Madonna and child

Ten points to ponder

1. What does the adoption of one child do for the good of Africa?
2. Why a four year old who will have made relationships?
   
3. Is a celebrity lifestyle going to give any child a balanced life?
4. How often will this child realistically be able to return to Malawi to keep contact with relatives?
5. How soon will she find it hard to relate to those relatives and her country of birth?
6. What sort of an impression does a celebrity give by flying into a country, with full entourage and press coverage, expecting to fly out again with the baby of choice?
7. How many children could be helped to live with their relatives if the time, energy and money had been spent in different ways?
8. How many mothers could have life-saving medical attention so that there were fewer babies without mothers?
9. How many families could be kept together if they had access to some microfinance?
10. Is any of the focus of attention on Malawi’s needs rather than on the celebrity’s?

Am I alone in wondering about these points?

Tough women

Photo from Flickr/khym54. Creative Commons licence.

Like tens of thousands of other grandmothers in Malawi, this "Go Go" is taking care of her grandchildren because their parents have died of AIDS.

Photo from Flickr/khym54. Creative Commons licence.

This is Harriet -- one of millions of Go Go's in Sub-Saharan Africa. Harriet is a grandmother in her early 70s. She is taking care of 16 children who have no parents. Only one of Harriet's own children is still alive. The rest have died.

14% of the population in Malawi has HIV/Aids. There are 84,000 more orphans every year. Very often these children, roughly half of them, are taken in by grandmothers, sometimes leaving these older women with several children from different families to support.

Like Harriet above, most are of an age when they might be enjoying a more peaceful and restful life. Instead they are struggling first with the grief of having lost their sons or daughters, then to raise young grandchildren, often HIV positive, on a meagre income and with little or no support. They are unsung heroes.

Look again at those women above. How many of us could raise, or have raised, our own children in those circumstances? And yet these women are taking on their HIV positive grandchildren and at times other children as well.

There are so many courageous and tough women in the world, often struggling quietly in difficult circumstances. Not all of them perform spectacular feats which catch the eye or the attention of the press, but they are every bit as deserving of our recognition and, more to the point, our help.

Olympic spirit

Photo from Flickr/JL08. Creative Commons licence.

You can't imagine anyone being unaware of the Olympic Games at the moment. The coverage seems incessant, nothing but medal counts, records broken, superlative after superlative.

China has 639 competitors participating, the USA 596. Some countries have a single athlete. Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, has four.

Photo from Africa News

The country has sent 2 short distance runners, and two swimmers to the Games. The runners are Chancy Master and Lucia Chandamale, the swimmers Zarra Pinto and Charlton Nyirenda.

Photo from Malawi's Daily Times.

Zarra Pinto, aged 14, first swam in a 50 metre pool just a few days before the Games started. There are no indoor pools in Malawi and only three swimming clubs. She trains four or five days a week, for an hour at a time.

So while we are applauding the wonderful results from Michael Phelps from the USA, with his 12,000 calories per day diet, or Rebecca Adlington from the UK who receives £12,000 a year funding from UK Sport, we should perhaps remember the efforts of the countries who just can't afford the same facilities.

Iness was born with two club feet. They got so bad she eventually could not attend school.

If she had been born with club feet in the UK, as 1 or 2 in 1000 British children are, she would have undergone extensive surgery and possibly been left with scarring and in pain. This sort of surgery and subsequent treatment isn't available in countries such as Malawi, where they just don't have the medical or financial resources to support it. Nor can the patients cope with long drawn out treatments. Iness' mother said, “It was such a burden for me to come every week. I am poor and to find transport money was like struggling for breath.” A different way to treat babies in their first year of life, while it is still possible to avoid complex surgery, was urgently needed.

Photo from Flickr/MikeBlyth

Here in the UK, the BBC is currently showing a series of television programmes (Superdoctors) which looks at various high-tech medical procedures, but one of these programmes is instead looking at the work of Steve Mannion, an orthopaedic surgeon from Blackpool, who spends two out of every four weeks in Malawi in southern Africa. When he first started visiting Malawi, he was one of only two orthopaedic surgeons for a population of about 12 million. He had to find a solution for the children with club feet using the resources available in the area. He found a low-tech method of treating the condition using a type of physiotherapy which would allow non-medical officers, not doctors, to treat patients. The results have been so successful, better than those in the UK, that this low-tech method is being introduced into this country.

The cost of the surgical robots featured in the television programme is about £12 million or roughly $24 million. How many children in the third world could be treated for that sort of money to enable them to walk again, to go to school and earn a living? As opposed to a robot which does work normally performed out by a surgeon. The hospital carrying out this project was built with support from the Beit Trust of the UK, and is managed by the American CURE International, paying the running costs.

I tend to be wary about faith-based charities but this one says it will not turn away a patient due to an inability to pay, ethnic background or religious affiliation. All children are treated free of charge and as a result Iness is now able to attend school again. Chisomo, another patient, and his family are Moslem. His mother said, “I have been encouraged. I think God deserves all the glory. I will leave to testify to people and even tell my son as he grows up that a Christian hospital healed him, a hospital without discrimination.” That warms my heart - a secondary but very important benefit of better trust and understanding.

See also Feet First, a charity set up by Steve Mannion himself in 2004.

She does it all.

Photo from Flicker user mick y. Creative Commons licence.

Scenes like this are noticeable all over Africa, children looking after their younger siblings.

Sadly nowadays, one or both of their parents has died from AIDS and the eldest has to look after the younger children.

In Malawi, one such girl is Melise, aged 13, who cares for her younger siblings aged 7 and 5. Her mother died three years ago and her father two. Normally, following tradition, aunts and uncles would take the children in but, as is often the case, those same people have considerable problems of their own.

Melise, Thom and Chifundo have stayed in the house their father built because there is no room with relatives, but they aren't able to grow their own maize. Relatives leave them maize and other things but it is not enough. Melise has to sell fruit on the roadside in the afternoon after school, as well as caring for the others, taking them to school, then walking 8 kilometres (5 miles) to her own school.

"“We don’t sell much. At least we could manage sells up to K150 (about 50 pence) a day which is enough to see us through several days,” she said."

Photo by Flickr user dkrrys. Creative Commons Licence.

There was no shortage of photos for me to choose from. Malawi doesn't have the means to provide a social welfare service so there are many children in the same position.

In Melise's case a small charity, Ababa Malawi, provides food once a week. In some ways Melise is lucky.

Be careful what you blog about

I grew up in Africa on a porridge made from something called mealie meal. I loved it and can still remember the taste all these many years later.

This same mealie meal, ground white corn, can be thickened further into nsima (Malawi), nshima (Zambia), ugali (Kenya), or sadza (Zimbabwe). All of these are basically the same thing with slight regional variations. It is a staple of the diet mainly in southern and eastern Africa, but found elsewhere too. According to this BBC report, wars have been fought over it.

Photo from Flickr user Equi. Creative Commons licence.

So perhaps it's not surprising that there has been something of an uproar in Malawi about a young European woman who was visiting the country, and who made some pretty derogatory remarks about local food, nsima in particular but also goat, in her blog. She has upset so many people it has even been reported in the Nyasa Times. The original post on her blog has been removed and replaced by an apology, but a copy of the text is still available on Stories from Malawi. The comments on both the Nyasa Times and Stories from Malawi give an indication of the feelings roused.

The behaviour described is bad enough, but then to post it on a Travel Pod blog for all the world to see shows a complete lack of .... something. The whole purpose of travelling, I would have thought, is to learn about other countries and cultures, to broaden your horizons, to open your mind to new ideas, and most certainly not to ridicule anything about your hosts' way of life.

It is distressing to think that this could be taken by Malawians as representative of all European behaviour.

Spirit groves

Photo from Flickr user King Coyote. Creative Commons licence.

Once Malawi was covered in forest. Various pressures have cut back the forest area further and further.

• Tea plantations
• Tobacco plantations
• Maize fields
• Timber for building
• Firewood gathering
• Wood for making charcoal
• Wood for curing tobacco

From time to time though, you come across large patches of original forest still standing untouched. These are spirit groves, or cemeteries. The local people believe that if they cut them down, they will be haunted by spirits.

These groves are the remnants of once-extensive tropical evergreen forest (the forest is evergreen, not the individual trees). As a result of protecting these cemeteries, species of trees, plants and wildlife have also been preserved. They are an important part of conservation and can have other cultural values too. In Ghana, 80% of spirit groves act as watersheds for clean drinking water.

Nevertheless, even though these groves exist, for the sake of the planet, there have to be considerable efforts to help reforestation such as Trees for Africa, One Parisian, One Tree.

Since tobacco appears to have dealt the forests a double whammy (does that translate?), it would be nice to think that from their wealth, they could play a very large part in replacing what they have helped to destroy. I can find no evidence of it, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Sources: Kim in Malawi, EPOW

A nice cup of tea

Photo from Flickr user rprice84. Creative Commons licence.

I can't manage without a cup of tea first thing in the morning. After that I'm set up for the day and turn to decaffeinated coffee, and usually Fairtrade if I can find it. I've noticed in England a much larger range is now available, though less so with tea it seems.

Tea was first planted in Malawi in 1878 and commercial production started in 1880, so Malawi was something of a pioneer for Africa, but times have changed and growers are not managing to realise the prices that the Kenyan market does.

There are various initiatives which are hoping to reverse this trend:

• Development of identifiable brands associated with Malawi.
• Processing of green tea for the East Asian market.
• Charity auctions where the proceeds are donated to AIDS orphans and other good causes.
• Production of "sustainable" teas such as Malawi Garden Tea whose production directly supports the growers, their families, and the local community of the Kawalazi tea plantation in Malawi.
• Tourism such as Traidcraft's Meet the People Tours and tea estates, such as Satemwa and Lujeri Lodge, which provide guesthouses for hire.

Something new (to me anyway) I noticed on the Satema site - white tea. Anyone for a cuppa?

Main source: Inter Press Service

Grow trees in Africa by recycling aluminium

It sounds unlikely that the more aluminium you recycle, the more trees will be planted in Africa, but Alupro is running a new programme to tackle deforestation in Malawi while at the same time providing the means to create small businesses in rural areas.

About 43 million tonnes of aluminium is produced annually, 30% of which is recycled. In the UK 99% of aluminium used in packaging is consumer packaging, from drinks cans, takeaway containers, to lids from yogurt pots.

Alupro is providing core funding for the next two years and for every tonne of recycled aluminium in this country, a tree will be grown. They are hoping that it will mean 85,000 trees over the two years, providing 15 jobs, and training programmes for around 25 volunteers at each of the 75 village nurseries.

Working with Ripple Africa in Malawi, they will establish a special nursery to grow fruit trees such as mango, lemon, orange and avocado from grafting. Others such as pawpaw and guava will be grown from seed.

Alupro has been running similar schemes since 2003, resulting in 100,000 trees being planted in the UK and in Burkina Faso in Africa. In the meantime the amount of aluminium recycled has increased by 47%. I feel sure this could be increased still further if local authorities such as ours could be persuaded to collect more than just aluminium cans.

Images from Alupro where there are many more facts and figures.

Sibusiso Ready Food (or Plumpy'Nut for adults)

A food supplement, developed in 2005 to help with malnutrition and produced in Malawi, is being bought by South Africa and may be sent to help with relief work in Chad.

The product was conceived by Dr Sooliman in 2004 when he noticed that conventional foods were not overcoming malnutrition. They were eliminating hunger but there was little improvement in health and well-being.

It tastes rather like peanut butter. The ingredients are:

• groundnuts
• soya oil
• sugar
• vanilla flavouring
• vitamins
• minerals

Photo from Flickr user Josh Wood. Creative Commons Licence.

The ground nuts from Malawi are of particularly high quality as they have among the world's lowest levels of afflotoxin, high levels of which make peanut consumption a problem. It is providing valuable jobs both in the production of the supplement and in groundnut farming, very welcome in a country as poor as Malawi.

Its advantages are that it is:

• free of wheat, gluten, lactose, tartrazine, preservatives;
• high in nutrients and energy;
• ready to eat and doesn't need any water added;
• no heating needed;
• no refrigeration needed;
• suitable for everyone from the age of 6 months right through to the elderly.

Not only has it been found to be valuable for people suffering from malnutrition, but also for those with HIV/Aids and TB. It requires no preparation, it can be eaten as it is, as a spread, or stirred into a porridge.

Source: Business Report
See also my earlier post on Plumpy'Nut the wonder food.

Making poverty ...... history?

Photo by Flickr user didbygraham. Creative Commons Licence.

The company G4S, or Group 4 Securicor, employs roughly half a million people worldwide and of these over 13,000 are in Malawi, making them the largest private sector employer in the country. On their website they have a Social Responsibility section - "our culture of giving back to the communities in which we operate". Really?

Background

Malawi is one of the 10 poorest nations in the world and more than half the population live below the poverty line of $0.44 or roughly 25p a day. The cost of living as measured by a "Basic Needs Basket" has risen by 23% over the last year.

Pay rise = pay cut

The security guards employed by G4S work 60 hours per week and earn on average $26 or £13, a quarter of what is considered a living wage. In order to work 60 hours a week they work 12 hour days - but are paid for 10 hours under the G4S policy to reduce pay by half for overtime hours. [Source]. G4S are offering a 12% pay rise which would effectively reduce their spending power.

Living conditions

Many of the security guards live in houses without electricity or running water. They walk to work because they can't afford fares, and it could take 90 minutes each way. Their families can't afford school or medical fees for their children.

Strike

Workers planned a strike for 30 January but the company won a court injunction against it. The union hopes to overturn the ban and call a strike for 4 February if the company continues to reject their claims.

So what is it that G4S plans to give back into this particular commmunity? Deepening poverty? Exploitation is a word that comes to mind.

I am ashamed to say that the company is based in England, where the Chief Executive enjoys a comfortable salary of £1.1 million.

From NewConsumer

Tropical Legumes Project

Legumes are the third largest family of plants, and many species among them are very nutritious and/or improve the quality of soil. However they haven’t so far received a great deal of attention to increase yields and help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

Soybeans

ICRISTAT, the International Crops Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics are conducting a research and development project to improve the productivity of legumes. This will be funded for three years by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will act in partnership with the Program for African Seed Systems to ensure the availability of the seeds to African farmers.

Peanuts

Legumes are rich in protein and minerals and sometimes referred to as "poor man’s meat". They hold great promise for fighting hunger, increasing income and improving soil fertility.

Black eyed beans

The research is being carried out in 14 different countries in Africa, as well as in Asia.

African gold

In this case I'm not talking about gold in South Africa, instead they are gold from agriculture.

According to New Agriculturalist, the shea nut is worth its weight in gold, and is called "women's gold" in Burkina Faso. In the past it was primarily used as an alternative for cocoa butter in chocolate and exported unprocessed. Now however, its main use is as a moisturising ingredient in cosmetics, and increasingly it is being exported in a processed form, which increases the profit, though the situation is changing with demand for the beans increasing.

It grows on trees found only in Africa, north of the equator and between the Sahara Desert and the tropical rain forest. The trees live for 300 years.

Photo from USAID

The ripe nuts are boiled, dried and shelled, then roasted and pounded into a paste with water.

Photo from USAID

Some of the producers in Burkina Faso have registered with the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation which increases profitability.

The second gold is white gold in Malawi. Dairy cows have helped smallholders out of poverty through the Heifer Loan Scheme. A family who receives an animal is expected to pass on the first female off-spring to another family in need who is also require to pass on to the next. The cows provide enough milk for the family and excess can be sold to proved other needs. The scheme has since progressed so that the recipient of the cow pays a contribution as ownership and commitment.

Photo from USAID

At present, there are 6,376 members of dairy farmers' cooperatives, about half of whom are women.

Women's Reading Clubs in Malawi

I've had the BookAid logo in my sidebar for a long time now. BookAid promotes literacy in developing countries by creating reading and learning opportunities, working mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.

Malawi is one of the 10 poorest countries and it is estimated that 54% of women there cannot read. Additionally 14% of 15-49 year olds have HIV/AIDS.

The Malawi National Library Service runs the groups to encourage newly literate women. Through the clubs women can access information on health, education, family welfare and training.

Books are provided in Chichewa, Tumbuka and English. Cash is provided for the purchase of books in Chichewa and Tumbuka while BookAid provides reading matter in English from their stocks of donated books.

The benefits to women are:

• they read and learn about managing small businesses, income generating activities as well as cooking and sewing
• some pick up their education again
• they learn about HIV/AIDS, both its prevention and the care of people who are infected
• they gain some measure of independence
• they gain confidence and camaraderie

A slideshow is available here, which should be embedable but every time I try, the window closes and I have to start all over again!

Fish farming in Malawi

The World Fish Center, whose aim is to reduce poverty and hunger by improving fisheries and aquaculture, is based in Penang in Malaysia and has projects in over 20 countries, one of which is Malawi.

There are a number of projects in Malawi which are outlined in a downloadable pdf file, all aimed at providing better nutrition and an income for smallholders by integrating fish farming with other agriculture. The fish farmers have significantly more income than others, they consume more fresh fish and as a result have a higher protein intake than other households.

About 30% of these fish farmers are women. One project is specifically aimed at developing fish farming practices which are suited to households headed by widows or orphans. They are hoping to increase income and fish consumption for them by 25%.

Another project is looking at the suitability of fish production in urban areas. Yet another focuses on breeding and improving certain species appropriate for farming.

I found out all this from following links, originally from a Google news alert, and it has led to a huge topic that I barely knew existed, apart from one brief mention in April.

Other interesting links:

Fish for All

Water and Food

Malawi's maize

I mentioned a while ago that the maize harvest in Malawi was going to be a record this year, on top of a record last year.

While this was good news, I did read elsewhere the question being asked of why they were still receiving aid from the US. It might seem that it’s a good idea – the money could be given to people living in such poverty they cannot afford to buy maize, even at the presumably low prices a record harvest would produce.

Regrettably, according to an article in The Observer, the aid money has to be spent buying American grain which is to be shipped to Malawi. So Malawi farmers cannot sell their produce and the price has dropped drastically, and no doubt the shipping of the grain from the States is adding to global warming. The farmers in the meantime have been struggling themselves and have been put off buying seed from the following year, and they don’t have the money for it anyway.

Then the ban on selling grain outside Malawi was lifted so that farmers could sell the excess to Zimbabwe. Again, a good idea that would support the price of maize and help Zimbabwe’s urgent need. According to The Daily Times in Malawi though, there has been little policing of the amount of maize exported which is necessary to ensure sufficient stocks are left in Malawi for the country’s own needs.

What is required, according to Mary Khozombah who works for Oxfam in Malawi, is empowerment of local farmers.

People who want to help Malawi need to support agriculture by educating farmers, improving irrigation, helping people find other forms of income. We need empowerment so our farmers can export. Ask us! We might come up with good ideas.

Food aid should be the last resort, in an emergency - and even then it should be bought locally if possible.

Give a goat - get a goat

I've seen the catalogues in the past for giving livestock or other similar presents for Christmas, often through Oxfam, but there are other similar organisations. I have been giving my boss presents out of them for years, though I confess I have never found out what he thinks. Some people consider it a cop-out I know, but my own view is that we all have more than enough in this country and gifts for gifts' sake are meaningless.

I've read the blurb and realise that, no matter what you say you are buying, it isn't necessarily exactly where your money will go. Oxfam says "we will always spend your money on a related item" but it would be good to know exactly how the money is used.

Today I came across an article in The Daily Times from Malawi which tells the other end of the story: how goats are being distributed to women in rural areas.

In Malawi, 26% of families are headed by women, and of these, 64% are living in extreme poverty. The Chigodi Women’s Centre is providing one goat each to twenty women in the first instance. When the goat has successfully produced kids (the average is four), the goat is passed on to another woman. They are hoping to benefit 550 families within 18 months.

In order to take part in the scheme the women first must have training in livestock management and how to construct a suitable shelter for the goats. The particular type of goat has been chosen because it is fast breeding and should start providing an income in a short time. Once the women have been given some economic stability, the money can be used to send children to school and improve the household.

As the article says, "Empowering women economically is tantamount to building the country. Women use the input invested in them to develop households, send children to school and help other vulnerable groups in the communities".

Plumpy'Nut the wonder food

Photo from Nicholas Reader/IRIN

Severe acute malnutrition kills an estimated one million children each year, according to UNICEF.

Plumpy'Nut is a nutritional product, a ready to use therapeutic food, designed to save the lives of starving children. The recipe was devised by André Briend, a paediatric nutritionist working in Malawi. He had attempted many different ways of providing enough nutrients to severely malnourished children without them having to be admitted to a treatment unit. The story goes that he had an inspiration when looking at a jar of Nutella, a chocolate spread.

After ten years of development, the product is now proving revolutionary. Its great advantages are:

• no water has to be added, reducing the risk of infection
• the child can stay at home even if hygeine conditions are not perfect
• it comes in foil covered bars or in plastic containers
• it can be stored in tropical conditions for 3 - 4 months
• it is palatable and soft
• can be eaten by children over 6 months of age
• children like it

And most of all, you have to love the name!

Full report from IRIN

Some better news from Malawi

Two reports from IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks - part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) and both have better news for Malawi

The first tells of a record maize harvest this year, which appears to be the result of the government subsidising the price of fertilizer by about 75%. This subsidy helps enormously except of course for the very poorest subsistence farmers. There are calls to provide fee fertilizer for this group, who often are looking after orphans as well as their own families. And no matter what the subsidy, lack of rain has caused a failing harvest in the Karonga district. There they need irrigation equipment.

The second report is about progress of fish farming in the southern countries of Africa which could be a good source of income and food. However most initiatives are hampered by lack of funds, skills and equipment. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, nearly half the fish eaten worldwide is farmed. As stocks of wild fish decline, there will be greater and greater demand for farmed fish.

Climate change affects us all

I have a bad habit of reading climate change reports and looking at how it will have an effect on my own life. But I live in a part of the world which could adapt: many don't.

ActionAid is an international agency fighting poverty in 42 countries worldwide. They have published a report that says climate change is being felt very acutely by some of the poorest communities. (The full report can be downloaded as a pdf file).

Of particular interest to me is the report, that in Malawi 90% of the 6.3 million living below the poverty line rely on subsistence farming to survive at all. They are already farming in fairly extreme conditions, so any changes in climate have considerable impact. They are themselves aware that their food production has decreased because of frequent flooding and drought.

1. They no longer know when is the best time to plant. The rainy season used to start in October but during the 70s started moving to November and now starts in December. They therefore ought to be using a fast-maturing crop to allow for the shorter season but
   privatisation of seed companies means that hybrids developed are too expensive for many.
2. The change in rainfall has caused an increase in certain diseases such as malaria, cholera and dysentry. It falls to the women to care for the sick, and this then prevents them working in the fields.
3. The floods and droughts happen more often, leaving little time to recover and adapt.
4. Deforestation is increasing and existing laws to control it are not being enforced.
5. The decrease in livelihood is forcing more people to look for work elsewhere, which in turn is forcing women into unsafe sex, thus increasing the risk of HIV/AIDS.

These findings are echoed by the IPCC (Intergoernmental Panel on Climate Change) report which is a pdf file of 23 pages. See also this IRIN report.