January - February 2012
Wow the year is starting off great in so many respects!
As you can see from the photos we are very excited by the many successes of the children on the Chiphonde programme. Susan is an 8 year old girl though you would never think so if you saw her! She has been malnourished for a long time and her growth and development has been stunted. She lives in a rural village outside of Lilongwe where there is no access to rehabilitation services. Her mother heard about COPBT and came to our centre in Area 25. Susan was assessed for the nutrition programme and was found to be moderately to severely malnourished. She started on the Nutrition Programme and the Chiphonde programme in October.
Chiphonde is a locally available fortified peanut butter paste. Children on the Nutrition programme get 4.5 kilograms of a maize soya porridge to eat at home every 2 weeks. On the Chiphonde programme children who are moderately to severely malnourished also get 1 packet of Chiphonde a day. Together this has made a huge impact on Susan’s life. She now has the energy she needs to allow her to participate in therapy. She is attending the Outreach clinic a little closer to her home and working on learning how to walk. She is able to walk using a walking frame. Keep up the good work! Susan’s mother walks over 1 hour to bring her to the outreach clinic and farther than that to reach our centre in Area 25. Such dedication!
In February we restarted the Bible Club with a group of students from the African Bible College. So far it has been a great success. Our clients loved the interaction. All of the students are Malawian and are therefore able to communicate well with the kids. As you can see from the smiles they really enjoyed the lesson!
In February we also started the newest outreach clinic at Blessings Hospital in Lumbadzi. The first clinic had only 1 child as many of our clients from this area do not have cell phones so we could not let them know we were starting up the clinic. However by the second clinic there were 11 clients, 8 of which were new and there continues to be a great response every clinic. We are excited to hear that many of the clients heard about us from their church and from the local health centre as well as from clients that had attended the week before. These clients are so happy to be able to bring their children for therapy. Lumbadzi is over 30 kilometers away from our centre and most of them simply could not afford to pay for transportation to bring the child regularly for therapy and it was too far to walk. Now the children will be able to get regular therapy. Another new change for us in 2012 is the starting of the Child Care Plus programme sponsored by the Emergency Relief and Development Organization (ERDO) of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC).
This is a child sponsorship programme which offers assistance to vulnerable children . They are coming alongside us to help our children, coming from homes that are affected by poverty which prevents the children from getting the things they need—like nutritious food, medical care, the chance to go to preschool and school. If you are interested in learning more about this programme check out their website at www.erdo.ca and follow the link to Child Care Plus (CCP).
The only area we are struggling with in 2012 is finding the funding to sustain our many programmes especially for paying salaries for our staff. We have raised funds for most of our grass roots workers for the year and have 6 months for the professional staff members but are still looking for 6 more months salary for them and current working expenses. If you would like to help please contact us . We would love to hear from you!