3/05 Two new feeding centers open
An exciting event in the Ministry of Hope took place in March with the opening of two new feeding programs in the villages of Chimwang’ombe and Khwamba (picture at right). This brings to five the total number of feeding programs in MoH.

To open a Ministry of Hope Feeding Center, the local chiefs must extend an invitation and the community must commit a sufficient number of volunteers to participate in the running of the program. MoH provides funding and organization to empower the village to help some of their most vulnerable children, their orphans. The needs of each village are different, so MoH works to customize each program to best address the needs of the specific community.

The first three months of 2005 were a particularly difficult time in Malawi due to a lack of rains that caused widespread crop failures. As communities came to the end of the harvest they had to look to other sources to feed their people, especially the large number of orphans.

In addition to starting a feeding program in Chimwang’ombe, MoH assisted in growing maize on three-and-a-half hectares and is working with the village to construct and organize a grain bank. The grain bank is a way for communities to make sure that there is grain available during the “starving time,” usually March through May, when food from the previous year’s harvest starts to run out.

In the village of Chimwang’ombe there are more than 500 children who have lost at least one parent. The Presbyterian church in the area offered the local Woman’s Guild Hall as the site for the feeding center and a house to be used for a center coordinator.

In 2004 MoH built a feeding center structure to provide a place to feed the 300 registered orphans in the Khwamba area and assisted in growing maize on three hectares. Feeding started in 2005. This community has also expressed a desire to partner with MoH to organize and construct a grain bank. To facilitate this partnership, the chiefs have agreed to provide half of the bricks that will be needed for construction.

A small feeding center building was completed in Katondo last year, but after several months of studying the needs of the surrounding villages, the ministry has agreed to also open a vocational and skill development center in the facility. More details on this are coming soon.