Stories and News

Born in 1963, Alaina John is a mother of 7 but takes care of 6 children, 4 of her own and 2 grandchildren. Alaina was born in Mangochi District but her parents moved to Salima while she was still young. Alaina has never been to school. She does piece work to support her family. The house they were living in was very small and it gave them trouble during rainy seasons as rain water could go into the house through the roof. “Even when wild winds came, I was very worried as I often thought my house would blow off and cause injuries to me and my children,” she explained. Alaina is so excited about the new house and is looking forward to occupying it as her previous housing problems will be over because of the new house she will be living in. she wishes she could be assisted to start a business although she is a little older to be doing the business herself. She could rely on her 21 year old daughter to be helping her with that if they had enough funds to start a business. Alaina is grateful to the people who have supported her with the new house, both Habitat for Humanity Malawi and the Global Village volunteers who came to build the house for her. Life will never be the same for Alaina, her children and grandchildren.

Violet Kamfunseni is a 32-year-old woman who was born at Mpanje Village under Traditional Authority Kalonga in Salima district. She is a mother to 6 children namely: Patuma Banda aged 12, Chisomo Bulazilu aged 11, Emelles Jonas aged 10, Robert Nkhaliramo aged 8, Tomas Banda aged 4 and Rashida Banda aged 1. The parents of Violet originated from Salima and they all died sometime back. Violet has 4 sisters and one brother. She did her primary school for one year at Chikombola School. Violet dropped out because of lack of school fees. While at school she wanted to obtain some vocation skills when she finished basic education to help her generate income to provide for her daily needs. Violet has three wishes for her life and her family. Firstly, she wishes if she could have adequate food to feed her family all year round. She says she usually has to skip some meals to make sure that the family has something for the next day. Secondly, she wishes to have better clothes for her and her family to wear. Some of her children have torn clothes which makes her so sad. She would love to have soap to use for washing the clothes too. Thirdly, she wishes to have good beddings and mats to sleep on at night. During the winter season she and her children suffer a lot trying to keep warm and the beddings and mats would go a long way in changing that. Violet thanks Touchstone on behalf of her 6 children for changing her housing condition from a dilapidated house to live in a decent house courtesy of the Touchstone CPS team that came to build for her. Her previous house was very small that one child slept at the grandmother’s house which is not any better. Violet lived in a one roomed house which was very small with a grass thatched roof, the floor was made using dirt, with no ventilation and walls built using unburnt bricks. The house that Touchstone is built for her is spacious, roofed with iron sheets, walls built using burnt bricks and floor made of cement. Her previous house collapsed because of rains when she had just moved into the new house. Violet is now able to provide better necessities for her children because the money she gets from doing piece works is sorely used to buy food and clothes and does not need to go into maintaining their house, something which was a problem in the past. Before After

Mtislidza, a slum in Lilongwe city is one of the poorest parts of the city. People live in slums characterized of poor water & sanitation facilities, no electricity and poor road network. Over decades, the health of the people dwelling in such parts of Lilongwe has been highly affected due to lack of safe drinking water facilities, sanitation facilities and poor hygiene due to open defecation and lack waste disposal system. HFH Malawi worked in collaboration with HFH Germany to improve the well-being of adolescent girls and residents living in Mtsiriza through its WASH project. Christina Namutwa, a beneficiary of the project is a single mother and guardian to 10 children. She was identified by the local Health officers and after going through the selection process she was chosen to be among the 37 beneficiaries of the Ecosan latrines that were constructed in Mtsilidza. In the rainy season her former toilet which she shared with her daughters’ household would get flooded and make it impossible to use the facility because it was at risk of collapsing inside. This led them to resort to either use the neighbor’s latrine or defecate in the open. This resulted in her family especially the young ones getting different diseases and infections most notably diarrhea and skin rash which was a big challenge for her because they skipped school and she had to buy medication from the pharmacy because the clinic nearby was usually out of medicine. “I want to thank Habitat for building me a toilet, I no longer have to live in shame because I did not have a decent facility. My children no longer get sick because of the risk the old toilet posed on their lives. Not only is the toilet beautiful but I can also harvest manure from it and use it in the field which will remove the burden of buying fertilizer every year.” Said Christina when she was interviewed The toilets have two chambers so when one is full, the other is used while the full one can be harvested for manure after six months. This means the problem of having to construct a latrine every time it gets full has been eliminated there by preserving land.