'A stick on its own is easily broken but a bundle will not break'

"Le rameau craque, mais le fagot demeure solide."

A proverb from Malawi which was used as part of the first collective externalising conversation by CARE Counsellors interviewing the characters of HIV/AIDS and CARE (Community Action Renders Enablement). The metaphor was used as part of a ritual in which the character CARE first asked participants to break a single stick:

Slowly Mr/Mrs CARE picks up a stick, a piece of wood from nearby trees known by the local people to be magical. With the stick in hand, Mr/Mrs CARE turns and offers it to the nearest person and asks them to use their strength to break it. The first person cannot, and so the stick is passed slowly and quietly. Finally it cracks and breaks in two.

One stick on its own is easily broken.

Removing the broken stick, Mr/Mrs CARE turns and picks up a bundle of sticks, also from the magic trees, but this time bound together by twine. The villagers are invited to try to break the bundle. This time they cannot.

One stick on its own is easily broken, but, if you put sticks in a bundle, that bundle becomes very strong, so strong that you cannot break it. A spirit on its own can be easily broken. But bundled together we will not break. That is our power and our strength. Pang’ono pang’ono ndi mtolo – little by little we must make a bundle. (Sliep & CARE Counsellors, 1996, p. 145)

A literal ‘bundle of sticks’ was given by CARE Counsellors to the Power to our Journeys Group (Sue, Mem & Veronika, 1999) and the metaphor has since been used by many different communities.