By Robert Kumweda
Malawi is one of the poorest nations in the World with over 80% percent of its population living in rural areas, hopeless, struggling to live and in abject poverty.
Access to social services like health care, education and safe drinking water among others remains a challenge especially for the rural communities.
In relation to this, issues about climate change and climate variability have not spared Malawi such that hunger, drought and floods affects the country in most areas year in and out living the marginalized displaced, without shelter and in need relief aid.
It is against this background where Malawi Relief Fund UK embarked on a number of projects whose objectives are giving hope to that are hopeless.
Yakub Adam Valli Country Coordinator for the organization said they are committed to improve access to health care as the country has one of the highest levels of preventable blindness with over 160,000 people having low vision due to cataracts.
He said access to this, simple, low cost, and life changing surgery is often affordable and out of reach to many Malawians.
“We have managed delivering almost 6,000 operations. The Gift of Sight programme targets people in rural areas where there are no hospitals providing cataract operations free of cost to a tune of 35 pounds per person,” he said.
Since the country has over 1 million orphans, Valli said Shukran orphanage under their flagship project is providing a caring and supporting living environment for 60 children.
He said the children are provided with secular and religious education and support with their physical, social, emotion and spiritual development.
‘Our aim is to ensure each child is inspired and supported to fulfill their full potential, our outreach orphanage programmes supports children living with their families to access education, health, food and clothing,” he said.
The Malawi Relief Fund UK Country Coordinator also said they are saving lives by making health care accessible.
He said the remote areas have perennial problems of impassable muddy and difficult terrain that is inaccessible by motor vehicles making it a challenge to transport the sick, elderly, children and expecting mothers to hospitals, clinics could be up to 25 KM away saying that they provide rural bicycle ambulance at low cost as a solution to improve access to clinics.
“There is no doubt that this low cost solution will have massive impact in the rural communities and save many lives,” he said.
Valli said that people with disability are provided with tricycles saying that the aim of the project is to alleviate poverty and improve the life of suffering from immobility due their disability.
“The tricycles allow children to attend school, adults to go to work, become independent, and also improve their self-esteem and confidence,” he said.
He, hopefully, said it will improve their chances and allow them to play an active role in the local communities.
He further said that MRF’s shelter programme has assisted many people whose homes were divested by floods and those that were badly damaged, as well as those with poor housing by providing them with decent houses.
“Most people in rural areas live in sub-standard mud houses, many without protection against the elements. Our ambitious plan is to build 2,000 decent homes over the next few years to improve living conditions, sanitation and access to clean water,” he said.
Valli added that over 900 decent houses have already being built under the project.
He said small holder farmers are provided with maize seeds and fertilizer to ensure food sustainability and to reduce reliance on food aid.
“Our Qurbani programme has helped to reach out to many poor families and individuals in the remote areas as to many Malawians meat is a luxury which they cannot afford and very much look forward to festive season only,” he said.
These are some of the programmes that MRF UK is embarking on with the aim of giving hope to those that are hopeless so that they can live a better life and enjoy like anyone.
The organization has since registered as an NGO in Malawi and established a local office which helps in administration and delivery plan.
