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
Good news for the chicken project with lots of new chicks being hatched…. but the bad news is that the truck has broken down.
Sarah’s blog 13/9/24
Please will you help Levison? Life is hard and unfair for those living in extreme poverty in Malawi. Sometimes it seems like progress is being made only for something else to happen.
First – some good news.
There have been lots of eggs being laid and put in the incubator. There are over 50 healthy chicks now and more eggs are in the incubator keeping nice and warm. This is really good news for this project. Now that the incubator, which was bought with a generous donation from Lochlie Construction, has it’s own solar power supply, there is enough energy to keep it going 24/7 so the eggs stay at a constant temperature. We look forward to seeing more progress and will bring more news.
Thank you to everyone who has helped support this project
Now for the bad news.
The truck – which is absolutely vital and used every day has broken down. It was being used to transport supplies for the teachers’ accommodation project. Also, as water levels are low because it’s the dry season, water for making bricks and cement etc has to be brought by truck from the river to the site. In the borehole, there is only enough clean water for drinking so this water is very precious.
There is a local man with ox and cart and Levison has managed to hire him to help with moving water from the river to where the builders are working.
However, the truck is also vital for fetching maize and other supplies to feed hundreds of children every week as well as many other uses. Of course, every few months there are long overnight journeys to collect all the boxes we send from the container. Ekwendeni, which is the end destination for the container, is near Mzuzu. While this is in the north of Malawi, it is still a very long way south of where the community we help to support are. Bright Futures Campus is approximately 45km from Chitipa town and many of the roads are just dirt tracks. Especially when it is the rainy season, the rural roads are hazardous and often even the truck cannot climb muddy hilly tracks!
Levison and his team need our help and support to get the truck back on the road. It needs a new altenator and two new batteries. The batteries can be bought in Chitipa town but the alternator will need to be sent from Mzuzu. Nothing is straightforward! When the truck broke down, it was carrying supplies that had been bought for Bright Futures Secondary School (which opens again on Monday) as well as equipment for the building project. Eventually, they managed to get someone to come with a truck to transport everything safely back to campus. However, this cost money. So did towing the truck back. The mechanic came yesterday to look at the problem and he was paid for his time. However, nothing else could be done because of no money and no new parts for the truck.
Will you help us get the truck back on the road please? It is essential to the smooth running of all the projects and ensuring that hundreds of orphans are fed. We need approximately £650. Thank you, Sarah x You can donate via our page on DonorSee https://donorsee.com/project/24823?share=1 contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com or sending us an email for bank details. Or you can also make a donation via the button on the home page on our website. Any donation will be very much appreciated. Thank you once again for your support, Sarah x
On this map, Bright Futures Campus is in the far north near Chisenga.
All the children are excited to see the truck coming back from collecting the boxes we sent.just one of the many journeys that the truck has made to collect supplies
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
A while ago we had a very generous donation from a company called Lochlie Construction. They gave money for the purchase of an incubator so that eggs could be hatched on a larger scale and then the chicks/chickens could be sold as a form of income for the Foundation. Self-sufficiency is always the end goal but not many plans are straightforward! The Foundation has electricity in some of the buildings, however, the supply of electricity has been very sporadic…only being on for a few hour at a time. After successfully hatching one lot of chicks the electricity supply was even less…certainly not enough to keep the eggs warm in the incubator.
We tried to source solar panels in Malawi to power the incubator but this wasn’t possible. So when we had enough money spare, we purchased solar panels and a generator and sent this on the last Bananabox Trust Container. The electrician attached the solar panels to the nearest building roof (so they are less likely to be stolen) as the chicken shed roof is much lower. However, as we know nothing happens easily! We had no spare money to pay the electrician to connect the solar panels, generator and the incubator until a chance conversation I had with someone earlier in the week on the subject of self-sufficiency. I had said about the chicken project that would be going ahead as soon as we had the money to employ the electrician. They then offered to pay for the electrician to connect the solar power supply to the incubator. We are very grateful for this generosity.
As you know, we are volunteers and do not have admin costs, so all monies donated go straight to the projects we support in Malawi. The electrician started work yesterday and finished off today. Some of the teenagers from Bright Futures Secondary School kindly helped dig the trench for the cables to keep costs down. Fertilized eggs will now need to be purchased at £10 per tray of 30 eggs and then, hopefully, this will be a sustainable project bringing in a source of income for The Foundation. There is room for approximately 500 eggs at one time.
When we have more money, the electrician will do some more wiring so that the solar power can run other things, like the computers in the library, lighting, recharging the hair clippers that we sent and the projector for showing films and educational programmes. We mustn’t forget the television too as everyone loves watching football! Lives are changing and the children’s futures are looking brighter. We hope that you will keep being part of our team, supporting them to have choices and chances that they wouldn’t otherwise have had.
Thank you to Lochlie Construction for the incubator and to the donor who paid for the electrician. Thanks also to Bananabox Trust who organise the container and ensured the solar panels were packed carefully and arrived safely in Malawi. If you would like to support this project by purchasing some eggs for the incubator or you’d like to support any of the other projects then please do email contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com .
Hope you enjoy hearing about what is happening at The Foundation and hope you enjoy looking at the photos. Thanks, Sarah x
This photo was taken when the incubator first arrived at The Foundation. There is room for over 500 eggs.This lovely photo was when some of the children at the nursery were looking at the first batch of eggs that had been carefully placed in the incubator. Hopefully, there will soon be lots of chicks for them to see.Some of the students helping to dig a trench for the power cables. The chicken shed is on the left of the photo, in the centre is the staff latrine that was built recently and the staff accommodation on the right of the photo.Some of the students kindly helping to dig a trench to the chicken shed which is on the left of the photoThe electrician busy at workThe incubator now has power….yay!
You can see the solar panels that have been installed on the roof of the staff accommodation which is the building nearest to the chicken shed where the incubator is.
