Manna for Malawi 2021
The Johnny Holm Band will perform at this year’s Manna for Malawi benefit fund raiser on Sunday, August 15th at the Bridge Tavern north of Crosby, Minnesota. The regional band has been attracting audiences for nearly 40 years in the United States, primarily in the five-state area. Holm began his musical journey just down the road from Cuyuna in Brainerd. Manna for Malawi 2021 runs from 2:00pm to 6:00pm. In addition to music, those who attend get to eat pulled pork sandwiches, beans, coleslaw and chips while they’re checking out the raffle ticket and silent auction items. Charge for the event is a free will offering.
Pastor Paul Mattson said his heart was touched when he saw first hand what Manna for Malawi has done and continues to do, helping to feed and educate the orphans. Malawi is in southeastern Africa, one of the poorest nations in the world. Average income is less than $2 a day.
“When we were invited to help the mission which began 14 years ago, volunteers fed nearly 400 hundred children, once a week. Currently, feeding takes place six days a week and up to a thousand African orphans get their only meal of the day,” Mattson added. Last year’s virtual event without band and food raised more than $28,000 to help feed and educate orphans. This year, with food and music should be better. Money raised this year will go for the feeding program, farm equipment, and education for orphan children.
Skills Center
The latest project at the Kanyenyeva Orphan Care Ministries location is a new Skill Center Building. The Skills Center currently houses the Days for Girls (DfG) Enterprise, which is a registered DfG business called Kanyenyeva Wala (Kanyenyeva Shines). Thanks to a grant from Westwood Community Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, along with many individual and corporate donors, the new Skills Center has an office, storage room and approximately 1200 square feet of open-air, covered space as a multipurpose area for the women to sew, students to read, or children to use as shelter and shade from the weather.
The DfG Enterprise, Kanyenyeva Wala is now up and running, using the secure storage room to house their sewing machines, materials and worktables, and using the open space for sewing production. We have learned that Kanyenyeva Wala is the only DfG Enterprise in Malawi that has its own building!
The new structure was also upgraded with a fresh coat of paint that was donated by the Kanyenyeva Ministries Board of Directors. The Skills Center now makes the third structure at the orphan care ministry to go along with the outdoor kitchen and meeting hall.
Now that the building is functional, we are raising funds to complete Phase 3. With the additional funds, the existing community water well will have an electric pump added, a tower and water tank will be built, and plumbing and septic system will be installed for the Skills Center room designated as a bathroom. Solar power will be added to operate the well pump and provide lighting for the building. The availability of solar power at the Skills Center will also allow caregivers to charge their cell phones without having to walk to the market and pay for a charge.
Phase 3 for the Skills Center power and plumbing installation already has $2,500 received toward a goal of $10,000. Donations made for this project can be sent to the MOCP address or through PayPal accessed here. Please indicate “Skills Center” with your donation.
We thank God for everyone who has donated to make this Skills Center a reality. Please prayerfully consider donating to complete the work on the Skills Center.
Education for Orphans
Education in Kanyenyeva, Malawi
For many years Malawi Orphan Care Project has supported sending High School aged boys and girls to school. In Malawi, public school only goes through eighth grade so if a child doesn’t have a benefactor sending them on to High School their education ends at eighth grade. Education is the cornerstone of economic development. It is the key to ending the cycle of poverty in Malawi. Donations for education consistently send sixty-seven (67) children on to High School. These are all children who are connected to the Orphan Project, learning about Jesus and the Bible and getting other very special interactions among which would be their free meals. Often an orphan will be enrolled in school but if his/her care giver cannot afford the fees, the child will be forced to drop out. Sometimes it is a matter of the care giver being able to provide food and shelter for the family over education. The poverty in Malawi is such that the free meal may be the only meal they get several times per week.
Kanyenyeva Ministries sends girls who are at risk of underaged marriage to Boarding School, which gets them in a much safer environment. This is often necessary because many of the girls have lost both of their parents to HIV/AIDS and are then being raised by grandparents or other relatives who have very little funds to offer support. They are rescued from the vulnerability of abuse or from having so many chores and responsibilities that they cannot keep up with school work. Without continuing their education through High School, the girls cannot ever hope to go on to a good job or to college. Kanyenyeva Ministries focus on girls’ education is because according to their culture, boys are more valuable than girls, and girls often get educated last, if at all.
Because of the orphan projects focus on education, two of the young men qualified for the very prestigious National High School of Malawi. Donations for education have been able to secure support to send them on to the National High School, and one young man has gone on to college in his home area. He is thriving there. His name is Precious and one day he hopes to be able to serve his community in some outstanding capacity.
It costs $150.00 for one year of High School and it costs $1500.00 for one year of Boarding School. The National High School tuition is $250.00 per year. One year of college is $4500.00 plus some incidental expenses.
If you have a heart for education or a heart for orphans in Malawi, we would welcome any contribution that you might be able to send. Our mailing address is: MALAWI ORPHAN CARE PROJECT, 53 PARK AVENUE WEST, MANSFIELD, OH, 44902 Or you can donate through paypal on this website.
The Hungry Season 2020
In Malawi, the Hungry Season of 2020 has been compounded by the current Coronovirus Pandemic.
Most of the vulnerable children who are fed at the project are orphans. Being orphans, they live with families other than their parents and are usually a drain on already scarce resources. Most of the families in the Kanyenyeva area are subsistence farmers, growing only enough food for themselves and their family. It is a means of survival but does not produce income. Subsistence farmers are impacted greatly by variations in weather.
In January, 2020, UN’s World Food Program warned about food insecurity in Malawi and other southern African countries.
“An unprecedented number of people in 16 countries across southern Africa are gravely food insecure as climate change wreaks havoc on the region.”
“This hunger crisis is on a scale we’ve not seen before and the evidence shows it’s going to get worse,” the WFP’s Regional Director for Southern Africa, Lola Castro, said in a statement.
The crisis is impacting 45 million people — many of whom are women and children. The region has been hit hard by repeated droughts, widespread flooding and economic hardship.
Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe are among the hardest-hit.
Many families across the region are already skipping meals, taking children out of school and falling into debt to stave off agricultural losses, the WFP said.” (Source: https://www.dw.com/en/un-warns-hunger-crisis-in-southern-africa-on-scale-weve-not-seen-before/a-52029274)
According to USAID “Recurring droughts afflict Malawi’s agriculture sector, threatening the livelihoods of Malawi’s smallholder farmers, who constitute 80 percent of Malawi’s population. Thirty-eight percent of Malawians live below the poverty line, and 47 percent of children are stunted.”
Malawians are currently experiencing the hungriest time of the year. It is the time while they are growing and harvesting their crops for the year ahead. They have eaten their harvest from 2019 and have nothing until they can eat from their harvest of 2020.
During this time of the year, the orphan project experiences a higher than normal number of children seeking a meal. Due to the Coronavirus in North America, several fundraisers which support the feeding program have been cancelled or postponed. With less income than expected, the leadership at the orphan project have been forced to reduce the number of meals they offer to the children in their community from 6 days a week to 3 days a week. For some children the meal they receive at the orphan project is the only meal they receive that day. Decreasing the number of days the children can have a meal can be devastating.
We know that many people around the world are experiencing a decrease if their own incomes, too, however; a meal for a child costs $.50. A donation of $10 will feed 20 children! No amount is too small. Please prayerfully consider donating to help the children in Malawi be fed. Click here to learn more about how to donate.
