Manyowe kitty club meets for the first time.

Manyowe community held its first Kitty club on the Friday 22 May 2015. It was an extremely successful day. All in all sixty-seven over sixty-year-olds registered to take part in the club.

As this was the first kitty club held in Manyowe, firstly the participants had a ‘break the ice’ session to meet one another and then began to discuss in detail what they wanted to gain from the club and also what activities they would be doing in each meeting.

By the end of the day, with plenty of activities planned, Joe gave them the chance to feedback and make any suggestions. This is a really important aspect of the work we do at Joshua. We work with communities to impact on areas that they feel they need the most help in. It was decided that the kitty club would fit around those who attend Mosque for prayers so that more people would be able to make it to both. On the whole though, stakeholders commended what Joshua has started, caring for the old and providing them with a meal.

Joshua was also able to pass over two new relish pots to the Manyowe kitty club that should last them over two years. We hope this club grows, enabling the elderly within this community somewhere for a bit of relaxation and respite and also teaching us what the community needs in the bigger picture. 

Written by Joseph Chiundiza

Edited by Olivia Tilton

Getting help to flood victims in Mwandika with Capital Radio Malawi

The 40 families with their emergency parcels

We visited Mwandika with Capital Radio Malawi last week to distribute parcels to 40 needy families identified by the local Village Development Committee and Joshua’s Field Officers as being in urgent need of support. 

All 40 families have lost their homes and most of their belongings as a result of the extreme weather. One family had lost everything except what you can see on the grass matt in the picture to the left (second one down) after their house collapsed.

This is all one family had left

As well as our own fundraising efforts here in the UK, Capital Radio Malawi has been helping to raise funds through a local appeal. 

The team from the radio station, along with Joshua staff and Project Trust volunteers helped to pack up the parcels and the radio crew came with us to help with distribution.

Homes are continuing to come down in the heavy rains

They were gobsmacked at the levels of poverty and isolation of the communities just a stone’s throw from Blantyre. And they experienced the full force of the rains when we got trapped in the Community Based Childcare Centre for 45 minutes when a viscous storm hit. It was a hot topic on the morning radio show the next day.  

Unfortunately the heavy rains haven't stopped and when it does rain it brings everything to a standstill, roads are impassable and it's impossible to get out to these rural communities. But thankfully today (Friday 6th Feb) the sun is shining and the team are out in Khola delivering supplies to the flood victims there. Including Mphatso and her family, whose story we shared with you last week.

Thank you again to everyone across the world who has donated to our Malawi Flood Appeal. Your support is making a difference and we'll share more photos and stories with you as and when we can.

Your donations in action - Malawi Floods

Thanks to the incredible response to Joshua's Emergency Appeal we have been quickly able to start helping people whose lives have been devastated by flooding in Malawi. 

One such person is Mphatso, a single mother with 11 children to care for. Mphatso makes her living from brewing local beer to sell in her village which is in the Khola region, north-west of Blantyre. She was making a fresh batch of beer on Monday morning a few weeks ago, amidst torrential rains, when her life was turned upside-down. She told us of the ordeal of being caught in her house as it collapsed. 

“I went inside to dry off a little, and one by one the walls began to fall. First was the toilet outside, then one wall of the house, then another, then another”. As she talks, she gestures absent mindedly towards an area where walls had recently stood. 

“I picked up the baby and ran towards the doorway, but froze. The doorway fell before me. I scrambled outside in time to watch the whole house fall down."

Buried in the rubble were all of Mphatso’s worldly goods. Kitchen utensils, clothes, blankets and her source of income, her clay pot for brewing beer.  

In the days that followed, she managed to unearth the family bed and some blankets, a few broken plates and items of clothing. Everything else has "gone the way of the mud". Luckily none of her other children were in the house when it fell, and all but the youngest four have gone to stay with other relatives. One of her sons, a Form 3 student told us he has not yet returned to school as his uniform has been destroyed. 

Since that day, Mphatso and the four youngest children have taken refuge in Joshua’s nearest Feeding Centre in Nkanamano. That first Monday night, when the storms were at their worst, four other families joined them, but moved on the next day, finding shelter with other relatives. 

Mphasto however has nowhere else to go. Her home for now is her muddy bed, looking sheepishly small in the giant hall of the Feeding Centre. When we arrived at the centre, two of the children were found, groggy and sleepy in the bed, sick with Malaria. Mphatso arrived back from the clinic soon after we did, with medication in hand.

When asked what her long term plan was, she said she simply does not know. She cannot afford to rent or move away, and has no family that can take them all in. She added, “We have to wait until dark before we can shower as there is no private place. I feel shame.”

Thanks to your donations to Joshua's Emergency Appeal we are already helping Mphatso and several other families like her. We are providing immediate relief such as extra food, kitchen utensils, buckets, blankets, seeds and soap. In the months ahead, your donations will also provide training, tools and materials for people like Mphatso to rebuild stronger more durable homes that will stand up to the rains if they come again. 

Brick by brick, one family at a time, you are helping rebuild lives. Thank you.