McNoel Banda turns the button, until a crackling pop song pours out over the stubble.
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McNoel Banda’s most cherished possession is a wrecked radio he bought at the local market, after his village joined the ELDS project. |
“Eh!” he nods with a grin, when the rhythms turn up. The marred radio is his most cherished possession and every time the aerial picks up a radio channel, McNoel presses the loudspeaker against his ear, in an attempt to follow the program. He carries the radio with him wherever he goes: In the fields and when he is walking through the village, since it’s new to him to possess such a luxurious thing as a radio.
Used to beg for a living
McNoel bought the radio for the money he got from the villages’ winter crop. It cost 7 Euro at the local market and McNoel had been saving up for a long time. Only two years earlier it would have been unthinkable for him to buy a radio. That was before McNoel’s village joined the ELDS Program that has been put to work to secure, that the villagers have enough food to live on and sell at the market.
“Earlier on it was a problem to find food, some months we didn’t have anything. Then we had to beg our neighbours in the village for something to eat”, McNoel Banda says.
But it was impossible to procure enough food for himself, his wife Patricia and their three children by begging, because neither of the other families had much to spare. Now the Banda family has money and is able to eat every day. The children can have porridge in the morning and sour milk from the goat, McNoel got from the ELDS project.
Making the dreams come true
| DanChurchAid |
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| DanChurchAid's partner ELDS' food security program has been running since 2005. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. 41 % of the population live for less than 1 USD a day, and 33% are suffering from malnutrition. Read more about what we do in Malawi |
In the village the farmers have established a seed bank, in which they keep extra groundnuts, maize and soya beans to make sure, that everyone have seed corn for the coming season. They also have a tiny bank in which they can lend money for buying fertilizer and animals. And all of the farmers in the village have received training in how to make better use of their fields.
Because of the new possibilities the farmers now dare to dream of more than they had ever imagined. McNoel’s biggest wish is to build a better house for his family. One made of bricks and with more rooms than the seven stride long hut they currently live in.
“Then there’s nothing more I can ask for”, McNoel Banda laughs.
By Petrine Elgaard