Friday 22 August 2014

Joshua’s Community Based Childcare Centres on film

It's the final video for this week, but this is where it all began for Joshua, with a Community Based Childcare Centre (feeding centre) in Pensulo.

We have now build 20 and still support ten of these with food, training for carers and equipment.

We feed around 1,000 vulnerable children Monday to Friday every week - now that is something to shout about.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

The Joshua Health Clinic




The construction of the Joshua clinic began in 2008. With local people working side by side with volunteers from the UK. The fantastic bunch of people involved included 45 Royal Bank of Scotland employees who not worked hard to complete the project from foundations to roof, but also helped raise over £60,000 to do so.

Their work was then supported by a number of smaller groups of Quest and Inspire volunteers who helped with the rendering, plastering, painting, and construction of the auxiliary buildings such as doctors housing.


In 2010 Joshua Orphan and Community Care opened its new maternity, HIV and health centre in Pensulo, serving a wide area and a population of over 40,000. The clinic provides expectant mothers with maternity services as well as treating common diseases such as malaria, pneumonia and HIV/AIDS. Previously the closest clinic had been 8 miles away in Blantyre – too far for people to
get to easily.


It also promotes family planning and acts as an education centre. In 2012 electricity reached the clinic after years of hard work and women no longer have to give birth by candlelight.


Over the years the clinic has proved to be a valuable lifeline to people living in this impoverished rural area.

Tuesday 19 August 2014

From the Questoverseas Summer Team

Thanks to Liz Munday for her update from Malawi, keep up the great work guys.

Achimwene!

Having finished our stay in Chillingani, we have just arrived in Pensulo. It was very sad to say goodbye to all of the wonderful children we got on so well with, and the rest of the community, but we have made great memories. We finished building the foundations and walls of the new headteacher's office and staffroom after much hard work and lots of fun and laughter, this was a great achievement. We hope it will be a huge benefit to the teachers.

We also began to refurbish another of the school buildings so it can become a library and we donated a few books at the closing ceremony along with a full netball kit. Alongside the building work and playing with the children we donated plastic sheeting to an elderly lady to help waterproof the roof on her 6 foot by 6 foot mud hut "house".

We struck up a great relationship with the children. Whether it was a game of football dutifully refereed by Alex and Ed or a game of netball with the girls (with some dubious rules) the children were constantly laughing and smiling- trying on our sunglasses, carrying our water bottles and taking countless photos, which we will bore you with soon. They certainly made our stay fun and incredibly exciting, if not very tiring; hence the 8.30 bed times!

Now we have just begun our time in Pensulo our joy to be here is as strong as ever, and we our excited to start our next project, refurbishing a feeding centre amongst other things. We cannot wait to begin the new project and the second half of our trip. We are having so much fun in this amazing country!

Tionana!

Hello from Malawi!!

Almost into our last week of Malawi and we are all still having an amazing time! We have almost finished refurbishing the feeding centre and its kitchen and the boys have been keeping up their carpentry skills with refurbishing the desks for the primary school. The villagers are extremely friendly and always try their best with speaking English to us and trying to teach us Chichewa as well. Ida is cooking us some traditional African dishes such as nsima, veg and kidney beans and even being treated to mandasi which has been going down a treat.

Last Sunday we climbed Michiru Mountain, so an early start was in order to climb to the peak before the hot midday sun was out. The climb was tiring but the view at the top was completely worth it with a stunning bird's eye view of Blantyre and other villages – we could even see Chilingani in the distance! This week has mainly consisted of painting and liming the feeding centre and in our spare time creating educational posters on important issues such as: HIV/AIDS, health and hygiene, Malaria and the benefits of staying in school.

The plan for next week is to spend the first few days decorating the interior of the feeding centre with things such as the alphabet and numbers and then rounding off the end of the week and our time in Malawi with a trip to Lake Malawi for a relaxed few days before flying back home.

Wednesday 13 August 2014

Last day in Manyenje

Muli Bwanji, Kitty and Edapp here,

Last day in Manyenje and by Jove the feels! A couple of the gang, (really just 3, Kitty, Edapp and Lizzie) were told sunrise was at 5.30, so therefore we promptly set our alarms for 4.45AM. The deceit was crushing. A lovely breakfast was prepared, by Rachel and Jess. At this point - 2 hours later might we add - the sun decided to rise, and we all got to bask in the sunrise, not just the three who took the effort to wake up before the crack of dawn - not bitter at all.
Even our new friend the goat, got to experience the sun's glorious rays before it was slaughtered. It was a very emotional event, but the few who witnessed it appreciated the significance of it and fully grasped the concept of this aspect of the Malawian culture. It was then taken away to be prepared for a grand feast, that we would have for lunch, fit for a chief (because the chief was actually there).
Before lunch we split into 2 groups. Half started packing, which was strange as it dawned on us that we are leaving Manyenje very soon. The other half ploughed onwards to complete the wall by the tyre playground and finished painting the number and letter boards for the classroom. We swapped between these jobs until lunch where we dressed to the nines in our suave sarongs and Inspire t-shirts.

We then marched into the feeding centre where were met by esteemed colleagues of the community. It was a truly special moment and we felt honoured. Then it was time to prepare ourselves, emotionally and physically, for the...closing ceremony. We were joined by chiefs of neighbouring villages, 300+ village folk and the National Malawian News crew. We were presented with a platter of delicious dances, songs and speeches galore along with our contribution of our song Mayenje Dreaming *copyright*. The crowd went wild when we pretended to pray. They lapped it up. We also performed a 5 star performance of "A Typical Working Day in Manyenje" (Catchy we know), which was a mixed group of TGS gals and the Manyenje Youth Group. There was also a debut performance by the new hit band KAMP. (Kitty, Alexander, Mairi and Pao two local boys...watch out parents). It was heartbreaking to then say our final "Topita". For the slackers who haven't done their research that means "Goodbye".
We then headed back to the compound with the children beating on the straw walls chanting with their hoarse voices, "Tionana". Young, our Rastartist (Rasta + Artist = Rastartist) presented us with our hand crafted, one of a kind t-shirts x 20, which we lovingly shared with our leaders, Gemma and George, Stevie and Dorcas. Our eyes welled up when Young had to leave, with his sack on his shoulder, a tear in his eye and a goatee on his face to meet with his fellow Rastas in the fields. Proper tears ploppin. We then had a nutritious meal of rice cake, bread slice (note the singular form), hot chocolate and butter. In that order.
We are now caught up in real time and now writing in future time as we attempt an all nighter seizing every opp. When in Africa. We've decided that we prefer Manyanje instead of England and we are disappointed that we have to return "home". Stevie tells us that we are now full Malawians speaking in our native Chichewa tongue. Get practicing guys.
Peace and glove, keep it real
xoxo Gossip Girl

Just kidding it's Kitty and Erin.

Friday 8 August 2014

Last day on site!

Today's update comes from George and Gem...

Today was Team 3's last full day on the project site. The group made excellent progress today, finishing liming inside the standard 1 classroom, which looks beaut. The building has really come together, with half of the roof now on.
The team have also been working hard on their educational games boards, which are now nearly done.
A few last minute touches will be followed by tomorrow's handover ceremony with the community. 
Both the community and the team are buzzing with excitement for tomorrow's festivities!
More tomorrow!
 
Fancy volunteering with Joshua in Malawi? Click here to find out how.

Thursday 7 August 2014

All work and no play?

Hey there Caitlyn and Hannah here.

Started the day with a wonderful breakfast: porridge, scrambled eggs, tomatoes and bread cooked by Flora, Rachel and Hannah.

Half the team stayed in the compound working on home improvements in the morning, the other half went to the project site to landscape for the terraced garden.

Unfortunately our washing up sink stone filtration system was all clogged up and it took our team a long time to rebuild it!

Fortunately our tyres arrived today so we were able to finish the tyre playground much to everyone's excitement.

A super lunch was then followed by a second coat on the toilets and a lot of rock collection for the playground. Also some of us got creative with local artist Yeung.

Whilst the rest of the team retired for showers, some of the team worked with the Manyenje youth group to create a drama ready for the ceremony on Tuesday.

Lydia, Lizzie and jess prepared a tasty treat of veggie burgers for dinner which filled us all up.

Stars today are:
Jemima
Lizzie

Monday 4 August 2014

Pink toilets make their mark in Malawi

Hi from Jess and Flora.

Had another sunny day no rain :).

Breakfast was porridge, made slightly more exciting by the addition of golden syrup! We split into two teams; Jess's team stayed on site to finish plastering the school and Erin unfortunately suffered an assault from flying mortar (now fully recovered as Jem managed to wash the plaster out of her hair).

After breaking for mandazis, at which point George introduced the revaluation of peanut butter and jelly as a topping, we proceeded to paint the boots toilet block bright pink (we were aiming for peach, but with only red and white paint, our options were limited).

Flora's team set off to Mwandika, a neighbouring village, to visit the feeding centre where we played with the children, taught them some English and maths and then helped dish out the porridge.

We arrived back in time for lunch, regrouped and then made our way to the brick farm where we worked with some kids in a brick line.

After showers back at base Rachel and Ellie got to work cooking a delicious dinner whilst some of us went out to play football and netball with some of Manyenje youth-we got thrashed but everyone had fun..

We finished the day with pasta bolognase, enjoyed by all.

Stars today:

Caitlin for smiling and helping all day long.

Jess for helping others and grafting hard

Jump Rope and the Wisdom Tree

Kitty and Ez here.

Woke everyone up this morning with some circle of life.

This morning we did some liming and bonded with chief Manyenjes son, the other team were plastering. We stopped for mandazis and tea, the women from the community joined us and we learned about jump rope. We were really bad at it!

Then we did some brick lining with some massive motivational tunes ;)

Delicious lunch- guess what not nsema as we were expecting. After that we headed to the famed wisdom tree, which was really peaceful looking out over Manyenje and appreciating it's natural beauty Malawi style.

Then we headed to kachumbe feeding centre to meet with the local youth group, it was very special meeting people our own age. And we played an entertaining game of netball - Manyenje and tgs mixed teams.

After a sorrowful but elated goodbye from our new friends, we skipped down a massive hill with Stevie leading the way, leaping like gazelles.

Then we had a lovely dinner of Indian curry African stylee.

Stars:
Lydia - endless enthusiasm
Ellie - making a massive effort to make new friends in the group and community.

Peace and glove xoxo