Chambo Archives

CLM is 5 years old today!

Changing Lives Malawi is 5 years old! Thanks for your support and here’s to the next 5 years!

Sarah’s blog 29/5/24

Happy 5th birthday to us! Changing Lives Malawi is 5 years old today. We are very grateful for all the support we have had along the way and thankful for everyone who has sponsored a vulnerable child or young person.

A lovely happy birthday message from some of the students at Bright Futures Secondary School

Here are a few highlights;

500 children and young people are being fed a nutritious meal once a week at the Feeding Programme. This is the only proper meal of the week for some and children are walking 15km-20km to receive this food. Some young people carry their younger siblings with them. Once a week isn’t enough but all we can afford while we are helping with setting up other projects. No big charities are feeding children in primary schools in that area so most are malnourished and all are hungry.
All who need them have been given reusable sanitary towels so they don’t miss a week of school every month. Girls now have equality with regards to their education and school attendance. These sanitary towels have been made by a group of girls who have been using the hand turn Singer sewing machines we sent. They want to start making clothes to sell.
up to 75 pre-school children attend Bright Futures nursery and are being fed breakfast each day.
- Vulnerable young people, whom we match with sponsors, are able to attend Bright Futures Secondary School free of charge. BFSS was built with the help of our supporters and opened in November 2022. More sponsors are needed for the students that want to take up their places in September 2024 contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com It’s less than £1 per day. Students receive a free education, uniform, stationery and a free nutritious lunch each day. For most, this is their only meal of the day.
- There is clean drinking water, and a shower block for all the young people to use.
- Our school literacy project is supplying primary schools with boxes of preloved books to help students become more confident readers and to raise literacy levels.
- Fruit tree saplings have been planted for a sustainable future food source.
- Crops have been planted to be used in the feeding programme and students are learning how to care for them and the chickens as part of their agricultural lessons.
- Mother & baby project – we have some very talented people knitting beautiful blankets and clothes for the new babies on the maternity ward at Chambo Health Centre. The mums are extremely grateful for these beautiful things. If they go back a few weeks later, they are given other gifts for their babies and this is another chance for health professionals to see that mother and baby are well.

The above are just some of the ways that your support goes to help the most vulnerable people in Ibuluma. It’s always about teamwork and we very much appreciate everyone’s support.

There is still so much that needs to be done to help this community to get back on its feet. They want to be self-sufficient and just need a helping hand to get there. We will continue reaching out to try to connect with more people over the next five years so that there is a bigger team enabling more work to be done.

Thanks also to the core team of volunteers – you are an amazing support!

We have a few projects on DonorSee that we are raising money for and would appreciate your help. If you could ‘follow’ and give us a review on DonorSee that would be great, as it helps us get seen by more potential donors.

https://donorsee.com/project/23503?share=1

DonorSee

Thank you all again and here’s to the next five years! Sarah x

Chambo Primary: Clean Water/Latrines/Desks & BFSS gifts of clothes for students

Thanks to all who helped change lives for the students at Chambo Primary and Bright Futures Secondary School…some amazing photos!

Sarah’s blog 23/12/23

Levison has had such a busy week this last week as both primary schools and secondary schools have been doing exams recently so visits to the schools had to wait until the students had finished their exams.

I am going to do a proper post on these visits after Christmas as I don’t have enough time today to write them up in detail.

Firstly Chambo Primary School. It’s a government run primary school with approximately 500 students over 8 classes. There are hardly any resources. Only classroom 8 had desks – the rest of the students sit on the floor. No big charities are feeding children in schools in this area. Many children are malnourished. There was no clean water and no latrines. This is the primary school where many of the orphans and vulnerable children that the Foundation supports attend. We had already donated boxes of books through our School Literacy Project, given clothes to students but we knew they needed more.

We were thankful to get a grant for £1,000 from The Eleanor Rathbone Trust to build a girls’ latrine, ensuring that girls have dignity, privacy and safety.

Thinking outside the box with the £6,000 grant we gratefully received from The Kitchen Table Charity Trust, we facilitated clean water being piped from Chambo Health Centre water supply after Changing Lives Malawi paying for a survey to ensure that this was possible. They are now taps outside Chambo Primary School with clean water for drinking and handwashing. Buckets and cups were also bought with the grant money and we provided soap for students and teachers.

Some of the grant money from The Kitchen Table Charity Trust was used for making desks for two of the classrooms, so there are now three classrooms with desks to sit at. A few of the young people that the Foundation supports helped the carpenters with making these desks and therefore were able to earn some money and learn some basic skills. The carpenters still have four bookshelves to make when they are finished working on a project at The Foundation. We provided exercise books and pencils for the students, and for the teachers we provided exercise books, clipboards, pens and boxes of chalk. Everyone was delighted and very thankful. Lots more information and photos will follow next week.

At Bright Futures Secondary School yesterday, students were tasked with writing essays in the morning about what they like about Bright Futures Secondary School and their hopes for 2024. In the afternoon they were given toothbrushes, toothpaste and soap supplied by Changing Lives Malawi. They were also gifted polo shirts from Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh. We are grateful for lots of preloved sports kit they have gifted to us.

Via, Tony Phillips at Replay Sport Scotland charity in Stirling, we were gifted t-shirts and jackets from Scottish Swimming and also grey trousers from The Queen’s baton relay. We are very pleased to have been able to pass on these clothes to vulnerable teenagers and you can see how happy they are to have these gifts of new clothes. Thank you Tony for gifting these to us.

So as you can see from these photos there are lots of happy children and, with the help of our supporters, we are Changing Lives (in) Malawi. Thank you so much everyone who helps us…. it’s teamwork! Thank you Levison for project managing all the work and taking all the photos. Happy Christmas everyone, Sarah x

Rugby at Chambo Primary

Sarah’s blog 06/10/23

Yesterday, Jack Mphande, visited Chambo Primary school to work with some of the students teaching them how to play touch rugby. This was the last school in this cluster that he visited ahead of the tournament today. All schools from this week will be involved in the tournament and we are looking forward to seeing those photos.

A big thank you to everyone who has helped to make this rugby development visit happen and give vulnerable children opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have had. We appreciate all your support, Sarah x

Where is Ibuluma?

Sarah’s blog 28/04/22

I’ve put together some maps so that you can see where Malawi is in Africa. The Foundation is in the far north of Malawi. In Chitipa District. Chitipa town is the biggest local town. Chisenga is where the secondary school is. Chambo is the nearest primary school to the Foundation. The Mafinga Hills look very like Scotland and The Foundation is very near the border with Zambia.

Ekwendeni, where the container goes to the Mission Hospital, near Mzuzu, is where Levison has to travel to when he collects the boxes we’ve sent via the Bananabox Trust. Because some of the roads are small, and some are full of pot holes, it takes about 5 or 6 hours to travel from Ibuluma to Mzuzu. On the map of Africa, you can see the port of Beira in Mozambique where the container gets transferred from the ship to a truck.

You will be able to google Ibuluma yourself as the coordinates are on the photos. The shower block is not yet showing….I wonder how many buildings there will be at The Foundation by the time the photo is updated? Hope you enjoy this little bit of geography. Thanks for reading, Sarah x