STARVING

Local and International support

The September Update of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (www.fews.net) shows that the worst affected areas are all in the Southern Region, with the exception of Karonga in the extreme north. In July the President established a Feed the

Nation Fund within Malawi and this has so far raised £250,000,which is being using to import maize from South Africa.

Compared with 2002, international action in sending food has been quicker and more generous.
However, what is very disturbing is to learn that the withdrawal of British Government funding for ‘Starter Packs’ and an effective ‘Fertiliser For Work’ scheme, is resulting in a considerable drop in small farmer production of food.

‘Starter packs’ contained improved maize seed and fertiliser and were given to rural families. The impressive improvement in rural roads was one of the outcomes of the imaginative ‘Fertiliser For Work’ scheme.

HIV/AIDS

Excerpts from the Christian Aid website, including news from Philip Mthobwa, of Phalombe.

Philip reports, “Because of hunger, sometimes people sell their body just to get a meal. Mothers, girls and boys are selling themselves. And I personally know three men who are doing this. They have families, so the parent sells their body to feed their children.”

In a country where one in six adults are HIV positive, this is an extremely dangerous gamble to

take but it shows how desperate some people have become. When food runs out, people who are already ill and weak are the most vulnerable.

“Many of our patients are dying” explains Phillip, “In Phalombe, 32 of our patients have died recently. When you have someone who is HIV positive, they need to eat a balanced diet. Even if they are getting medicine, it doesn’t work properly if they don’t have food, so they get ill.”

Preparing for next year’s harvest.

Knowing that last season’s rains stopped early, people have been preparing their gardens in good time for the rains expected in November. But this has not been easy, with people weakened by hunger and suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Limited supplies of subsidised fertiliser are once again available at £5 (the IMF and World Bank had insisted on the removal of this subsidy. But with the minimum wage of £7.68 per month in the rural areas, many will not be able to afford even that. The full price is £16 which even fewer will be able to afford.

??Global warming?? People living around the lakeshore, where they have access to water for their gardens, are saying the ground is so unusually hot that, even with watering, vegetable plants are withering. At the moment they are only planting where there is shade.

What is MACS doing?

When funds become available they are being sent to provide food for orphans and for children in day schools. Many parishes have well organised orphan care groups.
 

Richard Bushili, the Education Secretary for the Diocese of Upper Shire, one of the worst affected areas, says that pupils in their 11 Community Day Secondary and 36 Primary schools, have already been staying away because of acute hunger and that this will become much worse from January.

When funds are available to provide food, parents come in and prepare it for the pupils.

Mr Bushili adds, “Attendance rate can be high because pupils will be rushing to school to learn as well as to be given some porridge to eat. Pupil retention would be high and performance improve”.

Contributions you send to MACS for famine relief will be used to help children in these two ways.

Food Security
 

Increasing efforts are being made to encourage people to grow a wider variety of crops and to make use of compost and natural fertiliser. MACS has supported several such projects and demonstration kitchen gardens and sees them as very important.

Education

Self-help

People who want a primary school for their children must begin by providing somewhere for them to sit, an example of which is below.

Stage 1 primary school

In rural areas it can take many years and much hard work to progress to a more permanent building.

In the past year MACS has sent funds to 15 schools in the 4 dioceses in Malawi, helping to provide iron-sheets for roofs of classrooms and teachers’ houses, books and equipment and pit latrines.

Secondary schools

All secondary schools charge fees – primary schools are free. There are three types of secondary school: government supported day and boarding, and independent private schools. Most of the teachers in the Community Day Secondary schools are unqualified. Approximately 30% of secondary school age children attend school, and of these, 60% are boys and 40% girls.

A look at Malosa Secondary School with its 480 students helps us see some of the challenges. St Michael’s Girls’ Secondary School at Malindi faces similar problems.

Fees per year are £84, which nearly all students struggle to find, a number being sent home for non-payment, which is heart-breaking. A bursary scheme, to which MACS contributes, supports 92 students.

Government pays teachers’ salaries – the Headteacher’s salary is £108 per month. There should be 25 teachers but there are only 15. There is a chronic shortage of qualified teachers, partly due to the number dying from HIV/AIDS and malaria, and partly because insufficient are being trained.

Income from school fees have to cover: support staff salaries; electricity; water; building maintenance; text books - Year 3 with 134 students shares 7 textbooks on agriculture, a compulsory subject; computers - 14 are shared between students and staff;. food. The total annual budget for these items is £42,160.

Money for students’ food is £47 per student per year. The school grows it own vegetables and rears chickens. The weekly menu:

Secondary school weekly menu    * nsima is a stiff maize porridge

Economic indicators
 

A few indicators of the overall economic position of Malawi – a land-locked country with no minerals:

• 4% of the population has access to electricity
• 1 doctor to 100,000 people
• 3 dentists for 12m people
   

GNI (Gross National Income) is £97 per person per year (UK = £16,329); a bicycle in Malawi costs the same as a bicycle in Britain; computers are more expensive in Malawi

“Working Class” is the approximate 15% of the population who are in paid employment
Government salary scales in August 2005:

• rural labourer - £7.69 a month
• urban labourer - £24 a month
• primary school Head - £71pm
• secondary sch. Head - £108pm
• doctor £111-£131per month
   

Christmas is coming!!

MACS, like many other charities, suggests that, when you are puzzling over what presents to give, you write to some of your friends and family, to say that instead of giving them a present, you will be sending a donation to MACS to help with famine relief, or for one of the items listed below.

Children after often happy to contribute in this way. A 9 year old girl recently told her friends that she did not want any birthday presents but, instead, would like contributions towards buying an Oxfam goat.

Gifts that MACS can forward, include:

• £1.20 for a guinea fowl – increasingly popular as easier to keep than chickens
• £2 for an impregnated mosquito net
• £5.20 for a 50kg bag of maize flour to feed a small family for a month
• £7 for 1x12’ 28 gauge galvanised iron roof sheet
• £16 to buy a bag of fertiliser
• £18 for a goat
• £28 covers a term’s school fees at a secondary school; £84 for a year
• £45 for a pig

Health

Matilda Chiuthula

HIV/AIDS Matilda Chiuthula, as well as looking after a large orphan care scheme at Malosa, is the Anglican National Co-ordinator for HIV/AIDS. Matilda has spent time in all 4 dioceses and produced a helpful report of HIV/AIDS support programmes in parishes. Some parishes have as many as 20 outstation congregations.

Malaria Malawi has one of the highest incidences of malaria in the world. Good work has been done to increase the availability of impregnated bed-nets, especially for children. MACS has been able to help with this.

To keep a small child free from malaria would be the best Christmas present you could give to any Malawian mother.

There is also a need to spray the inside walls of houses – an effective way of killing infected mosquitoes.
 

A YAWNING GAP
 

The trustees of MACS are finding it increasingly hard to allocate funds that have been donated. The reason for this is the difficulty in prioritising the large number of really urgent requests, when the shortage of funds available means many will go unmet.

In order to try and help people be more aware of how much Malawians are doing to help themselves, and the needs of
one of the poorest countries in the world, sets of photographs are available, together with notes. These can be provided either as hard copies or on CD or by email. Trustees and others are also happy to come and talk about the work of MACS.
How you can help

1. Contact the Secretary, Sally Huband, to ask for a trustee or someone else to visit and speak.
2. Let Sally know if you would like some photographs and notes to help you in talking about Malawi and the work of MACS.
3. Ask Sally for extra copies of this leaflet to give to friends.
4. Tell people that ALL funds donated are sent to Malawi and that MACS has effective arrangements for monitoring progress on projects supported.
5. Encourage people to visit the MACS website to keep up to date and to donate via the web.

PLEASE DO WHAT YOU CAN TO SUPPORT PEOPLE IN MALAWI

Banker’s Orders do much to reduce the Treasurer’s workload. You might like to consider arranging one if you have not already done so.