Dedza District, Malawi … The question poses all kinds of thought and response:

    “I might for a few feet.”

    “I might if the ground were level.”

    The problem comes when one realizes these conditions cannot be met.

    Sandida needs to be able to go far greater distances than just a few feet. She is now too heavy for her aged mother to carry, and the ground is seldom level enough for anyone to carry a heavy load very far without falling. Yet, it has been the plight of Sandida’s mother and family for weeks, months and in fact, for years.

    Sandida Boko is 18 years old, and comes from Nkutu village, Traditional Authority Kamenyagwaza in Dedza District, Malawi. She was a normal child until 1999 when she was attacked by epilepsy. It resulted in periodic impairment of consciousness, and this was accompanied by convulsions. Overtime, she lost her ability to walk. She was relying on her mother (the lady in a blue and gold shawl with one side of her face swollen in the picture) and her young sisters and brother to move around.

    In a nation where the average person walks 10-miles a day it is nearly impossible to get around if you cannot walk. There are no sidewalks anywhere in the Dedza district. There are almost no paved roads, outside of M-1 and one road that goes over toward the lake well south of the Trading Center. And there is no way to get around in the village, seldom even a bicycle that can supply transportation to a crippled 18-year-old.

    No wonder the gift from the Free Wheelchair Mission to the Malawi Project and on to the Dzidalire Community Development Agency for delivery to Sandida and her family was such a fantastic gift to the entire family.

    When Sandida’s mother received the wheelchair from the Dzidalire Community Development Agency she was very excited and full of praise of the Malawi Project which donated the wheelchairs. She said, “Sandida was getting too heavy for her and her other children to carry around. Sandida will from now on be able to move around on her own. She will be able to go out and mix or play with her friends on her own.  May God bless the donors of the wheelchair.”
 

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    Like many parts of Malawi, the area around Thondwe (in the southern part of the nation) is extremely rich with natural resources. Trees, hills, animals, water, and much more are all naturally a part of daily life for the people around Thondwe and the Namikango Mission and Maternity Hospital. The possession of the V-Tractor has added another water resource use.  Bordering the Mission to the north is the Naiwale River. It serves as the line of demarcation between the Mission and the villages to the north. The river meanderers inside the Mission’s forests and has a long life due to the shady cover over it. Out in the open areas it losses much of its water through evaporation. Here in the shade of the forests it provides the precious commodity to surrounding community for domestic purposes.

    In addition to providing water for domestic purposes the river is also a source of water for Mission’s irrigation plot. With its large water tank attached, the V-tractor is able to pump enough water into its tank and irrigate the land in far less time than people could manually do on the same distance and time. Lying approximately one kilometer from the river, the irrigation plot serves as a demonstration plot for high yield maize varieties to the community around the Mission.

    The V-tractor, a brain child of Americans Tom Rich and Richard Stephens, is proving its full effectiveness in cost and time reduction, while at the same time increasing the results of its labor in the fields. So far, it has proved effective in tilling and irrigating the field with great ease.  In line with the Malawi government’s top most priority area of focus, which is increasing Agricultural production, the tractor is expected to improve yield production directly or indirectly. Indirectly because, with the winter cropping conducted at the Mission, many people will learn how to cultivate, and to plant high yield maize varieties that will go a long way in adding food production to the country.

    The pictures are not for show. It is a V-tractor at hard at work on a sunny Wednesday morning with the machine going about its normal duty. Pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists all paid a great deal of attention because, to many of them, this was the first time to see such a tractor. A farmer at a nearby garden from where water for irrigation was being pumped asked where could access such a tractor. He was totally surprised with such a machine, when he learned it could be used for both tilling and irrigating the field.

- Wilson Isaac Tembo

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It has been said, “Disability is not inability.” I am sure this is a very motivating statement that disabled people are excited to hear. However, think of the other side of this thought. Think of a young girl in a very remote village of the southern part of a small country like Malawi who has both legs and hands paralyzed.  Who can foresee any ability in such a child to attend classes without support? What ability can come out of such a child if she is not given a hand in the absence of both parents, while old grandparents are raising her while at the same time they themselves depend on people’s handouts.
If you were to go through the small hut village of Majawa west of Namikango Mission, in traditional Authority Mulumbe-Malawi, you would find young Enelesi, sitting on the ground in the sun. This is not by her desire. It is because her disability has brought inability. 
Enelesi was born in the family of Mr. & Mrs. Webu 22 years ago. She was healthy, charming, and intelligent. Like most children she enjoyed life with her father and mother for the seven years.  Then her father divorced her mother. Enelesi started school, but unexpectedly and unpredictably both of her legs were paralyzed. Shortly after both of her hands followed suit. As if that was not enough, both parents passed away starting with her father in the year 1994 and her mother in October, 2008. This left her with only her grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Pirato. The old fellow could not manage carrying young Enelesi to school after all of the efforts to treat her proved futile.
When the news of Enelesi’s suffering reached Namikango Mission I paid a surprise visit to her one Tuesday afternoon and brought mobility means, a new wheelchair that had only recently arrived at the mission.
Like water under a growing plant reaching out to put down roots, aid from the Malawi Project is reaching to the furthest tip of communities where the actual need is. To Enelesi, disability had proved to be inability. She could not attend classes, no church services, no socializing with friends; she was slowly and surely becoming idle each passing day. Perhaps for some disability means inability, it is untrue in this case. Now Enelesi can attend classes, church services and many other activities.
With a broad smile that reveals the excitement inside her, Enelesi shows how happy she is when I moved her around her home yard in the new wheelchair.  “The only thing that Enelesi has been able to do when she needs something is to cry out. She cannot speak now,” her grandmother told me. She further said, “Now Enelesi will be going to Church where in the past, some of the  members from her church had to come here for prayers on Sundays.” Enelesi’s grandmother ran out of words as she witnessed Enelesi’s spiritual life opening up again. It is written, “Helping to change the Nation” and “Serving the World” in the Mission Statements of the Malawi Project and the Free Wheelchair Mission. This can be witnessed in a small country of Malawi with Enelesi Webu.

WILSON ISAAC TEMBO
For: Namikango Mission

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Cheats Death

Going Outside After 22 Years

    Ntcheu, Malawi … It made national news in one of the leading newspapers in the tiny African nation of Malawi. The front-page headline seemed to scream for attention, “Death Cheat – Bed Ridden for 22 years.” Farther inside a nearly full page leads off with the headline, “Ntcheu lady sees light after 22 years.” What is it that calls for such bold headlines, and such a touching story of hope and success? The story finds its origin in a working relationship between the Malawi Project, the Free Wheelchair Mission, and in this case, the Kuthandiza Osayenda Disability Outreach (KODO) operations in Salima, Malawi.

    The story began when a recent shipment of 550 all terrain wheelchairs were shipped to Malawi, thanks to supporters with the Free Wheelchair Mission and the Malawi Project. A portion of this shipment was earmarked for distribution through (KODO) in Salima, a support facility for the disabled that is helping bring various forms of mobility and independence to people who cannot get a start for themselves.

    Meanwhile in a village area far to the south of Salima in the Ntcheu District lived a woman who had been bed ridden for 22 years because of her disability and the fact that there was no one to take her outdoors. Twenty-two years locked in the invisible prison walls of a single, tiny bedroom. Twenty-two years of never seeing friends walking within just feet of the outside of your tiny hut. Twenty-two years of never watching a sunrise or sunset, or even breathing in the fresh air that drifted so very near to her confined dark hut.

    George Banda, the administrator of KODO writes, “In spite of her own disability Dorothy traveled 400 kilometers in order to pick up a wheelchair when they arrived in Salima, and return with it to the small village.”

     Now it is possible for her to greet friends as they pass the front door, sunrise and sunset have returned to being part of her life, and she can now see and feel the gentle breezes that wisp past her hut,. All of this is now reality because a number of people combined their resources to bring mobility into her life.

    One can no longer wonder why the newspaper headlines seemed to scream out such a wonderful, inspiring success story.

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Help Needed to Build Safe Kitchen

At First It Looked Like Rubbish

    Thondwe, Malawi… From a distance it almost looks like a pile of metal stacked up near a clearing waiting to be thrown away. But as one walks along the path near the Namikango Maternity Clinic, and reaches a point near the rusted metal panels, it is obvious that it is something more than a pile of rubbish. It is actually a kitchen for the guardians of hospital patients to use for cooking meals for their relatives who are patients in the hospital. Because of so many more critical needs for the funding that is always in short supply (and especially so during this economic downturn) the “kitchen” is in last place when it comes to repair. In order to assist with the funds to construct a new kitchen the Malawi Project is giving this report. It is important to realize how little it will take to help the people who spend days at the clinic caring for relatives who cannot care for themselves. Mark Thiesen, the American administrator at the Mission writes,

    “One courtesy offered by Namikango Maternity Clinic, that we often fail to mention, is the accommodation we provide for family members of patients. Like our other services, room and board is free for people who come to take care of their mothers, wives, and daughters during their stay in the clinic. They look after their loved ones’ needs during this period. One of the most important of these needs is cooking their meals for them.”

    Mark continues, “As our facilities continue to age, the kitchen used for this purpose has deteriorated to such a degree that its very stability is now threatened. The structure’s supporting beams have decayed to such a point that the kitchen presents a real danger to the family members who have come to help our patients. The kitchen must be rebuilt if we are to provide a safe decent environment for our visitors.  At a cost of $3,614.00 we can totally rebuild it to continue serving the people of our community with confidence.”

See More Photos: Click HERE

Or Mail Contributions can also be mailed to:

Malawi Project – Namikango Kitchen Fund
12526 Clearview Lane
Indianapolis, IN  46236

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Wheelchair Arrives for Bicycle Repairman

    Mukuti Village, Malawi… Ndiche Kosa is from the village of Mukuti 1 in Senga Bay, Malawi. He is a bicycle repairman, and he has been paralyzed from the waist down for as long as he can remember. One can hardly imagine the feeling each time he repairs a bicycle for someone, then watches them ride away free to ride and explore the world while he remains confined by his disability.

    When Samantha Ludick and her staff at the Clinic at the Gate and Cool Runnings Resort on Lake Malawi presented Ndiche with a brand new wheelchair he was all smiles. It was a gift from the Malawi Project and the Free Wheelchair Mission.

    One of the staff members questioned the big smile that seemed to spread across his entire face.

    “Why do you smile so big, it is only a wheelchair,” he asked? It was easy for them to say; they have legs and can get around.

    Ndiche responded, " Today is my happiest day. I have been fixing bicycles for people in my village for many, many years, yet I have never been able to ride a bicycle. If I were to want to go some place I would have to have to wait for my son, brother or neighbor to assist me. Now today THANK YOU to Free Wheelchair Mission, Malawi project and ‘miss Cool’ I will be able to get myself to where ever I wish to go. This makes me very happy, this is why I smile so big. ZIKOMO.”

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    Salima, Malawi… Just east of the central portion of the Salima Trading Center in Malawi, Africa stands Kuthandiza Osayenda Disability Outreach, or KODO. It is a humanitarian organization that has been formed with the purpose and focus of helping those with physical disabilities. George Banda, a victim of a physical handicap that has plagued him since birth, operates the facility. Instead of succumbing to his problems George has worked to overcome them. He has not only provided for himself and his family, but has worked diligently to assist others with physical disabilities through the organization he founded for this purpose, KODO.

    Today KODO is training a number of Malawians with physical disabilities in various ways they can become self sufficient and self-supporting through the learning of trades that will provide them with an income.

    In a recent shipment of 550 wheelchairs, that included a number designated for distribution through KODO, the assembly of the chairs were carried out by those with physical handicaps themselves, again reflecting a pattern of Malawians doing what they can do for themselves and the Malawi Project assisting in areas they cannot achieve without outside assistance.

    Pictured are George Banda, President of KODO, some of the workers working inside the facility near Salima, and workers with disabilities, putting together new wheelchairs for others with disabilities.

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Ishmael Tchale Can Dream Great Dreams

Mwale Village, Malawi… The new school year is beginning, and children in western nations often start it with moans and complaints. For them summer is over, and it is time to get up at the break of dawn, gather up their homework, and head out the front door toward the school classroom.

In tiny Mwale Village, Malawi 10-year-old Ishmael Tchale is not complaining about going to school. In fact he is excited with the opportunity. He was disabled by malaria when he was a young baby. Like most Malawi children he loves to go to school. There they learn and grow and have the opportunity to move into good jobs as teachers, business people, medical people and other areas where they can raise a family in a better environment than their parents have been able to accomplish. Education is their only hope for a better future, and like his friends, young Tchale is aware of this fact. Too, he likes to go fishing with his friends at the river near his home, but with his condition he has been unable to do either of these. There can be no dreams for a crippled boy in this impoverished nation of 13,000,000 people. Over 90% of the people live in tiny, remote, mud-hut villages, and the average income means the village family of a child like Tchale will not earn enough money in their entire lifetime to be able to purchase one single wheelchair.

But now all of this has changed, thanks to the arrival of 550 wheelchairs to Malawi, from the Free Wheelchair Mission, and Malawi Project. Ishmael is the proud recipient of a nice, new, shiny all terrain wheelchair. Now he can go to school every day, not just on the days when someone would carry him the 2.5 kilometers to the school. Now he can dream great dreams about his future. Now he can go down to the river and fish with his friends. His friends are happy too, since to have him with them while they fish they do not have to carry him on their backs.

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    Indianapolis, IN …  In recent weeks three members of the Malawi Project Board of Directors have made important and valuable trips to Malawi. In early July Suzi Stephens, the Medical Director of the Project was requested to come to Malawi in order to extend medical care to Mama Cecelia Kadzamira after she under foot and ankle surgery. During her visit Suzi was also able to make contact with a number of the program directors that oversee some of the various programs the Project is supporting.

    Later in the month Jim Dillinger and Mike Ferris made a trip to Malawi to continue the contacts with the various programs, and wrap up more of the details for finalization of the property deed for the Sunset International School extension that will be established in the Dedza District in central Malawi.

    Earlier in the year members of the board, who also serve on the Board of Directors for the upcoming international school, held extensive meetings with the Red Cross Church of Christ in Blantyre, the Area 47 Church of Christ in Lilongwe, and area village and tribal authorities to take the final steps to obtain what would be over 150 acres of land for the school. During the earlier meetings, upon learning the importance of the school to the nation, tribal authority actually donated the land for the school. In the interim period land surveys were conducted, markers were placed, and the paperwork submitted to the government for property rights to the land. During the most recent trip the paperwork was finalized, and the deed was approved and turned over to the members of the Project. Later in the month they returned to Indiana with deed in hand and turned it over to the eldership of the Green Valley Church of Christ who are overseeing the school project in joint oversight by the two congregations in Malawi and the Green Valley church.

    The Board members were also able to participate in ongoing negotiations with the Area 47 and Red Cross congregations and Napoleon Dzombe in their desire to obtain the authority to take over management of Blessings Hospital in Lumbadzi. The Malawi Project helped establish the hospital in 2000, and in the intervening years has been responsible for much of the funding for buildings, supplies and equipment that has been sent to Blessings since its opening.

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Four Nations Touch Lufi Chinesa

    Senga Bay, Malawi… The Free Wheelchair Mission in southern California commits itself to giving wheelchairs to people in third world nations who cannot care for themselves. Contributors from many quarters send funds. At the same time the Malawi Project in central Indiana commits itself to helping to care for people in Malawi who cannot care for themselves. In China the wheelchairs are made and shipped by hands that will never find their way to central Africa. The cost of the wheelchairs are paid by the Free Wheelchair Mission, with part of the transportation cost paid by the Malawi Project in order for the chairs to reach the interior of the African continent. In Malawi the Rotary Club of Lilongwe, the capital city, receives the shipment, and makes preparation for distribution. Samantha Ludick, a Zimbabwean, now residing in Malawi, supplies the transportation and prepares a plan for the distribution of a number of the wheelchairs. Then comes the final chapter.

    America, China, Zimbabwe, Malawi … all come together to make possible a wheelchair for a little girl by the name of Lifi Chinesa, a little girl that almost none of the participants will ever see during their lifetimes. Lifi is only four years old, and comes from the village of Mdalakwanda, under the Tribal authority BB Maganga, but already she is getting too heavy for her mother to carry everywhere they go. Recently when her family received the wheelchair Samatha Ludick issued this report:

    “Lufi’s mum was so excited when she was asked to come to Cool Runnings to collect a wheel chair for Lufi. On arrival I asked how is it that Lufi is unable to walk. She explained to me that on delivery of Lufi her legs were not straight, ‘I could make then straight only if i held them, otherwise they would not be straight. Then when she was of age for walking she could not stand. I tried everything. I asked the doctors and I was told God did not want her to walk. Why I asked and they simply told me because He does not bless every one.”

“I thank you and the help of your friends in America for assisting me with this chair. Lufi is getting heavy to carry and some times difficult since she often cannot sit by herself. I thank you all and I promise to take care of this wheelchair, ZIMKOMO KWAMBIRI.” (Thank you very much).

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