OUR WORK

God Cares has been active in the community, running Covid events and distributing hand washing materials. In addition, our Pass the Pigs program has been expanded with more people being taken through the training program. You can read more about our activity here.

God Cares pays school fees for 30 Secondary School students and one at Ekewendeni College of Health Sciences. For every scholarship we have more than ten applicants. We do this in order to help poor families break out of the poverty cycle.  

Case Study of Loncy Honde

Loncy Honde, a 44 years old mother of 6 children divorced in 2013 left with all children for her. She is staying in a rented house in the location of Chibanja under Block Leader Msukwa. Moses Langa is the third born son of Loncy Honde, who is benefiting from Egmont Trust Project. Moses Langa is a Form 1 male students at Chibavi Community Day Secondary School. Moses is a 15 years old vulnerable child living with his mother in the location.She lost her first born daughter to early marriage at the age of 16. The second born daughter to Loncy who is 18 years old dropped out of school due to lack of school fees. The family is food insecure, in deep poverty, does not own a piece of land, renting a two-bedroom small house beside a river which makes the members prone to malaria attack.

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God Cares Rights Foundation with funding from Egmont Trust England is implementing a 1 year vulnerable children and street connected children project in the city of Mzuzu. The aim to improve access and uptake of quality health and education services for marginalised children in City. The project is implemented in Chibavi Education zones targeting school learners from 3 schools of Chibavi Community Day Secondary School, Chibavi Primary School and Chibanja Primary school. It is aimed at giving equal chance to children who were found in the street vending and begging during classes.

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The project supports the national goal through empowering and equipping communities in Chibavi education zone in Mzuzu City, Mzimba District in Northern Malawi to protect 150 children (80 girls and 70 boys) from social and economic practices that deny them their rights to quality health and education putting them at risk of poverty, HIV infection and other associated health risks. Most of the street children are pushed to streets when their basic needs like food, shelter, education, medical care, protection and security are neglected. While in streets, these children are at a high risk of being infected and affected with HIV/AIDS due to their vulnerability as most adults take advantage of the situation to sleep with them (defilement) without even using any protection. Some children are into drug and substance abuse, forced child marriages and other forms of child abuse.

“I thank God for the assistance provided to me and my family. I am not recognised in the community as a human being following my vulnerability. I lost my two daughters to early marriages because of poverty and with God Cares Rights Foundation would have been saved them. I was hearing people being considered with different assistances in the location helping their children to stay in schools, but my name was a shadow. Therefore, with the assistance made by the organisation has brought a big change in my family. All toils I was going through have been reduced like fetching food to feed my family will now be relived through the pig after selling its piglets, currently am using pig manure for my vegetables. The vegetable farming has started to make my family benefit in terms of food as well as sales though at a small scale. Pig farming will be a sustainable means of chasing out poverty in my family whereby even the younger brothers and sisters of Moses will benefit economically and for food. May God bless those who support us to continue and extend their support to others”. Said Loncy Honde.

We provide testing of primary and secondary school students through Ministry of Healh personel  through Mzuzu Central Hospital.

For students who test positive we offer counselling and support. 

We target orphans, street youths and other vulnerable children from Mzuzu and Ekwendeni. 

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We currently work with 120 out of 350 identified teenagers. They train in co-horts of 40 at a time. Our first co-hort has completed half of their course and are about to go for their attachments. 

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These students are trained in carpentry, joinery, electrical installation and plumbing. The students attend a 7 month vocational training course at Ekwendeni Lay Training Centre.

Each student costs 110 Euro for fees.

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We expect all of the students to be able to find useful work at the end of this training and a qualified carpenter may be able to earn 50,000 Kwacha a month (£60) as an employee.  

We provide food support for 50 students at the blind school. We provide counselling and guidance on HIV and AIDs, menstrual hygiene, the importance of education and their rights and entitlements. 

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We are also engaged in farming for family economic support. We have a ‘pass the pigs’ program where we train families to build stys and look after 2 pigs.

When the pigs have piglets the first two are passed onto another family in the community, and so the cycle of community benefit grows organically. 

We are supporting 30 families in Mzuzu. Each family has received training along with one pig and seed for a vegetable garden.

This means families can feed themselves and also grow produce for sale. When there are piglets these are passed on to expand the program.

In the first year we also provide school fees, uniforms and writing material, however, in subsequent years the intervention means the families are able to pay for these items themselves. 

Uchizi Academy is a primary school in Ekwendeni. It is located behind Ekwendeni New Market. It was opened in 2016 by Agnes Mughogho after her retirement as a secondary school teacher. It was opened as a response to help children from low income families and orphans to have quality education with English as code of communication. In Malawi, all primary school leaving certificate subjects are examined in English except one which is in local language, yet many government primary schools teach most of the subjects in local language which makes it difficult for learners to understand English when it comes to primary school leaving examinations. Many fail to be selected to conventional secondary schools instead they go to night schools where very few make it to universities. Many learners who do not understand English better are disadvantaged and most of them are those from poor families whose parents are not able to help their children to speak English at home, they are the same parents who fail to send their children to private primary schools where mode of communication is English because they fail to find the big amount of school fees required.

Many parents who have good income send their children to private primary schools where the mode of communication is English, their children completes their education successfully. Parents with low income have the desire to send their children there, but fail due lack of fees which such schools demand. Uchizi came as a solution, it came to bridge the gap, it offers quality excellent standard of education with English as its mode of communication just like those high paying schools but at a low amount of fees which parents/guardians from low income families manage to pay. The small fees they pay are for paying teachers, buying learning materials, paying utility bills and other small school expenses. The fees charged exclude big expenses such as construction. Uchizi management believes that education is the key to success which is the right to every child including those from poor families. We also believe that offering quality education to children from poor families’ means helping to break poverty circle in such families. 

This strategy helps to offer equal education opportunities to learners from low income families, breaking poverty circle in the process.