15 years at Kanyenyeva Ministries
The future of the children of Kanyenyeva is bright because of you. The children in this picture were not born when Kanyenyeva Ministries began 15 years ago but they are benefiting from what you have helped build. They are able to receive food and an education because of your donations and prayers.
Kanyenyeva Ministries and Malawi Orphan Care Project pray that in the next 15 years Malawi will be able to rise out of its extreme poverty and be able to care for all of its citizens.
Five years ago we wrote about the first 10 years of Kanyenyeva Ministries. You can read about that here.
Since then, Kanyenyeva Ministries continues to help improve the lives of the children and adults in their community. The leadership at the orphan project makes sure each child attends school. Because of this focus, more students are graduating from high school. One student, Precious, scored so high on his high school exit exams that he was eligible to attend college. Thanks to a generous donor who is paying his school fees, Precious is studying computer science at UNICAF in Lilongwe. You can read more about Precious here.
With the help of your donations, they have begun 2 new businesses: a 137 acre farm and Kanyenyeva Wala which is a Days for Girls Enterprise where women make and sell reusable sanitary products.
A Skills Center has been built where Kanyenyeva Wala is housed and high schoolers can meet in the evening to study together. Kanyenyeva Ministries is exploring other businesses to start which will also be housed in the skills center. They are looking into starting a sandal business, a furniture business, or a mat making business.
Kanyenyeva Ministries continues to feed the children, share Jesus’ love with them, and provide school supplies. Your donations to Malawi Orphan Care Project truly are changing lives. Thank you!!
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.
Thank you Trinity Lutheran Church!!!!
A Huge Thank You to Trinity Lutheran Church in Ashland, Ohio!!!!!!
Kanyenyeva Ministries, with the help of Malawi Orphan Care Project, Inc, has received a $10,000 grant from the Trinity Lutheran Church Outreach Fund in Ashland, Ohio. This grant is seed money for a Girl’s Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in Malawi. These dollars will build the first hostel building to house young women that are at risk or have been rescued from early marriages.
Kanyenyeva Ministries has been in operation for over 14 years. Over the years, the ministry has interacted with over 5,000 young people, mainly from the Kanyenyeva area. Through these interactions and ministry, the leadership of Kanyenyeva has witnessed how girls are marginalized in their society. There have been several incidents where girls have been forced, mainly by circumstances and poverty, to marry while they are as young as 15.
This observation agrees with the fact that girls in Malawi face more difficulties, as compared to their male counterparts, that either make it difficult for them to do well in school or cause them to drop out of school altogether. One of the major factors responsible for a large number of school dropout in girls is early marriages. About 46 per cent of girls are married before the age of 18, and 9 per cent before the age of 15. Poverty and societal illiteracy contributes to the belief that a girl child is not worthy of education and is lesser in value as compared to a male child.
In this regard, Kanyenyeva Ministries plans to build a centre that will be dedicated to minister to girls and women in their society who have been rescued from underage marriages and also those who are at risk. The centre will provide spiritual, physical, psychological and emotional support to girls and women from all society in Malawi.
The complex is planned to be located in the Mchinji district of Malawi, purposely distant from the Kanyenyeva village to protect those at risk. The long range goal is to have hostels that will house 100 girls at a time, contain duplex apartments for volunteer works, a chapel, meeting hall, skills center, a medical clinic, classrooms and homes for the head teacher/administrator and clinic workers. Kanyenyeva Ministries is currently hoping to raise funds and buy land so that the first hostel building can be constructed.
Precious has started college!
Precious at college!
Precious is from Kanyenyeva. When he was a young child, he was encouraged to attend school by the leaders of the orphan project. The leaders encourage all the children in their area to attend school.
In Malawi, students need to pass a test in order to move to the next grade. Precious did so well on the test he took to enter high school that he was invited to attend a national high school where the top students from their county attend. He received financial assistance through Malawi Orphan Care Project (MOCP) to attend this high school.
Precious did so well on the tests that he took in order to graduate from high school that he was invited to attend university in Malawi!! Thanks to a generous donation to MOCP for his education and expenses, he is able to attend university. He has chosen Computer Science as his major and is attending UNICAF in Lilongwe.
Thanks to another donation, he will be receiving a computer soon.
Precious is the first student from Kanyenyeva Ministries to attend university. Thanks to the leadership of the orphan project who know that education will help their community and their country develop, more children in their community are graduating from high school. The investment of encouraging education by the leaders of the orphan project is showing and will only serve to benefit their area and their country as more and more students graduate and make a difference in their county.
Thank you to everyone who has and will donate to help educate the children in Kanyenyeva.
