Activities

Vwira's Activities

Food supplements
Malawi is almost always ranked among the four poorest nations on earth. Malawi is the third most crowded country in Africa and there are more people than the land can support even in a non-drought year. So malnutrition is an enormous problem in Malawi. Currently, industrialized nations are donating anti-retroviral drugs to about one third of the people with HIV/AIDS in Malawi. However, these drugs are quite strong and they are toxic to malnourished people. So in order to be effective, people on such drugs need nutritional supplements to supplement their diets so that they can withstand the anti-retroviral drugs. Vwira gives a combination of maize flour and soy bean flour along with sugar to 10 adults with AIDS who suffer from malnourishment. They are looking much healthier now.

Blankets
Luwinga is at an elevation of about 4000 feet (1200 meters). During the winter, the temperature at night goes down to the high 30's and low 40's (5 - 7 Celsius). Most people live in mud huts with reed rooves. They cover the window and door openings with cardboard and sleep on a thin mat on the hard mud floor. They sleep under a thin piece of material, the thickness of a sheet. Vwira gives distributes blankets to the elderly, who have lost all of their children to AIDS and tuberculosis, who are the most at risk for pneumonia during the winter. A blanket and transportation costs under $8 and makes a large difference in the quality of life for an elderly person. In addition, many are caring for their orphaned grandchildren and so is even more important to keep them alive.

Educational outreach
Vwira has organized young people to go into each of the 22 villages that make up Luwinga to do educational outreach regarding HIV/AIDS. They use stories, songs and dance, which is most effective in this region. They teach about prevention, HIV testing, prevention of mother-to-child, the stigma against people with HIV/AIDS.

Tailoring training
Vwira finds orphans who are 18 or 19 years old, each of whom is supporting several younger siblings and is without work. Vwira hires an instructor to teach give them a six month course in tailoring. Then Vwira provides each of them with a sewing machine to start a business so that they can support their families. In the first cohort, ten orphans were trained and eight of them now have jobs as tailors. A second cohort will soon begin training.

Tin smith training
Vwira will soon begin training 18 to 20 year old orphans in tin smithing. This has lower costs for Vwira than tailoring training.