Blantyre Urban, Malawi

Children's development and wellbeing are priorities.

Health

• Held public meetings to educate people about cholera prevention and provided chlorine to households for treating drinking water. Village Health Committees took advantage of any gathering in their communities to talk about cholera and the dangers of poor sanitation. There was a significant improvement in the number of reported cholera cases in the ADP area last year – just eight cases (no deaths), compared to 647 cases (with 12 deaths) in 2002.
• Distributed scabies and chicken pox medicine to affected individuals for treatment. Health staff and Village Health Committee members have intensified education on the prevention of these outbreaks, which continue to be a threat to overcrowded urban communities.
• Held a refresher course for 24 first aid teachers from eight local schools. The course covered basic first aid, emergency scene management and circulatory disorders among other topics. The ADP also distributed medicines and first aid kits to the schools. Having trained first aid officers in schools reduces absenteeism.
• Provided bicycle ambulances (cycle-drawn stretchers) to two villages in the Nkolokoti area. There is no health centre in Nkolokoti, so the ambulances enable people to transport the sick to the health centre in the neighbouring township of Ndirande.
• Co-ordinated an AIDS campaign for Blantyre District, in collaboration with the National AIDS Commission. The campaign, which included traditional dances, choirs, poems, drama, songs and acrobatics, stressed that people should retain their traditional ways of care for extended family and friends despite the stigma attached to the disease.
• Provided cement for 10 families to make ‘san plats’ (latrine slabs), to improve sanitation.
• Provided special medical assistance for 21 children who could not afford treatment.
• Arranged for one of the ADP’s customer service facilitators to be trained at a Lilongwe medical school as a ‘Health Surveillance Assistant’. The training will help the facilitator assess child health during regular visits to sponsored children. Seven of Blantyre Urban’s customer service facilitators have now received this training.

Education

• Distributed 5000 exercise books to eight primary schools and 400 books to 80 secondary students.
• Awarded school bags to 200 top-scoring pupils, to encourage children to study hard.
• Helped 60 especially needy children with school fees and paid the course fees for three teenagers accepted into tertiary level marketing, accounting and secretarial courses.
• Trained nine orphans in carpentry, knitting, tailoring, secretarial work or driving. Of these, four have already found work using their new skills.

Economic development

• Disbursed loans to 23 community banks amounting to approximately NZ$63,500. The loans benefited almost 800 clients, 500 of whom were new borrowers. Women, who have proved to be more diligent than men in making loan repayments in the ADP, make up 85 percent of the clients.
• Trained 43 loan committee members in loan monitoring.

Infrastructure

• Built foot bridges to improve access in two villages.

Water

• Built three wells in Nkolokoti villages.

Relief

• Paid the rent on houses for two families of sponsored children whose own homes were destroyed in heavy rain, until new houses were built for them.
• Distributed 20kg bags of maize flour to 750 families who are either headed by children or elderly people.