After meeting with men, women, children, widows, orphans, health workers, teachers, pupils, and those infected with malaria, tuberculosis, meningitis, and HIV, we noticed a distinct pattern:

People need food.

How can a child learn properly on an empty stomach? How can an ill person have the stamina to harvest his/her crop?
How can someone take medication without the proper food? And how can a woman abandoned by her husband afford to feed sometimes 14, 15, and 16 children?

When we talk about food, we also need to talk about women’s status. Typically in Malawi, the man’s role is a public one.
He is the one that goes to town, looks for work, takes part in meetings etc. The woman’s role is often confined to the private sphere, the world of cooking, laundry, water fetching, childrearing. So when a woman has lost her husband, or has been abandoned or “chased” back to her parents, she is left with nothing.

In Malawi, it is not easy to get back on your feet. Here in the United States, we can take advantage of grants and scholarships to further our education. Here, if money gets tight we can put our groceries on credit cards or write a check in hopes of buying a few days time. If we want to start a business we can write out a business plan, go down to our bank, and receive tens of thousands of dollars. And if we fail, we have the opportunity to declare bankruptcy.

In places like Malawi, most people don’t have ID cards and bank accounts, and surely don’t have access to credit. If you want to borrow money, you go to your relative’s, and if they are unable to assist you, you go hungry.

Though there is no simple answer to solve Malawi’s drought, famine and poverty on a large scale, there are some solid, simple steps we as an organization can take to affect small communities of people.

We Can:
1) Help families by empowering women and men through skill and small business development, micro loans, and accountability with a group of their peers. We can partner with local organizations already doing similar work in other regions, to take advantage of their training and expertise. We can see families rise above, feed their families, help their relatives, and be pillars in their community.

2) Easily support children’s education by paying for their school fees and necessary supplies. We can see them thriving, smiling, enjoying life, thinking about ways they can help their community now and after they graduate.

3) Strengthen young people’s education and critical thinking skills through a creative learning program that draws on their love of drama, poetry, and riddles to open dialogue about the critical issues they face.