What’s happening

Following the demise of his father in 2013, John’s journey to complete his education was hit a sudden blow. Worse, John’s father, a renowned carpenter in the village that John comes from, provided for the family and his death crippled the family’s finances. John’s mother is not employed and her main means of survival was on her husband which meant that she was now left alone to take care of John, his brother and younger sister. Although John comes from a family of seasoned subsistence farmers, they barely made enough money from the sales of their crops to keep the family sustained. Actually, the carpentry business that John’s father ran complemented the family’s small-scale farming but now since he was gone, John’s mother found herself solely relying on the farm.

Nikiza’s story begun with a tragic prologue. Her escape from the Democratic Republic of Congo into a gloomy life as a refugee in Malawi’s Dzaleka Camp was something Nikiza never anticipated. Her heart-breaking tale starts in 2013 when Nikiza, who is originally from Burundi, married a man from DR Congo. Marriages are supposed to bring joy and happiness to one’s life and actually that is what Nikiza expected but something to the contrary happened. The man she married to was from a tribe that had a long history of enmity with the minority tribe that Nikiza belonged to.

He is a refugee from Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) and an alumnus of our Bible school. He was among the first fruits of our Bible school, having graduated in 2017. When he confidently talks about the valuable training that he got from the Bible school, it is easy to note that what Charles gained is more than the Certificate in Biblical and Ministerial Studies that he now proudly possesses. What pushed him to join our Bible school is nothing more than the desire to become better at his work as a minister. Charles explained that he had been working in different positions at different levels of church administration from deacon to marriage counsellor and finally as Church Administrator. However, he still did not feel satisfied with the way he was working.

When one is married and has a kid but has no means of earning a living, the social-economic welfare of his family figuratively dangles on a life support unit. Taking care of a wife and kid when one cannot even manage to buy a packet of sugar can be a daunting experience. In fact, it is impossible to put a kid through school when the parent cannot afford even to buy a bar of soap for laundry or bathing. However, that is exactly what George, a young man in his early twenties went through. George is married and he has a five-year-old kid. George lives in the remotest part of a village located deep in the outskirts of Dowa District, which lies approximately 50 kilometres from Lilongwe, the Capital of Malawi. He comes from a community where 46 percent of the people live in extreme poverty and a large number of young men and women drop out of school.

It started with the death of his father. That was when Comfort was just a little boy aged nine years and still in primary school. Comfort’s father had battled a long illness and when he passed on, Comfort’s world came crashing down. In the few days following the burial of his father, Comfort, her mother […]

She is 15 but at that age, she is already tasked with the huge responsibility of taking care of her two brothers and one sister, all alone. She is just a kid but at 15 she plays the role of both the head of a family and a parent to her siblings. To make matters worse, she just started her first class in secondary school and she still has three more years to complete her education which means that she has to juggle between school and parenting her siblings. It is a formidable experience but she has no alternative.

A dangerous ethnic feud between her tribe and a rival one led to the murder of Rosa’s husband and the fleeing of Rosa from Burundi to Malawi. Even though she escaped her home country over a decade ago, it is apparent that the emotional scars and mental anguish that the murder of her husband caused are still stubbornly imprinted in her mind. Rosa narrates the painful story with trembling in her voice. She recalls the details vividly. It was one terrible night when assailants invaded Rosa and her husband’s house and abducted the husband before her very eyes. They disappeared with him in the dead of night amid her screams of terror and pleas for help.

For an individual living in the remotest part of Dowa district and struggling to keep his family going financially, Kondwani never thought he would be able to be ‘his own boss’. The idea that one day he would manage to earn more than 100 thousand Kwacha and live in a decent house never occurred to […]

We take a dirt road from the main road and drive towards a steep descent with a narrow bridge. The sight is nostalgic – there are small houses lined up along the gravel road and some can be seen scattered orderly on some distant hills. The blue cloudless skies add beauty to this serene morning scenery. We pass some livestock – mostly goats and cows grazing quietly on pastures of deep green grass growing neatly on both sides of the road. A couple of herds boys lie lazily, chatting silently while cautiously watching the animals. They cheerfully wave at us and loudly whistle at our car as we rush past them.

He talks about the environment with such lit passion that it is easy to see how he loves the field of environmental conservation. When he goes into precise details explaining with clear examples how lots of local forests are becoming endangered and the accelerating rates of uncontrolled pollution in rivers, one can note a thin veil of anger in his sentiments – proof that he is really keen on preserving the nature. He is on his way to becoming the Malawian version of Al Gore.

When Ramazani fled Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2010 and headed towards Malawi for refuge, little did he know that he was moving towards a life of misery. As soon as Ramazan, his wife and two kids arrived in Malawi’s largest refugee camp, Dzaleka, he immediately realized how hard his new life in the new country would be.

At age 3 and when she was still in pre-school, Alinafe’s father was killed in a tragic car accident. The tragedy disrupted Alinafe’s education right from the early stages and resulted in a long struggle with her studies. Alinafe’s father was the breadwinner of the household and everything in the family depended on him.