NEWSLETTERAUGUST 2016

In July a group of twelve MACS supporters worked alongside members of Nkope Hill Church Youth Group, village elders and the wonderfully enthusiastic Canon Tito Lezile, to create a working garden which will be used to teach and inspire villagers to grow a greater variety of their own food. Local permaculture expert Samuel Baluti led a five-day course which began with an inspiring visit to Kasankha, a village near Monkey Bay. There, both the groups from the UK and Nkope saw exactly how bare yards can be transformed into productive green gardens in just three months. We also saw the chickens that the MACS Group had purchased in June to enhance the productivity of the gardens through the use of the manure!

Sam has a golden touch, not only with plants but also with people. He had all thirty of the combined groups working together in teams. Compost heaps were soon constructed, gardens designed, swales dug and countless seedlings and trees planted. Bucket after bucket of water was carried up from the lake each day, a hard task. It was hugely rewarding to leave behind a garden with fifteen inspired gardeners and on the last day we were able to purchase a treadle pump with funds raised by the MACS group. We spent a joyous morning fixing up the pump which brings water directly into the garden and smiles to faces. The group also funded a second course of another fifteen members of the Youth Group which has recently been completed.

www.malawimacs.org info@malawimacs.orgCharity No: 1025616

MACS DEMONSTRATION GARDEN

The following projects have been approved since the last Newsletter• Electrification of Chilipa Health Centre,

3 staff houses and priest’s house• Building of an incinerator and placenta

pit for Nkasala Health Centre• Purchase of drugs for St Martin’s

hospital and lakeshore health centres• Building of a rectory at Phalula• Upgrading of accommodation at

Kaphiridzinja Cottage• Donation of £1000 to help replace

books following a fire at Mzuzu University library

• Rehabilitation of Nkope Health Centre maize mill

• Orthopaedic programme at Kasungu• Training of a palliative care nurse for

Ndi Moyo• Installation of pay as you go meters to

staff houses at Nkope Health Centre• Building a double classroom block at St

Peter’s Primary school, Dawa

• Building a new medical assistant’s house at Nkope

• Building a teacher’s house at Magomero

From the Gift List and mini projects

Owing to the generosity of those who support our Alternative Gift List we have recently delivered: Head torches to counter power cuts in Health Centres Teachers’ Resources packs (easels and flip charts for the new term)Chichewa dictionaries for studentsAdvanced English dictionaries for teachers12 Teachers’ desks and chairs for MACS classroomsElectric sewing machines for Chilema Women’s CourseSports equipment for schoolsTwenty goats for two more Goat Pass On schemes

NEW PROJECTS

FUNDRAISING

2016 Group Visit members took part in a range of fundraising events before their trip. Jane Laugharne from Australia and Lizz Shoesmith from London each did a skydive, jumping out of a plane at 14,000ft. Margaret Campbell and Christine Dale walked 100 miles from Winchester to Eastbourne, Katherine Shoesmith did a sponsored 10k run, Annie Barton Hodges organised a Summer Ball at Canterbury Cathedral Lodge and Richard Pryor ran over 170 miles over various events. The group raised over five thousand pounds.

Jane Laugharne Christine Dale & Margaret Campbell Richard Pryor

Gillian is our new Trustee responsible for medical projects. She has recently returned from visiting Malawi with other Trustees, particularly focusing on MACS supported hospitals and health centres.

Gill is a (retired) nursing and midwifery lecturer and has a doctorate in social anthropology. Her fieldwork was carried out in rural Chiradzulu living with a traditional

midwife, and partly at St. Joseph’s, a CHAM hospital. She has remained in contact with her Malawi ‘family’ and had a wonderful short reunion during this trip.

Following two-years volunteering in Senegal and a career as a lecturer (and bringing up two children) Gill has worked all around Africa, perhaps fifty trips so far. More recently she has been developing a variety of education programmes from village to professional health worker level in Somaliland and Puntland in the Horn of Africa. Consultancy is probably finishing now so Gill can concentrate more on other things like MACS, painting, lacemaking, gardening and her husband! Dennis has had a lifetime at sea so well understands the travelling life.

Gill first heard of MACS through Sally Huband while editing and writing a low-cost textbook for Africa ‘Nursing and midwifery, a practical approach’ with her and Pam Hamilton-Brown. She really looks forward to working more with MACS and the health centres in Malawi to bring support where needed.

TRUSTEE PROFILE: Gillian Barber

2017 MACS CALENDARMACS is producing a fundraising calendar, featuring twelve

photographs taken in July this year by photographer Richard Pryor, a member of the group visit.

Calendars, priced at £10 each, will be available to purchase at our Supporters’ Day on 17 September (details on back page) or by mail order (+P&P) from

fundraising@malawimacs.org

In July seven MACS Bursars helped Trustee Annie Barton Hodges to unload new sewing machines and suitcases of fabrics and haberdashery donated by MACS supporters.

They are among the sixty women being trained on the six-month course at the Chilema Ecumenical Training Centre in a variety of skills including tailoring, agriculture, business management, knitting, crocheting and nutritious cooking.

Allan Kondwani Kandeya, James Seyani and Jacob John Kamwanja at Leonard Kumungu Theological College have each received MACS funded refurbished Africyle mountain bikes to help them as they will soon be ordained Deacon and be posted to rural parishes.

CHILEMA BURSARS

BICYCLES FOR DEACONS

This is Dawa, Chimanwale in the Zomba region. There is no primary school for about 6 kms and so for the past couple of years four volunteers who aspire to train as teachers have been teaching the children in a makeshift shelter that has now collapsed and in the church and community hall. MACS has agreed to fund the building of a double classroom block here. Project Officer Eileen Eggington met the parish priest Fr Will Madi, the volunteer teachers and the community. They have already made bricks and will provide sand, stones and water for building. The village has a borehole and once there is a school block and a teacher’s house the school can be registered with the government who will pay teachers‘ salaries.

MACS is funding nursing training initiative at Ndi Moyo which is a palliative care centre in Salima. The month-long intensive course will take place in Uganda.

Ndi Moyo provides day care and support to people with terminal illness and educates the patients and their families about nutrition and care. Leaders in palliative care, they advise other clinics and hospi-tals so this initiative will help to pro-mote knowledge and good practice across Malawi.

Palliative care nurse: Anastasia Munthali

NEW CLASSROOMS

PALLIATIVE CARE TRAINING

Applying for a place at a Secondary School in England is every parent’s nightmare. Exam results, Ofsted reports, the company of friends, travelling times, all create stress. In Malawi the stresses are different and the big question is “Can we pay the fees?” (There is no free secondary education in Malawi. Fees range from £10 term in Community Day Secondary Schools to £75 a term in National Schools.)

From the start of the new school year, MACS will offer ten bursaries a term to ten students in each of two different Community Day Secondary Schools

The Malawi Ministry of Education selects the top students from the Malawi Primary School Leaving Examination and they are allocated to National Schools like Malosa Secondary School or Malindi Girls Secondary School. Here all the students board because many of them live as much as three days’ journey away. Those who are not quite so successful will be allocated to Government Day Secondary Schools. For the remainder, there are Community Day Secondary Schools whose admissions are also controlled by the Ministry of Education or private secondary schools to which any student may apply and where fees can be enormous.

The examination results come out in the last week of August - and term starts in the first few days of September. That leaves less than two weeks for a parent to find fees of up to £75 in a nation where two out of three families live on less than £1 a day. It is not

uncommon for families to borrow money for the first term but then experience real problems when it is time to pay fees for the second term. For every four students who begin secondary education, at least one will drop out through lack of fees at one stage or another.

For over twenty years MACS has supported students at Malosa and Malindi where systems have long been established to make sure that help goes to the most deserving and the most needy. Often the results are most encouraging (see next article).

The new system at the Community Day Secondary Schools will be the same. The student will be chosen by a committee of senior staff on the grounds of need, attitude to work, good behaviour and academic potential. MACS will monitor the progress of this scheme through termly progress reports, personal visits from our Malawian representative, Mr Grafiud Tione, and communications with each student. If all goes well, MACS hopes to extend the scheme to a wider group of students in similar schools, always ensuring that MACS funds are well spent.

A NEW VENTURE FOR MACS

A crowded classroom

In September Precious Kalikokha will be taking up a place Mzuzu University to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree. While many other less fortunate girls become teenage brides and mothers, Precious was supported by her family and, in her time at Malindi Girls’ Secondary School, by a MACS bursary. At the time she wrote:

I used to stay in Blantyre with my grandmother who is staying alone with seven grandchildren. She depends on my aunt who has a small hairdressing saloon which is not reliable since she often received few numbers of customers in a day. So the money she gets is not enough for the whole family and she uses the same money to pay for her own children’s school fees.

I used to stay with her since I was very young, about two years old. That was the time when I lost both of my parents. Since that time my life was very tough and full of problems. To reach this point I just kneel down and give thanks to Almighty God for he is a provider. Thank you, MACS for all your help.

A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR PRECIOUS

THANKS TO YOU!

Your generous support makes it possible for our organistaion to exist. We are able to continue to support a large number of projects and trustees are very grateful to all of you who support MACS with your gifts of time, specific items or money.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who support MACS either by organising fundraising events, giving regularly by standing order, remembering MACS in your will, donating funds following memorial services, purchasing gifts from our Gift List or organsing church collections.

WHO’S WHO

Chairman: Richard Bartonemail: chairman@malawimacs.org

Secretary: Julie LuptonThe Cottage, 72 North Street, Biddenden, Kent, TN27 8AS Tel: 01580 291 658email: info@malawimacs.org

Treasurer: Colin Gardner217 Main Road, Hawkwell, Essex, SS5 4EQTel: 01268 920 052email: treasurer@malawimacs.org

Projects: Eileen EggingtonTel: 01923 822501email: eeggington@uwclub.net

Fundraising: Annie Barton Hodgesemail: fundraising@malawimacs.org

Trustees: Jane Arden, Gillian Barber, Tony Cable, Tony Cox, Richard Davies, Brian Griffin, Sally Huband

Printed on environmentally friendly paper from sustainable resouces

ALTERNATIVE GIFT LIST A NEW list for 2016/17 will be available from October with a

selection of gifts ranging from £5-£60

Join our mailing list to receive a copy by email or post or visit our website www.malawimacs.org

to purchase gifts online

SUPPORTERS’ DAY& ANNUAL GENERAL

MEETING

2016

Saturday 17 September10:30 - 3:30pm

St Saviour’s Hall, St George’s SquarePimlico SW1V 3QW

10.30 AGM followed by Eucharist12.15 lunch

13.30 Among the afternoon speakersMargaret Campbell will report on the

group visit eco-garden project

Please bring your lunchWe will provide drinks!

Friends and family welcome!