the volunteers a role and identity in the community”. These backpacks empower the community and let community members contribute to the health of the village. The volunteers dutifully keep the backpacks stocked and report to Alex if any materials are missing or needed. So far, there are twelve backpacks in Malawi and almost 140 volunteers using them.