Who are the people?
The people of Malawi pride themselves on their friendliness—so much so that Malawi is called the “warm heart of Africa.”

Malawians typically live with their extended families in huts that are clustered together. A spirit of cooperation prevails as family members share both work and resources.

Rural Malawians do not celebrate birthdays as people do in many other countries. Most babies are delivered at home and individuals often do not have official birth certificates. Parents associate the birth of a child with a particular season or important event, although many do not know the specific date.

Malawian families are often large because they are highly valued. A large family means more hands to help on the farm and assures that parents will be cared for as they age.

Life is difficult for many Malawian families. Sixty-five percent of the population lives in poverty. Many people lack access to safe water. More than a quarter of all Malawians are illiterate.

Since 1994, primary education in Malawi has been free. School enrollment is increasing, but academic performance is declining. World Vision is working to improve education so children can look forward to a better future.
The people of Malawi pride themselves on their friendliness—so much so that Malawi is called the

Country Comparison	Malawi	United States
Population	12.6 million	295.4 million
Land Mass	397,840 sq. miles	3,537,439 sq. miles
Life Expectancy	40 years	78 years
Infant Mortality Rate (per 1,000)	110	7
Literacy Rate	64%	97%
Primary School Enrollment	76%	92%
Access to Safe Water	67%	100%
Average Annual Income (GNI per capita)	$170	$41,400

Religion

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What is it like to live there?
Malawi is a landlocked country located in southeast Africa. Twenty percent of its area is covered by Lake Malawi, the continent’s third largest lake. It is a very poor nation, but one of great scenic beauty.

Most of the land consists of plateaus of different altitudes, resulting in a variety of climates. In the higher elevations, Malawi is pleasantly cooler than many other African countries, but the climate of the lowlands is hot, humid, and tropical.

Malawi is a densely populated nation of 12.6 million people. Ninety percent live in small villages in rural areas, making their living from agriculture. Although the soil is rich, only one-third of the land is suitable for farming because of mountains, forests, and rough pastures. The staple diet is white maize eaten with vegetables and, on occasion, fish or meat.

Traditional rural homes are round, mud-walled, thatched huts. These are gradually being replaced by brick houses with tin roofs.

Antelopes, zebras, buffaloes, and elephants are found in unpopulated areas of Malawi. Game reserves were established to protect those animals whose numbers were in decline because their feeding areas were converted into farmland.
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World Vision Involvement

1975-80

World Vision's initial involvement in the country of Malawi began with sponsorship funding at the Lulwe School for the Blind and a relief project which supplied medicine to 30 Anglican dispensaries following a 1975 survey trip to the country. A Pastors' Conference was held in 1978 with 150 in attendance. Some specifics on those early projects are as follows:

Lulwe School for the Blind

The Lulwe School for the Blind in the Nsanje District was begun by missionaries of Africa Evangelical Fellowship Malawi in 1950. Due to the incidence of measles, smallpox, trachoma, VD, malnourishment and use of village medicines, blindness was not uncommon. In 1975, World Vision began to partner with A.E.F. and other contributing entities such as the Malawi government, John Milton Society for the Blind and Mission to Blind Overseas to regularly provide a portion of the costs for maintaining this Christian residential institution which provided children with a primary education, Braille reading and writing, mobility training, handcrafts, clothing, transportation to and from home for holidays as well as regular medical care and good nutrition. The average student population was approximately 42-60 during World Vision's involvement spanning from 1975-1992.

St. Luke's Dispensaries Relief

In 1978, World Vision assisted the ministry of the St. Luke's Hospital in partnership with the Anglican Church by supplying 30 rural health centers with needed medicines.


1981-85

In 1981, a World Vision office was opened in Bylantyre. From that point, the growth of the ministry in Malawi grew beyond all expectation. Malawi's in-country child sponsorship program had begun in 1981 with 42 children. By the end of 1985, there were a total of 4,056 sponsored children. Numerous sponsorship and community development projects were begun which provided assistance in the areas of evangelism, nutrition, clean water supply, medical services, education, adult literacy, income generation, revolving loans, sanitation, rehabilitation, vocational training, as well as training in health and child care, agriculture, animal husbandry and handcrafts. Management and leadership training was provided for project and community leaders, teachers and lay church leaders. Typically, a community development project would be designed for 1,500-2,500 people with an approximate budget of US$18,000 annually. In the Malawian context, the predominant emphasis was on education in response to a national outcry for good primary school facilities in rural areas. This involved development of an unassisted school, typically begun by a local church, to the level required by the government before government would assist with qualified teachers and facilities.

Bridges built during this period such as the Kuthakawanansi and Namisu bridges provided affected communities with crucial access to schools and hospitals, and enabled the marketing of crops during harvest season as well as the transport of supplies to World Vision development projects.

A second Pastors' Conference was held in 1985 with 240 in attendance. Some specific projects during this period include:

The Nkope Development Project

This medium sized, sponsorship development project could be said to be representative of World Vision's development work in Malawi at that time. Begun in 1982, it incorporated multiple activities with various components of development as goals. It had as its core focus the development of a primary school to meet the government standard. World Vision worked in partnership with the Anglican church and the local community.

Monkey Bay Development Project

The Monkey Bay Development Project was another development project with a mix of education, health, agriculture, and water goals which was centered around the development of a primary school but was significant in its size. It began with 700 children in project but actually affected 1,500 children and their families, a total of 7,000 people. One of the major accomplishments of this project was the increase in enrollment of students; from 500 to 1,950 over the four year life span of the project.

Diocese of Southern Malawi Schools Rehabilitation Project

Due to severe wind and rainstorms in December of 1981, school buildings in the communities of Mpilisi, Nambila, M'manga and Chilipa lost their roofs. Some children subsequently were transferred to distant schools making attendance the more difficult and many left school altogether. World Vision subsidized the rehabilitation of these schools to a standard that they would be secure against future inclement weather. This was done in partnership with the Anglican church with labor provided by skilled men of the communities.

The Chilipa Water Project

In 1982, World Vision provided the means to bring an adequate water supply to the Chilipa community through the construction of a borehole. Particular emphasis was on water supply to the hospital and primary school then in place through the efforts of the Chilipa community and Anglican church via an extensive piping system.

Malawi Christian Leaders Seminars

In 1982, WV sponsored a comprehensive series of seminars over a one-year period; the Malawi Christian Leaders Seminars. The goals of these seminars were the bringing together of the church leadership of Malawi to encourage and consult on the importance of applying management/leadership principles to church ministries, introducing the theory of community development through churches, reaching the unreached, teaching stewardship and accounting principles and the exploring of various other issues related to the effectiveness of the church. The seminars also provided an opportunity to receive recommendations from national church leadership on the direction World Vision should take in community development. These seminars were held with the help of partner agencies CORAT (Africa) and the Christian Service Committee for the Churches in Malawi.

St. Luke's Development Project

The St. Luke's Hospital of Chilema, run by the Anglican Church, served as the coordinating arm of a number of health centers throughout Malawi's southern region. The hospital served the immediate population of 15,000 people. It ran a nurse training school with a two-year curriculum, also mobile clinics. In 1982, World Vision began a 4-year project of support to maintain and enhance these vital medical services to the people of Malawi during a time when the medical department of the Anglican Church was suffering recurrent budget shortfall. The total project budget for the 4-year period was US 47,262.

"Bylantyre for Jesus" Discipling and Follow-up Projects

In 1984, a city-wide evangelistic campaign, "Bylantyre for Jesus," was jointly organized by African Enterprise and local churches. The 3-week campaign was aimed at reaching every "layer" of society through a stratified evangelistic strategy and was significant also in the history of the church in Malawi as it was the first joint effort by churches on an evangelistic endeavor. World Vision supported this historic campaign through supplying approximately 20% of monies needed to carry out extensive follow-up/discipleship activities during and after the actual campaign through direct staff involvement in personal counselling of respondents, distribution of literature, mailings, the supply of office room from October to the following March and serving on the formal follow-up committee.

It was during this period that the first Development Assisting Centers or DAC's were begun in Malawi. This was an important innovative concept in World Vision's approach to development work with the goal of upgrading and accelerating rural development work through grassroots level training networks. Core concepts to this approach included: the definition of a development area, the establishment of a development assisting center in the area which served as a training center and meeting place to continuously train village development workers (VDW's) and to deliver technical and management training to village people, and the utilization of VDW's living and working closely with people in designated villages building relationships and trust. The DAC had the normal activities of community development but a major focus on the holistic concept of development (that of addressing not only physical but spiritual, emotional and social needs of individuals), placing development facilitators closer to poor communities (a result of important learnings from World Vision's experience) as well as emphasis on training, and having those trained train others.



1986-90

By the end of 1986, World Vision was active in development assistance in 68 communities. It was also during this year that World Vision began relief assistance to a rapidly rising population of Mozambican refugees within Malawi's borders. The internal strife in Mozambique had caused a trickle of refugees into Malawi beginning as early as 1984. However, in June of 1986, the numbers grew dramatically and by September of that year, the estimated number of refugees was at 70,000. By the year 1990, that number had grown to 860,000. World Vision's assistance to the refugees and to the Malawians impacted by their presence was to continue for the next nine years. A sampling of significant relief projects include:

Mozambican Displaced Persons

This long running project was begun in 1987. As Mozambicans began to seek refuge in Malawi in increasing numbers, the local people were welcoming and the government's response "commendable." As numbers increased and needs became overwhelming, numerous agencies mobilized in cooperation with the Malawi government. Coordinating with agencies such as ICRC, LRCS, EEC, WFP, UNICEF, Medicines Sans Froniters, UNHCR and Save the Children Fund, World Vision's designated part in the whole was centered in the areas of health and sanitation and the provision of sleeping mats in the camps in the districts of Dedza, Ntcheu, Mangochi, Mulanje and Chikwawa. In 1988, an additional component of this project was emergency response given to victims of a large fire which occurred in two refugee camps in the Mangochi district further devastating 4,050 people.

Soap Production for Mozambican Refugees

The civil war in Mozambique had created what was described as, "... the most acute refugee problem in the world today..." by Graeme Irvine, then Vice President for International Relations, in 1988 correspondence. By 1989, World Vision was providing assistance to more than 400,000 refugees in camps with a focus on health, sanitation and income generating activities. One of the largest IGA's was a soap production project begun in 1988. The project provided gainful employment to decrease dependency, apathy and attendant problems initiated by camp conditions, to provide needed soap to alleviate hygiene related diseases and to transfer marketable skills to the refugees. With the initial goal of setting up 29 small scale "factories" in five targeted districts, refugees were trained and facilitated to manufacture soap, impart training to others and increasingly manage production. This ministry to Mozambican refugees spanned five years.

Mozambican Refugees-Mulanje Camps

Begun in 1988, this project had as its aim the improvement of the lives of 3,150 refugee women and 1,350 impacted Malawian women by the provision of homecraft classes. It was observed that women sat idle while women skilled in marketable homecrafts were available to teach them but without materials. This project set up training classes and provided materials. Another important element of the project was a revolving loan fund program to enable 1,400 refugees and 600 impacted Malawians to earn through various income generating activities such as tailoring, knitting, tinsmithing, vegetable growing and carpentry. Business management training was provided in addition to the revolving loans.

Mulolo Flood Relief Project

Due to heavy rains, widespread flooding occurred in Malawi in early 1989. Over 83,000 people were left homeless and major crop damage took place. Eight World Vision projects were severely impacted by this flooding with people losing most of their worldly possessions. Areas hardest hit contained significant Mozambican refugee populations as well. The government of Malawi asked for international assistance with the disaster. One of World Vision's flood relief projects during this time was in partnership with the Malawi Red Cross. To assist flood victims in the cooking and handling of food distributed by the Malawian government, 8,000 pots and 8,000 plates were distributed to 4,000 families, 7,576 sleeping mats given to 3,788 families and 1,600 blankets distributed. Silas Kenala, World Vision's Operations Director, reported, "As we walk through the villages, people share their appreciation of assistance given and have queried why we came out to assist and sharing with them the word of God, they understood why we responded to their problems."

Fatima Parish Flood Relief

World Vision assisted the Fatima Catholic Parish Trinity Hospital in its efforts of providing to some 250 flood victims food, clothing, blankets, cooking pots, drugs such as antimalarials, antibiotics, rehydration infusions and in the disinfection of village wells in the hard hit Mulolo area.


1991-98

By 1991, World Vision was at work in 127 development projects and had a total number of 22,147 sponsored children. Assistance to Mozambican refugees also continued well into this period. World Vision's increasing awareness and concern for the special disadvantages of women and their pivotal role in the health care of children and as teachers of future generations became evidenced by the implementation of projects specifically geared to meeting women's needs. In 1991, a third Pastors' Conference was held in Malawi. A sampling of specific projects include:

Kachere Women in Development

One of the earliest projects in Malawi geared specifically to the needs of women is the Kachere Women in Development Project. Spiritual nurture, evangelism to women, immunization clinics, training of village health volunteers, income generation through training in homecrafts, business management skills, revolving loans, vegetable gardening, animal husbandry, women's meetings and the drilling of boreholes to bring adequate water to support agriculture and sanitation activities on the part of participating women are important components of this project.

Kabudula Child Survival

In keeping with a growing trend in World Vision towards large scale development, the Kabudula Child Survival Project was begun to address the high morbidity and mortality rates among children under five years of age in an area with an estimated population of 53,955. Working alongside an existing DAC in the area, key interventions of this project include nutrition, immunization, ORT, environmental and housing sanitation and also supports the Malawi Ministry of Health malaria prevention program which focuses on treatment and environmental control.

Phalombe Floods Emergency

Due to heavy rains in the Mulanje District in 1991, flooding and mud slides affected 21,440 people. The initial death toll was 472 with 200 people missing. World Vision mobilized to bring relief to 5,000 flood victims with food supplies, plastic sheeting, poles, blankets, sleeping mats, cooking supplies and aid with sanitation. Numerous other agencies such as Malawi Red Cross Society, Christian Council of Malawi, Council for Social Welfare et. al. combined efforts in addressing this disaster.

Chapananga Relief Food Project

In 1992, Malawi suffered one of the worst food deficits recorded in its history. The Chapananga DAC already in place provided an immediately usable World Vision infrastructure to address the need. Initially, the goal was to provide a survival ration of food for 78,000 affected people until the 1993 harvest. Subsequent droughts and additional factors have caused the continuing need for the monitoring and food distributions this project provides to date, in January, 1996.

Zomba Relief Food Project

Due to severe drought conditions and resulting crop failure, World Vision began a massive distribution of food to families affected in the Zomba District in 1994. Temporary food stores were erected in strategic locations and to date nutrition surveillance and distributions continue.



A Sampling of Projects Open in FY98

The Mikolongwe Boreholes Project (MWI-31-171980) is a World Vision Malawi water development project directed towards over 15,300 Lomwe and Nyanja beneficiaries in the Mikolongwe area. The major goal is to increase access of potable water for 1000 families by constructing, installing and maintaining borewells and water pumps. This much needed project will end in FY98.

A community development project open in Malawi dealing with agriculture, food and economic development is the Chingale Project (MWI-31-171642). This 2 year project targets 30,000 Yao and Patamona individuals from the Chingale area. Some of the goals envisioned for this project include:

• To enable 100 farmers to multiply seed of improved crop varieties.
• To provide training to 200 farmers on improved sustainable agricultural practices.
• To provide training to six Development Facilitators, 200 farmers and six government extension workers on Agricultural project planning and management.

Malawi is a landlocked country located in southeast Africa. Twenty percent of its area is covered b
Malawi Projects
With the support of generous donors like you, World Vision is partnering with families throughout Malawi to build brighter futures filled with hope for their children.

Many activities are under way to help meet immediate needs and promote lasting changes that will strengthen communities and move families toward self-reliance.

Overall program goals include:

• Equipping families and communities to care for orphans and vulnerable children while providing life-skills training to those affected by the AIDS pandemic.
• Constructing and furnishing new classrooms and providing learning supplies and uniforms to children to make learning more accessible to all.
• Conducting immunization campaigns to protect children from deadly diseases.
• Teaching mothers about nutrition and proper hygiene to improve the health of their families.
• Drilling wells and installing pumps to provide families with safe water and reduce the incidence of waterborne diseases.
• Introducing farmers to new agricultural techniques and providing seeds to increase crop yields and community food security.
• Helping families launch small businesses.
• Supporting Bible studies so that people can learn more about the Word of God.

Pray for God to protect the health of your sponsored child and his or her family.
Pray that churches and families will respond to God's calling to care for orphans and widows in the
Country Photos

		Jessie, (8) helps her mother Fides, who is doing her washing at the stone concrete sink next to the communal tap (in background).
		Promoting education is a major focus of World Vision's projects in Malawi. Schools like the one these children attend in Matope are benefitting greatly from World Vision. This school received cement, a tin roof, windows, doors, and blackboards. In addition, World Vision is paying the salaries of two teachers as well as providing them with housing.
		Washing the family dishes is one of the daily tasks of most rural women in Africa. A clean, reliable source of water makes that job easier and World Vision is helping to provide many villages in Malawi with water
		Patricia Ntumba helps a customer choose items from 'kaunjika', as heaps of second-hand clothes are known throughout Malawi. Though the low and middle income groups comprise the majority of customers in the rags's trade, the well-to-do buy these clothes secretly. Besides being relatively cheap, these clothes meet high quality control standards, have trendy designs and sport exotic labels.

Jessie, (8) helps her mother Fides, who is doing her washing at the stone concrete sink next to the

Malawi is participating in our "HopeChild" program to provide additional resources for children and families impacted by HIV/AIDS in this high prevalence region.