Just The Facts:

• Malawi’s staple food, nsima, is made from corn, which is highly rain dependent, and due to drought, 4.6 million Malawians (nearly 40% of it’s population) are struck with severe hunger this year.

• Though a number of clinics are now providing free ARV’s (drugs) to HIV+ people, they are often limited to only adding about 25 new patients each month—not just due to lack of drugs, but lack of medical staff and infrastructure to administer them.

• Even with the proper treatment, if HIV+ people do not have adequate nutrition the very medicine meant to save their lives can kill them.

• In the Balaka District: 64% of people are Christian, 29% Muslim, 6% other, 1% no religion.

• At the schools in Balaka, there are an average of 107 students per trained teacher.

• There are 406 untrained teachers in this district.

• Hunger, poverty, HIV/AIDS, women’s status, child rights etc. are so strongly intertwined, that proper response must include aspects that touch on all of these areas.