Fight The Famine

Through the hardship of the recent 2016 drought in southern Malawi, the Chifunga community have struggled to harvest their season's crops, and are now struggling to feed their families. For many, it has become a choice of providing food for their families or maintaining their child's education.

When asked during class what a father's role in the family was, one 14 year-old girl replied "stealing food for the family" in an all-too-serious tone.

This caught our attention, and we hope it catches yours too.

FightTheFamine is a project we have set up to eradicate hunger and improve the quality of education in the under-developed school of Chifunga Community Day Secondary School of 300 students.

We have three key objectives:

1. Decrease absenteeism from school due to hunger.

2. Decrease drop out rates from school due to family's financial insecurities.

3. Increase concentration levels in class based on end-of-term school grades.

In conjunction with these targets, we aim to decrease the school drop-out rates of girls due to teenage pregnancies, already reaching a peak of 34 this academic year (13.05.16).

In order to achieve our desired objectives, we have set up The Porridge Project. We are feeding the 300 students of Chifunga CDSS soya porridge each day in order to sustain their abilities and allow them to reach their full potential in the classroom. So far through the help of generous donors, we have constructed a kitchen-shed for the preparation of the porridge; purchased all cooking equipment required, including two 120L pots and stoves; transported one tonne of firewood to the preparation site; enabled a small token of appreciation of $20 each per month to the four women who cook and prepare the food each day; ensured the safety of the storage room by fixing a security door on it; and purchased 1000kg of soya flour. Each day, one 25kg bag of the flour is used and prepared to feed the kids. We have estimated that it will cost us around $6,500 to sustain this initiative each year.

As well as this, we are paying the school fees of 150 students for the next academic year of 2016-17. As it only costs $15 to send one student to school for a whole year, we are hoping to raise $2,250 in order to achieve this.

Not only do many students have to walk for up to 4 hours to receive their education, many leave after the first few hours due to lack of teachers who are on an extremely low wage and suffer from hunger themselves. In response to this issue, the teachers of Chifunga CDSS also receive a portion of the porridge, sustaining them throughout their working day and improving the education of the students.

The community of Chifunga, but particularly the students of Chifunga CDSS, are extremely grateful to the donors and supporters of FightTheFamine. We would like to extend our gratitude to all involved in sustaining this project, and look forward to continuing to work with you to FightTheFamine together.

If you would like to be kept up-to-date on key information surrounding the project, please follow us on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/FightTheFamine2016/

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