Sponsor's update from Lilongwe, Malawi

Child sponsorship update from Summer 2008 from the SOS Children's Village Lilongwe, Malawi

We were happy to have 6 more little girls join us in February. They have adjusted well to their new homes and families who have already grown to love them. They all passed their end of term examinations. Hurrah! So now we have 133 children to love!

Mr. Banda has retired and Mrs. Masiye is our Acting Village Director, and what a wonderful job she is doing. Our lovely Village is green with flowers everywhere, well cut lawns, happy, smiling children playing or off to school. Just some of the ingredients which make the Village the true home that it is.

Many of our youth have been ushers over the past 6 months raising money for SOS. This not only exposed them to the world of hospitality, but also made them feel part of the community. Youth are already showing signs of maturity and responsibility after attending a programme preparing them for a semi-independent life. They seem to mange their time better, are working harder at school and helping their mums more at home. Our well-known marimba band also won more public recognition through their talented performances.

Three of our older boys and an older girl have left their nests and settled to become mature self-supporting independent adults. Three of our brighter older boys are attending University in S. Africa and Ibrahim is in his second year studying engineering at Bremen University. He’s doing very well and will be home for his Christmas holidays this year. Yippee! 14 of our youth are studying at various institutions around the country.

Children's education

Children have been involved in recreational, religious and cultural activities in order to ensure that they not lose their culture and maintain their physical fitness. There have been football matches where we performed exceptional well. The girls’ football team is coming together too. Keep it up girls! Our netball team excitedly won two games recently.

Children received religious instruction to instill moral values. HIV/AIDS training continues as its still the biggest killer after malaria and diarrhea. Trainings, focusing on many groups within the Village, were held, covering caring for children with disabilities as well as substance abuse.

Extra lessons are still being offered to those who find school difficult. 62% of our children passed the final school exams. The failures are repeating subjects failed while another has opted to study Sub Tropical Agriculture at our Vocational Training Center (VTC). Regina wants to write her science paper again so that she can study medical rehabilitation. Meanwhile she helps in our Medical Centre to gain knowledge. Keep up the good work Regina!

Our 11 Educators care for 176 tiny-tots at our nursery school within the village complex. The children enjoyed their January activity of printing their feet and then colouring them. The making of collages from vegetables and fruits was also a lot of fun especially when there was a feast afterwards. Easter cards were made by the children who really impressed their parents. A garden project was also a success and today they are eagerly watching their beans grow and can’t wait to eat them soon. For the first 6 months of this year, nursery school has been challenging and lots of fun too.

Our 2-stream Primary School which ranges from Std 1 to Std 8 had a 75% pass rate at the end of the first term of this year. Because the students are in a new environment, the first term usually reflects lower marks than are reflected in the following 2 terms of the year. Meetings with teachers and parents continued and have proved to be very beneficial to both parents and teachers. The Special Needs classrooms are growing rapidly. We won the Nabanda’s Trophy in netball and football. We are so chuffed with ourselves!

Children's education and supporting the local community in Malawi

We had a very important visitor from the British Government in January. It was a pleasure showing him around our Secondary School and he gave us much encouragement and made us feel so proud of our school. We have been really busy getting on with our day to day work covering 342 high school students, 45 of them SOS children. We have done well in sports after holding a sports ability workshop in February and so went on to win most of our football matches. Netball and handball followed suit. The PTA has been very involved in financing and organising school classroom renovation and ten of our best Form 3 students were chosen to attend computer classes.

Our support for the surrounding communities is done through our Social Centre that supports 1,167 school children who cannot afford school expense. The Social Centre also completed classroom construction and repair of school buildings and ensured that their water was safe potable. We help vulnerable families to protect and care for their children by providing seed, fertilizer and income generating activities which act on a revolving system. The returns are used to help more families so that our support reaches further every year.

Because the health of the local people is quite precarious, we offer treatment and nutritional supplements to folks ill at home and hold outreach clinics in the local areas. We have found that over the last 6 months 50% of these patients have gained weight and have more energy.

Our VTC calendar runs from June to June each year with exams taken May and June. We have already received applications from 700 prospective students but only have the capacity for 140. These students are trained in competence based training programmes. We are proud to say that we are fully registered with TEVET, a government technical regulatory body and we are the first private vocational institution to be granted registration in Malawi. 35 students took their trade tests and 80 students have enrolled in the City & Guilds and Institution of Commercial Management training programs of Agriculture, Hotel & Catering and IT.

Our very busy Medical Centre continues to be in very high demand both from our Village and the local community. Our beneficiaries this year are now more than 5,500 covering our out patients, pediatrics, Skin Clinic, Family Planning, and HIV/AIDS programmes. Our nurses regularly check on children, mothers and staff with house inspections, health assessments providing physical and psychological support.

Because we are concerned that our medical knowledge must always be up to date, we attended external trainings held by UNICEF as well as some in-house trainings. We are proud to say that we were awarded a Certificate of Excellence from the Ministry of Health for being outstanding in Antiretroviral Therapy for 2007! Our Christmas party was a great success with all our clients attending. We even presented our programmes to the President of Malawi on the “Day of the Disabled”. Our Speech Therapy Department has greatly improved because of trainings given by a volunteer as well as an audiologist who helped us a lot. Special Education children from our primary school have also been greatly supported by our Occupational Therapy as well as our Physiotherapy Departments.

Many thanks to our visitors from Norway and Georgina as well as Fr. Seshubabo who were very generous indeed. We take this opportunity to thank all our worldwide sponsors and donors for their loving care and generous support enabling our children to live happy, comforting and worthwhile lives.