Malawi
In the summer and autumn of 2008 we began working with the rural community of Milonde in Southern Malawi.It has no electricity, water is hand pumped from below the earth and tiolets are a hole in the ground.The staple food is maize, eaten as a porridge or as solid main meal of boiled Inzema.When the rains come they have a harvest of Maize, if they don't, then the population go hungry.
Recently the cost of Maize,seeds and fertilizers have shot up astronomically thereby crippling any chance of the people affording their daily meal.Most have only one meal perday. Some school children get up in the morning and walk for two hours to reach school, then spend 5 hours studying before the two hour treck home and the only meal of the day before bed.
We have started a feeding programme that gives a lunchtime meal to approx 500 senior school pupils.
We have opened 2 Creches which hold 200 children between them, where the children are not only stimulated, by exercises and lessons, but also fed a breakfast of porridge.A third creche in the market town of Mutambe badly needed a fence for security and privacy which we supplied along with educational and kitchen tools.
Under construction is our Youth Centre.A facility which will be run by a committee of youngsters who will ascertain what the contents and facilities offered should be.Certainly it will contain computers, powered by solar panels, for learning and communication.The members of the Youth Centre will offer their services to the community for building work, painting, clearing and looking after younger children.
Around 100 teenage girls sleep overnight in a school building where they have no mattresses, no light and no privacy in the wash area.We have supplied the bedding and put a solar panel feed into the building for lighting and re-built the washroom.
The Senior Chief of the community granted us a building which we are developing into a training workshop for women.They have requested training in knitting and sewing to enable them to bring some revenue into the area by providing industrial clothing and school uniforms at competative prices. We have already provided knitting machines and have employed an instructor to train the women.
Our Project Leaders are Olive and Leonard Nyali and Cosmas Jamu.Cosmas is the Headteacher of the High School and Olive is the maths teacher.
Our partner in these projects is Rothesay Joint Campus, Isle of Bute, Argyleshire.