Tag: eggs

Gathering Eggs

Sarah’s blog 03/04/25

There was much excitement yesterday as there were lots of eggs to gather. These eggs were from the hens that had been hatched in the incubator so everyone was very excited that those hens have started laying.

Two students from Bright Futures Secondary School, Martha & Wongani, gathered the eggs and put them in the incubator to hatch.

Once the rainy season is over, an extension to the hen house will be built to ensure there is enough room for birds of different ages. It will be such a good learning environment for the students at Bright Futures Secondary School as they have practical agriculture lessons in their curriculum as well as classroom based learning.

Martha and Wongani aren’t used to talking to a camera but did a great job! Well done girls.

If you would like to support Martha and Wongani and all their friends at Bright Futures Secondary School and in p8 at Chambo Primary to eat a free school lunch each day during at the holiday study school please donate here https://donorsee.com/project/26846?share=1 None of the students have enough food at home and rely on their school lunches. The p8 students will all come for extra lessons during the holidays as they don’t get fed at primary school. It will be a real treat for them to have free lunches. And how can we expect young people to concentrate to study if they haven’t eaten? Please help.

Thanks so much for supporting our projects, Sarah x

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Martha (left) and Wongani are S2 students at Bright Futures Secondary School

The New Chooks

Sarah’s blog 23/7/24

Levison has been trying to buy trays of fertilised eggs to put in the incubator now that the incubator has its own uninterrupted solar power supply.

Who knew that fertilised eggs would be in such high demand… there is a waiting list… which Levison has his name on. In the meantime, there are some new additions to Holligan’s Hen House. Hopefully, once they have settled then there may be eggs to put in the incubator and chicks to hatch.

The hen house was named after my husband Stuart’s late aunt and uncle who generously helped to fund the building of Holligan’s Hen House.

This was one of the small projects that was successfully funded via DonorSee and we are very grateful to the people who helped fund the project. Please could you have a look at our other small projects that are on the DonorSee site? There might be one that you could spare a few £££ towards.

https://donorsee.com/project/24114?share=1 is for seeds and sweet potato vines for the students at Bright Futures Secondary School to grow. Agriculture lessons are a core part of the curriculum and they want to grow their own food.

https://donorsee.com/project/24111?share=1 is for the fundraiser to help five ladies who are living in extreme poverty and have health issues to start their own agribusiness. They have 50% of the money so can we help them raise the rest?

https://donorsee.com/project/23502?share=1 This one is to help feed the hungry preschool children at Bright Futures Nursery. There are several other projects so please do have a look to see ways your money can really make a difference.

Thank you for reading and supporting us to help some of the most vulnerable children and young people (and their families) in rural northern Malawi. Together we can continue Changing Lives (in) Malawi, Sarah x

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New arrivals at Holligan’s Hen House

Chance is a hardworking agricultural supervisor.

‘The time is always right to do what is right’ – Martin Luther King Jnr

Sarah’s blog 15/1/23

I absolutely love volunteering for Changing Lives Malawi and helping to support some of the most vulnerable children in rural Northern Malawi. It is hard work and a huge responsibility but very worthwhile. They are in a very rural location so there are no big agencies working in that area yet. There are no big charities feeding children in primary schools that far north.

Everyone is hungry. Most are suffering from malnutrition and don’t eat properly every day. 500 children come to The Foundation each weekend to be fed at the Feeding Programme we help to support. They are given a nutritious, substantial cooked meal. Some of the 500 children walk up to 20kms for this one proper meal of the week. We can only afford to send enough money for the feeding programme to run once a week for that many children as we are also trying to address other issues for them like education, skills for life, clean water and projects that will help the community be self-sufficient.

If there were less vulnerable children needing support, it would be easier. Five hundred hungry, malnourished children of all ages is a big responsibility. We need to grow our supporters so that these children have a team of people lifting them out of dire poverty. We need you. The 500 vulnerable children need you.

So how can you help?

  1. 500+ children are fed once a week at the feeding programme. Can you make a one off payment to support this? or can you commit to a monthly amount of £5 or £10 each month? Can your business sponsor the feeding programme one day for a donation of £100. contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com
  2. The nursery – for 75 vulnerable preschool children, They are fed every time they meet. Can you commit to a monthly payment of £5 or £10 to support nursery feeding? Or can you help by buying a bag of gifts for a child for £12 (each child receives a gym bag containing a blanket, 3 pairs of pants, 2 red t-shirts, soap, toothbrush & toothpaste and a book). contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com
  3. Bright Futures Secondary School – Phase 1 recently opened and the students are being given a nutritious hot meal each lunchtime which is probably their only meal of the day. Can you commit to £5 or £10 per month towards continuing to provide free school meals at the secondary school? contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com
  4. School Literacy Project – we are sending boxes of preloved books to the primary schools that are nearest The Foundation. Please could you sponsor the cost of sending a box of books for £20? contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com
  5. Could you sponsor a vulnerable child to help provide them with more food and help towards their education? It’s £25 p/m and you can share the cost with a friend. contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com
  6. Bright Futures Secondary School – through very generous support, we raised enough money to build phase 1 of Bright Futures Secondary School (two classrooms and staff accommodation). We now need your help to raise funds for classrooms 3 and 4. https://gofund.me/44a92444
  7. Chickens & Eggs – now we have the incubator connected to solar power, it’s ready to be used to hatch chicken eggs. It can hold approximately 500 eggs and a tray of fertilized eggs costs £10. If you’d like to buy a tray of eggs then please do get in touch contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com The incubator was bought with a generous donation from Lochlie Construction Ltd.

We all have the ability to do our little bit to help. We all have the ability to help others and do what is right. Each of us has different skills we can use. Even if you are unable to donate financially, could you keep sharing our posts with your friends? Thanks so much for reading and supporting us to continue Changing Lives Malawi, Sarah x

Some of the pre-school children having received their bags of gifts. You can provide a bag of gifts for a child starting nursery in September for £12

Each preschool child received a bag containing; a blanket, 2 red t-shirts, pants, soap, toothbrush & toothpaste and a book. Can you help us continue to provide these gifts for £12 per child? These children also receive preloved clothes at least twice a year.
Secondary students at Bright Futures Secondary School enjoying lunch at their Christmas Party – paid for by two generous supporters.
More of the 500 children who all received a nutritious meal at the Christmas Party.
Some boys enjoying their meal. This will be the most food they will have in a week. We wish we could run the feeding programme more often than once a week.
Phase 1 of Bright Futures Secondary School has opened, providing free education for the most vulnerable. We now need your help to build classrooms 3 & 4.
You can’t help but smile when you see that these vulnerable children are happy and relaxed and having fun with their friends. At The Foundation they can forget their worries for a while.
This was when the incubator was first bought with a donation from Lochlie Construction Ltd, before the power supply got even worse. Thankfully now that it is running on solar power there will soon be more eggs and chicks for the nursery children to look at.

Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched!

Sarah’s blog 13/10/21

We use this phrase a great deal…about lots of different things. However, today’s blog is about chickens and eggs!

We had a generous donation from Lochlie Construction Group in Glasgow. An incubator was bought with this money. 100 eggs were placed in the incubator and it takes about 21 days for the chicks to hatch. Out of the 100, only 34 hatched. However, that is 34 more than previously! Also there had been a lot of power cuts recently which meant that the incubator’s temperature dropped for long periods of time. Ideally, it would be good to have another form of power as a backup for the incubator. It’s all been cleaned out ready to start again with more eggs. Everyone loves photos of little chicks so here they are looking very cute. Once numbers build up, some can be sold to bring in an income for the foundation. Also some can be gifted to the most vulnerable families enabling them to become more self-sufficient. It would be wonderful to have a paying it forward scheme whereby, once a villager’s flock starts to increase, they give away the same number of chicks that they had been gifted. Enjoy the photos. Sarah x