Tag: walk

How far should you walk for lunch?

These children are desperate for help. How can they thrive without food?

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Sarah’s blog 14/6/23

How far do you think is an acceptable distance for a child to walk to get some food? How far would you let your child or grandchild walk to have a meal? What if you had absolutely nothing to feed your family?

We help to support a feeding programme that runs once a week. We wish we could afford for it to operate more often. 500 orphans and vulnerable children are fed a substantial and nutritious meal each weekend at the feeding programme. This is their biggest meal of the week. Some days these children do not eat at home and are left to fend for themselves, to forage for food or beg for scraps. All of these children are malnourished. THERE ARE NO CHARITIES FEEDING CHILDREN IN SCHOOLS IN THIS AREA OF RURAL NORTHERN MALAWI. We need your help. We cannot do this alone. It is too big a job for us to ensure that 500 children have enough food every day of the week.

Crops are being planted to supplement the feeding programme. Vegetables that the children have helped to grow are being served at the feeding programme. Fruit tree saplings have been planted for future food and for future income as the surplus fruit can be sold at market.

The sweet potato crop is doing well and will be ready in another 6 weeks. But how many sweet potatoes will a field produce? How long will this crop last divided by 500 children and young people? A few days maybe…..

We need people to partner with us. We need people to invest in the future of these very vulnerable children who don’t eat every day. To start a pig project at Bright Futures Secondary School, as part of their agricultural classes, to breed pigs to sell (and also pass on to the community) will only take £300 to set up. This will bring in money to help pay for school lunches for the students at Bright Futures Secondary School, helping them become more self-sufficient and giving the students skills for life.

They need to plant more fruit tree saplings in the orchard. Each sapling costs approximately £2.50. Banana tubers cost approximately £2 each. We could pay for these project start ups but we cannot continue paying to feed the children at the feeding programme each week AND invest in these projects….unfortunately it is either one or the other and we are not going to stop the feeding programme as it is the only one proper meal that these children receive each week. How can these vulnerable children and young people be expected to thrive on one decent meal a week? It is heart-breaking. They deserve far more and they deserve our help and support. Please help us? contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com

I have said several times that some children walk up to 20km for this one proper meal of the week at the feeding programme. I can’t comprehend what that must be like. Energy levels must be at a minimum already as the children haven’t eaten, then to have to walk up to 20km for a meal and 20km home again…they must be absolutely exhausted and any calories they have from their lunch will be used up on the long walk home. Can you help us help them please?

Levison sent me photos of 6 children who each walked approximately 18km to be fed on Sunday….so a total of 36km for their one proper meal of the week. Levison wanted me to show you these children. They, and others like them, are really struggling and we cannot expect them to thrive unless we give them a helping hand. Will you help us help them? Tasiyana, Praise, Atusaye, Kalebu, Esther and Nema all are hungry and malnourished.

All of them would benefit from having a sponsor. It costs £25 per month to sponsor a child and they will receive clothes, extra food and welfare visits. Two friends could share the cost of sponsoring a child. Or you could commit £5 or £10 per month to help support the feeding programme and help us to make it more sustainable by being able to plant more crops and fruit tree saplings. What will you do to help today? contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com

Thank you for reading and for your support, Sarah x

https://changinglivesmalawi.com/2023/06/12/the-sweet-potato-crop/ https://changinglivesmalawi.com/2023/06/11/activities-for-the-kids/

Praise looks so tired and is suffering from malnutrition

Tasiyana looks so hungry and exhausted
Atusaya is wearing one of the navy cord pinafores donated by Sinclair House Prepatory School in London
you can see by Esther’s tummy that she is malnourished

From here to Malawi – The challenge is complete!

The challenge is complete! Yay!

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Sarah’s blog 21/04/23

Well it has taken longer than we originally planned….but the small, dedicated team has done it! What an amazing and fantastic group of dedicated supporters!

We planned, in order to raise money for Bright Futures Secondary School, to run, walk, swim, scoot, cycle and sail to add together kilometres to cover the distance that the boxes travel between here and Malawi. It was a bigger challenge than we anticipated, for a small team, and the container covered the distance way before we reached our target, but the challenge is now complete!! Well done team!! We never give up!

As of yesterday, the total kilometres travelled was 13,161.195km! That was 17.195km more than was actually needed.

As you know, Phase 1 of Bright Futures Secondary School was built and opened in November 2022. This comprised of staff accommodation and two classrooms to add to the other buildings that we had previously fundraised for which included the library, shower block and clean water supply.

Now fundraising is well underway for phase 2 of Bright Futures Secondary School. We need at least one more classroom to be in place for the new term starting in September 2023. We also need some more staff accommodation and a dormitory block for the most vulnerable girls to be able to stay on campus. This will enable them to be safe rather than risking being attacked on the long walk to and from school. These are big plans but education is the way out of poverty for these very vulnerable children and young people, many of whom are orphans.

The photos below are just some of the lovely people who helped us achieve our goal. Thank you to everyone who took part. You are all brilliant and we couldn’t do what we do without you. If you would like to contribute towards phase 2 of Bright Futures Secondary School then you can either email me for bank details contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com or donate at https://gofund.me/ece5753a Thanks so much for supporting, helping, donating, volunteering, sponsoring….whatever you do to help us….thank you from the bottom of our hearts, Sarah x

Previous stories…. More Kilometres! – Changing Lives Malawi Keep collecting Kilometres! – Changing Lives Malawi

Phase 2 0f Bright Futures Secondary School – classrooms 3 & 4 – Changing Lives Malawi

Traci on top of the world!
Brilliant effort Traci!
One boy, his scooter & his dog
Team Mottram reached the top of Ben Nevis on a rainy day
Team Mackay, wearing their team t-shirts in Lanzarote
The kids in Malawi were keen to join in and added some kilometres by running
Team Mackay in the news!
Team Mackay climbed Scafell Pike on a very hot day

Team Mackay at Falkirk

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Sarah’s blog 26/09/22

More kilometres collected by Team Mackay at the weekend. They walked from The Kelpies (the two horse statues) to The Falkirk Wheel and back. That’s a distance of 16km x 4 = 64km. Well done and thank you Team Mackay! Please show your support for Team Mackay https://gofund.me/44a92444

Jackie has given me the latest total. Now 5,088.003km completed which is 38.71% of our journey from here to Malawi! That total is getting bigger…well done to everyone but there is still a long way to go! Please give us your kilometres. So if you have walked 2km today for example then just message me and we can add it to our total….it’s as easy as that. Or if you’ve been for a run or a cycle then let us know how many kms you’ve done. Every little helps and you don’t need to send a photo or get a mention in a post if you don’t want to. But the more people who donate a few kilometres then the quicker we will get there. Please help. contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com

To donate financially to our fundraiser you can email me for our bank details or donate at https://gofund.me/44a92444 We still need to raise lots of money to build phase 1 of Bright Futures Secondary School. Please help us give the gift of education. Thanks for reading and supporting, Sarah x

Ewan, Adam, Jackie and Ben AKA Team Mackay with The Kelpies in the background
Ben and Jackie at the Kelpies
Ben and Jackie at the Falkirk Wheel

Traci’s challenge update

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Sarah’s 14/08/22

Wow! Traci is still clocking up those kilometres to help us with our challenge. She also set herself the challenge of walking 500km in July/August. When she saw that she could do more than that she decided to set her self the target of 700km in July/August. She’s amazing! and the photos of the scenery on her walks are beautiful. It’s been very hot during the last few days so I’m sure that it has been hard work. Very well done Traci and thank you.

Here’s what Traci wrote ‘Still clocking up km for Changing Lives Malawi, but this weekend I have swapped the Campsie Fells and the River Kelvin for the Moffat Hills and the River Annan. Just 129km to go to meet my 700km target. https://gofund.me/dd3a1be3‘

We need people to show their support for Traci and the rest of the team who are taking part in the kilometre challenge – travelling the distance boxes of aid travel from here to Malawi – to raise money for a much needed secondary school. Please donate so that the most vulnerable young people can go to school – education should be available for all. Please donate a few £££ and give the gift of education today. https://gofund.me/dd3a1be3 Let’s build a school! Thank you Traci for your hard work and raising awareness of the importance of this project. Thanks for reading and supporting, Sarah x

Some wonderful photos from Traci’s latest walks. Fantastic Traci, thank you.

Kilometre Challenge Update

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Sarah’s blog 4/8/22

Jackie has written an update below of how the challenge is going.

Douglas & Lynda have been walking some of the Fife Coastal path and clocked up 67.5km. They also sent some beautiful photos. Thank you to both of them for their continued support.

Stuart and I managed some r&r in the East Neuk of Fife too and have added our km although nowhere near as impressive. Thanks for reading and supporting, Sarah x

“Hello All – Well the BALFRON TO BRIGHT FUTURES SECONDARY SCHOOL CHALLENGE has just passed its first month

The various people involved (a small team of 7 so far) have clocked up 1,817.805km. In addition the kids in Malawi have run 320km to join in.

This is a total of 2,137.805km an amazing 16.26% of the way to walk/cycle/run/hop/skip/jump the 13,144km that represents the journey from Balfron to Ibuluma in Northern Malawi.

So far over £8k has been raised (a lot off line so the GoFundMe looks a bit light!) but as prices are rising fast in Malawi just like here the sooner material can be bought the better so we really need to raise lots more money sooner rather than later.

Can you help Build the Bright Futures Secondary School?
Ways to help:-

1 – Make a donation and encourage me (and the team) to keep clocking up the km’s – https://gofund.me/dd3a1be3
2 – Join in and “donate” your km’s to the total to get us to Malawi sooner – https://forms.gle/twQYfx7LRRrtvdhx9
3 – Follow the charity on FB to see how we are getting on with our challenge – https://www.facebook.com/changinglivesmalawi
4 – Share this post with anyone and everyone who might be interested in our project so we can raise awareness of the charity and its amazing projects (it does soooo much more – https://changinglivesmalawi.com/about/)

Thank you so much for reading and your support 🙂

PS – over 70,000 bricks are soon being fired to build the walls 🙂 – Jackie”

Beautiful views from the East Neuk of Fife courtesy of Douglas & Lynda

Photos I took from St Andrews and the East Neuk of Fife – one of our favourite places.

Traci’s first 100km challenge

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Sarah’s blog 11/7/22

Traci has walked over 100km already since the start of July. That’s an amazing achievement Traci, especially your 7km walk up and down that hill! Thank you so much for sending in your photos and for taking part in our kilometre challenge. I’m looking forward to seeing more photos from your next 100km!

We decided to try to do the virtual journey that the boxes we send travel to get to Malawi…over 13,000km… so we need more people joining in and logging your kilometres. Whether you are walking round the supermarket, going to the park with the kids, walking the dog or going on a cycle or run… every kilometre helps towards our total. We also need you to sponsor us please. If you think Traci is doing a great job then please donate a few £££. Ideally, we need to raise £1 for every kilometre of the 13,000 journey. What will you do today? Click on the links to donate and get involved wherever you are in the world. Thanks again Traci. Enjoy your next 100km! Thanks everyone for reading and supporting, Sarah x contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com https://forms.gle/twQYfx7LRRrtvdhx9

“Over the first 10 days of July I’ve walked 118.57km for Changing Lives Malawi. I’ve walked various paths around Torrance, climbed the Campsies, done some of the Rob Roy Way and added some km on my treadmill. Can you spare a couple of pounds to spur me on to my full 500km pledge, and help build a school in Malawi? Go to https://gofund.me/dd3a1be3 ” Traci.

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