JULY 2003
Malawi Investor Trip - Changing the Mindset is our Work
Report by Carol Coonrod
| I have just returned from Malawi where nine other investors and I had the
opportunity to experience the work of The Hunger Project (THP) first-hand. I’ve
been a part of THP for years as an investor and staff member, but I was not
prepared to be so deeply moved by the work of our partners in Malawi,
particularly Callista Chimombo, THP’s Country Director.
THP really does what we say it does - we change people’s mindsets from dependency and waiting for the rain or waiting for someone to do something, to discovering that they are the ones responsible for ending their own hunger. The vehicle for this transformation is our Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop (VCAW). We experienced the essence of THP as we observed Callista leading a VCAW, standing strongly in her commitment that the villagers discover that they are the ones who can and will end their hunger. Sometimes she goes back to a village 15-16 times, not stopping until she is clear that a sufficient number of the women and men are ready to take the actions that will lead to lives of self-reliance. |
Country director Callista Chimombo dances with women at Jali Epicenter. |
 |
We met one man who cultivated a small plot of land near his village, using a watering can to water his crops. Callista let him know that THP could provide a treadle-pump to be used at the near-by river for pulling water up through a tube for watering fields. She asked him if there was any land nearer the river where he could plant his maize. He found that there was, the treadle pump was provided, and he now heads a team of 9 farmers, each of whom have expansive plots of land and are growing enough maize to feed their families, with some left over to sell at the local market. |
|
One woman received a loan through THP’s African Woman Food Farmer Initiative (AWFFI). She used her loan money to purchase a young cow, which she “fattened” for about six months. She made enough money from the sale of her cow that she could have a brick house built for her family, replacing her mud hut with a straw roof. She pointed to the metal roof with great pride, and gave us a tour of her four-room house. One room is where she stores the extra maize from her garden to ensure that her family has enough to eat during the “lean months,” the period between harvests. |
 |
 |
We applauded women who stood up and spoke into microphones about the transformation in their lives as a result of an AWFFI loan to start a business - one spoke with great pride that she now has a bicycle and sleeps on a mattress. |
 |
| We viewed lush fields. We joined a human assembly line passing bricks from where they were drying in the sun to the kiln where they would be fired in preparation for the construction of an epicenter. |
|
We watched women carefully write answers to subtraction and addition problems on a blackboard - their school met under a tree and consisted of the blackboard, a teacher with a chair and a pointer, and paper text books that the women shared. Many of the women had babies on their backs or in their laps while they concentrated on their lessons.
I know that we will succeed in our mission of ending hunger, and I am very clear that the women on the front lines in places like Jali and Nchola Epicenter in Malawi are leading the way. They have experienced what it means to become self-sufficient and able to feed their children. I returned from Malawi with my heart wide open, humbled and proud of my African sisters - and the men who stand with them - and of my Hunger Project. View more photos from the trip Read more reflections from trip: Carol Coonrod, Mariana Maddocks |
 |