Spent the morning at Ripple Africa at Mwaye Beach and were
shown around a number of their environmental, educational and health projects
by the Assistant manager, Dan. It was fascinating
and inspiring but horrifying and depressing yet at the same time. For everyone that helped us raise money for
Ripple Africa thank you again. Hopefully we can give you some idea of the
amazing work that your donation are helping to fund -
Dan showed us how to build a Changu Changu Moto stove and we
saw in practice the benefit these can bring versus the traditional 3 stone open
fires which use huge amounts of wood and are seriously dangerous. Some 40000
make to date and a huge chain of people involved to persuade people to change
from their traditional 3 stone fires.
We also got shown around the tree planting nursery in which
they grow a variety of trees for distribution to local children (acacia and
fruit trees) and families to encourage them to understand the importance of
trees – deforestation is a massive issue in Malawi and even the brief time we
have been here we have been shocked by the extent of the issue.
From an educational project perspective, we visited one of
the pre-schools, a secondary school and the library that Ripple Africa is
supporting – they have paid for the buildings and fund the teachers and staff. We learned that the government is planning to
bring in payments for primary school pupils from January – it is currently free
so how this can be a positive move forward we cannot comprehend. Secondary school education already requires a
fee and less than 10% of children get such an education.
Finally we saw a few of the health initiatives, including
the dispensary that they have built and we visited two families with disabled
children. The first was a little lad of
two who has cerebral palsy – Ripple Africa fund a physiotherapist who visits
regularly but it is clear that being disabled is an unbelievably huge challenge
here.
We then visited a family with three children who have polio
– the result of no vaccination. Ripple
Africa have provided all three with wheelchairs, this has enabled the two
youngest, a 9 year girl and her 13 year old brother to go to school, both are
really happy to be able to go to school now.
They are both in primary class one which shows the impact of them not
being able to get to school previously.
Their elder sister is now 20 and is too old now to be able to go to school – she makes mats
which she sells so she is able to have some independence.
Visiting these projects really brought home to us, how lucky
we are to have the National Health Service and our education system, as
millions of people do not have the same opportunities for their health or
education which is a complete travesty.
After leaving Ripple Africa we headed south, stopping for
what we thought we be a quick lunch stop at the “M5 restaurant”. We ordered chicken and chips but when we
heard the fire being lit we knew we would have a bit of a wait! After an hour lunch arrived and it was really
good – worth the wait. We headed off to
Bua River Campsite in Nkhotakota Wildlife Park, following the Satnav and ended up turning up a very narrow
unsigned posted track which definitely tested the 4x4 capability of the “Thomson”
at one point! The campsite really feels
as though you are in the wilds of Africa – it is close to the river in the
trees and is extremely hot and humid.
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