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Malawi
© Paul Jeffrey
What we doOur work here focuses on the prevention of HIV and AIDS, food security and women’s rights. |
Malawi is caught between hunger and aids
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa with a short democratic history. The country has struggled against corruption and political violence while hunger and AIDS has impoverished the country’s population.
Challenges
Malawi has an annual growth of 8 percent, but 53 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line.
It is particularly Malawian women and girls who are infected with HIV, seeing as they are especially vulnerable due to discrimination, sexual assaults and polygamy. About 800.000 children have lost one or both parents. At least 12 percent are believed to be infected.
Despite some degree of progress, hunger and malnutrition remains a significant problem. The rain has been unstable throughout the last decade, which often means failing crops.
Following decades of dictatorship, the country’s civil society still has to be strengthened and equality must be promoted.
Many women are unaware of their rights and need help if they are going to participate actively in democratic decisions.
What we do in malawi
In the 1980s DanChurchAid began supporting Malawi with clinics and water supplies, but in 1993 when the country’s churches led the way ahead by demanding democracy and changes from the country’s dictator at the time, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, DanChurchAid increased its collaboration with Malawian organisations and made the country one of the five focus countries in its development work in Africa.
Today, DanChurchAid and its local partners focus on three main fields:
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HIV/AIDS
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Food security
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Women’s rights
During the last couple of decades, the country has struggled with an unstable climate and, therefore, a part of our efforts is focused on disasters.
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"Too risky to save in my hut"
Being a single mother of two in rural Malawi is no easy task for Joyce. Her income is highly unstable, and she has to rely on loans from friends and relatives during tougher times, since she has no means of accumulating savings. For poor people like Joyce, access to microsavings is the way to a better, more stable future.
DanChurchAid has received a grant of 118,000 EUR from the European Commission’s Non State Actors Capacity Building Programme in Malawi
Economic empowerment of a Malawian woman can empower her to hold greater decision-making power in the household, secure food for her family all year around, improve the nutrition intake in her family, pay her 6 children’s school fees, equip her to expand her small-scale maize business – and even allow her to put aside small savings for health-related emergencies or a year of bad harvest.
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One step forward for women's representation
The general elections in Malawi has brought women from both urban and rural areas into decicion making, writes Lugede Chiphwafu Chiumya, Programme Officer at the DanChurchAid Malawi office.
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Economic Empowerment of Women Conference
On 12 May 2009 Dan Church Aid Malawi hosted a land mark conference on “Economic Empowerment of Women – Call to Action towards Gender Equality” as one of its commitments as a MDG 3 Torchbearer to “do something extra” towards gender equality and women empowerment under the National MDG 3 Call to Action Campaign.
22/12/2008
Lacking food and vitamins
The majority of Malawi’s children are either malnourished or undernourished, some of them so badly, that they don’t live through their early years. The parents of the children most often are too poor to prevent it.
22/10/2008
Five fish per intercourse
By the shore of Lake Malawi women offer their bodies as payment for freshly caught fish, since they have no money. The nightly activities spread HIV and produces fatherless children. SWAM project helps the women take better care of them selves.
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Africa Commission policy notes
The Danish government has established an Africa Commission on effective development cooperation with Africa.
02/10/2008
Pop songs are luxury in the maizefield
The Malawian farmers slog away in the dry fields. But that isn’t always enough to provide their families with food. The ELDS program helps the farmers to save money and groundnuts, to secure that they don’t starve.
20/10/2007
HIV/AIDS organisations
DanChurchAid works with HIV/AIDS through local organisations in Malawi. DanChurchAid's local partners in Malawi are mainly church-based organisations with an understanding of the situation of the poor at grass roots level, gained through a long-standing presence in the communities.
20/10/2007
Human rights organisations in Malawi
DanChurchAid works with human rights issues through local organisations in Malawi. DanChurchAid's local partners in Malawi are mainly church-based organisations with an understanding of the situation of the poor at grass roots level, gained through a long-standing presence in the communities.
20/10/2007
Food security organisations in Malawi
DanChurchAid works with food security through local organisations in Malawi. DanChurchAid's local partners in Malawi are mainly church-based organisations with an understanding of the situation of the poor at grass roots level, gained through a long-standing presence in the communities.
20/10/2007
Relief aid organisations in Malawi
DanChurchAid has carried out relief aid with partners in Malawi since the 1970s, mainly by working through the Action by Churches Together (ACT) network and with support from Danida (Danish International Development Assistance).
30/01/2007
Flash floods in Malawi
Flash floods have left thousands of people homeless and crops washed away in the Karonga district, about 300 km north of the capital Lilongwe, Malawi. According to Karonga District Commissioner, more than 20 villages have been completely flattened by the floods.
15/08/2006
Focus on HIV/AIDS in Malawi
The aim of DanChurchAid's HIV/AIDS programme work in Malawi is to claim and uphold the rights of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, and to reduce new incidences of HIV-infections.
24/03/2006
A good harvest in Malawi
After a terrible period of hunger in Malawi, it looks like it will be a good harvest after all. DanChurchAid has concentrated on long-term aid such as in the village of Kawala in the central Malawi where a group of women have worked together to secure food for their families.
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Empowering the marginalised poor
The widening of civic and political space in Malawi is a matter of raising awareness of the notion of rights at all levels. DanChurchAid's programme work in Malawi is addressing issues that deter the most vulnerable from being involved in the decision-making processes that affect them.
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The right to food
DanChurchAid's food security work in Malawi focuses on the right to adequate and nutritious food and adresses the structural barriers to food security in Malawi.
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Water worries: Too much or too little
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Malawi floods displace thousands
Flash floods in southern Malawi have displaced more than 40,000 people and killed one person when his car was washed away by the rising waters. DanChurchAid's partners in Malawi have already started the relief work.
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Malawi contact information
Contact information: DanChurchAid's regional office in Malawi
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