HFTN Malawi was established in 2004.  Hope Village Malawi will provide hope, support and care to orphans and their families in partnership with the local community. The goal of all activities will be to promote orphans and their families physically, spiritually and vocationally.

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Chikwawa – Hope Village Malawi

      Hope For The Nations Malawi has initiated an orphan care programme using three distinct orphan related interventions:
            *           Community outreach
            *           Centre day care
            *           Centre residential care

      Residential care will be used only as a last resort when the other two community supported options have failed. Strict  selection procedures will be used for all three categories. The community work will follow the existing traditional structures of authority and act as a service to those leaders through partnership programmes. Hope Village’s site will be used primarily as a ‘launching pad’ for these community interventions.

      All interventions will promote development of the targeted individuals physically, spiritually and vocationally. The project will use buildings and staff established on a large site in the Chikwawa area of Malawi. HFTN Malawi will partner with other organisations and donors to achieve the project goals as appropriate. Beside this a ten year programme will be implemented to develop self sufficiency using income generated mainly from food production, farming and craftwork.

      Statement of problem

      Malawi faces an unprecedented challenge – at present an estimated 200 people die everyday from HIV / Aids related illnesses. This in turn means that 500 children a day are losing a parent.  This is placing an intolerable burden on the society of one of the poorest countries in the world. The extended family, that has previously proven so enduring, is under enormous pressure with still no apparent light at the end of the HIV / AIDS tunnel . Typically, when a mother or father die, their parents step in to care for the grandchildren although they themselves struggle with insufficient resources to meet everyone’s need.

      With the traditional family structure under such strain many children are subsequently neglected. The chiefs charged with overseeing the people of Chikwawa area reports there is a desperate need of interventions that can go some way to relieving the general orphan crisis. At present there are relatively few such projects in this area compared to other areas in Malawi.

      Malawian communities are very aware of these new pressures upon them but often lack ideas and education in knowing how to answer these problems. Successes have been documented of NGO / community partnerships - proving the willingness and ability of Malawians to learn, adapt and own the various interventions.

Progress as at October 2005

      Orphan Work

      Village Committees

      HVM has established eight village committees to care for orphans. In these eight villages there are more than 300 identified orphans. These children can be classified in three general categories :
      • Kept by Guardians in village
      • Supported by committee
      • Supported by HVM day-care
      The formation of village committees aids in the identification of vulnerable children by assessing each orphan in their own village.  The committee then seeks ways to alleviate the suffering of these children by raising funds through income generating projects, vegetable gardens and general care. Hope village will assist these committees with start up loans and materials. The committees have worked well at times but also had problems.

      Day-care Program

      Hope Village had 60 orphans coming for day-care support, in the form of food, clothing, health and hygiene, medical, teaching and spiritual growth.  These children have been assessed as more in need of help than the others. 26 of them have now been placed back into the community for monitoring by the village committee.  There are three staff who oversee and monitor the progress of these projects, working from 12 to 4 five days a week. Apart from feeding there are teaching, spiritual and fun activities each day.  A day-care centre is now complete with just some finishing touches required. This allows us to increase the numbers coming for day-care from another ten surrounding villages.

      Residential Care

      Two homes have been constructed for orphans who are most vulnerable and unable to be cared for in the community.  These houses will cater for up to 12 children along with a house mother.  One home now has 9 children living in it along with house parents, Tomasi and Agness Kaswe. They have proven to be a wonderful couple, who really love and care for the children and also spend time in bible study with them. We have seen a huge change in the character of the children. They display confidence in the presents of adults and care for each other.

      Clinic

      A clinic has been constructed to cater for the increasing health problems and the difficulty of traveling the 10km to the nearest hospital. We have been blessed with the arrival of Chris Onderstal, a highly qualified pediatric nurse who has started the treatment of the children, workers and their families. She is also setting up procedures and registration of the clinic with the government.

      Feeding Programs

      Two feeding programmers are being run by village committees in different locations with the assistance of food supplements from Hope Village which is collected daily. 77children are being assisted by these programmes.

      Community Development Work

      Maize Mill

      The success of the maize mill has diminished somewhat as problems with food resources in the villages have increased combined with a promotional campaign by a local wholesaler who has been offering milling at cost price. We are continuing, but make no profit from the venture at this time.

      Bore-holes and Water Distribution

      A bore-hole was drilled 42 metres deep and the yield is more than 5000 litres an hour if required. A tower has been constructed to provide a gravity feed to the whole site. The water is not as salty as most of the supplies in the area. In addition to this we have created a water distribution network to the whole site via pipe work which runs in excess of 500m around the site and feeds all of the buildings.
      We are looking to  drill another two bore-holes to relieve the demand on the existing one. One would be for distribution around our second site via the existing 20,000 litre capacity storage tanks mounted on a 6m tower. The other bore-hole would be used for irrigation purposes for the whole site, including the vegetable gardens, fruit trees and other vegetation.

      Electrical Distribution

      A main focus for this year has been the electrical installation and distribution to all the building around the site. This has now been achieved with a new 300kva three phase transformer being located on site and distribution network of cables feeding each building. This has made a big difference to the use of the site facilities especially in terms of lighting and for air conditioning in the clinic to create a healthy environment in which to work (temperatures reaching up to 50°C).

      Jungle Gym

      In June of this year a team from Soul Survivor Watford in the UK came and constructed a jungle gym for the children. This has created quite a focus of activities for the day-care and residential children of Hope Village with it’s swings, climbing platform, monkey bars and balancing poles.