Nurses Houses at Malindi

After many delays and difficulties, the 4 nurses houses at St Martin’s Hospital Malindi are completed and occupied. We are most grateful to the parish of Kingston Bagpuize who raised money for one of these houses.

St Martin’s Hospital is in a rural area and looks after some of the poorest people in the country. Due to its relative isolation, recruitment of trained nursing staff has long been a major problem. We hope these new houses will go some way to redress the shortage.

WWW.MALAWIMACS.ORG - making a difference

Registered Charity Number: 1025616

MACS' Man in Malawi

Meet Grafiud Tione, the MACS representative in Malawi. We are fortunate that we have Grafiud supervising our projects in Malawi as without his supervision and knowledge of the country and the people, our projects would not progress in the way in which they do.

Once the trustees have agreed to fund a project, which has been requested by Malawians, Grafiud will visit the area and meet with the Committee. Only when he is satisfied that the site is prepared, the bricks made and the local people committed will he release the first lot of money.

He keeps in touch with the local committee and visits when appropriate, checking invoices and the progress of the project before authorizing the release of more money. The number of visits required will depend on the size of the project and also on the state of the roads. Most of our projects are in rural areas and during and after the rains, the roads can become impassable.

A final visit will be made and a blue plaque attached to the building when Grafiud is satisfied that the project is complete. A photograph is taken and sent to the UK for the trustees to see and also for information on the project to go on the website.

Chilema Ecumenical Training and Conference Centre

In the 1960’s, Donald Arden who was the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Malawi and the very Rev Jonathan Sangaya, General Secretary of the CCAP Blantyre Synod set up a Lay Training Centre at Chilema. The church was growing rapidly and there were insufficient ordained ministers. There was an urgent need to train lay people to help in the congregations as those who were ordained could only visit some of the more remote areas occasionally.

Inititally the programme the following:        

• Training of church leaders.
• Training of women in Community work and Home crafts
• Community living
• Early child development.

The programmes have now been developed further to meet the current needs of Malawian women. Twice a year, the centre runs a Women’s Training Programme (Home Craft Workers Course) which covers the following subjects:

• Agriculture and food security    
  "Learning by doing" is the philosophy of the training program
• Food and nutrition
• Tailoring and Fashion Design            
• Clothing and Textiles
• Home and House improvement
• Small scale Business Management
• Business Communication
• Health and Sanitation
• Human Behaviour
• English and Communication skills
• HIV and AIDS issues
• Spirituality.

Women are recruited from all over Malawi and from different religious and cultural backgrounds. The minimum required qualification is the Junior Certificate of Education but the courses are unique in that women with a low educational background can be accepted as the Philosophy is ‘Learning by Doing’ When they graduate at the end of the 6 month course, they become agents of change in their communities. Because they have learnt how to be self reliant they can improve the living standards in their families.

Students taking their exams

MACS has supported the Centre in many ways and has recently sponsored 10 women on the course who completed their training in December 2011. ( see Project page for further details)

Students in tailoring and fashion designing class

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