FINALLY! AT LAST!

Kathy Curtis and Margot McGorman returned to Malawi for 3 weeks in May after a Covid hiatus of almost 4 years. They were warmly welcomed by the widows and pleased to find housing projects completed and the sewing training center requiring only a few tweaks.

Many, many heartfelt thanks to ALL OF YOU who have supported the Women of Grace Widows Fund and ensured that the 2023 mission trip was an amazing success and blessing to Kathy and Margot, and to the women and girls of northern Malawi.

This year WOGWF board members Kathy Curtis and Margot McGorman were able to:

• Renew friendships with the 25 women who sew, after almost 4 years apart due to Covid.

• Participate in joyful Sunday worship with our Malawian friends, giving thanks for the myriad of blessings we all continue to receive.

• Watch the installation of an iron sheet roof on a widow’s home.

• Provide sewing training to 6 new women who are members of the widows’ families, making the project intergenerational.

• Upgrade the solar power system to support 4 electric machines at the sewing center.

• Purchase 2 more treadle machines, for a total of 6, so sewing can continue even in the depths of the rainy season.

• Distribute more than 225 menstrual hygiene kits to needy girls and women. Some of these kits were sewn by supporters in the US and Canada. Thank you!

Enjoy a beautiful 7 minute video of the trip highlights:

MEET A WIDOW...

Mary Mkhandawire

Mary was born in Rumphi, Malawi, a town about 40 miles north of Mzuzu in 1956. Her family was poor and her father went to work in Zambia. He died there when Mary was a young girl. With no money to pay the school fees, she ended her schooling at Standard 3. She married in 1972 at age 16, and she and her husband had 6 children. They moved to Mzenga when her husband found work as a stores clerk at the nearby Kawalazi Tea Plantation. Her husband also asked the Mzenga village chief for a plot of land for the family to farm. In 2010, he was suddenly rushed to the hospital where he died of pneumonia. Mary joined the Mzenga widows group and serves as treasurer.

Mary volunteered for the first sewing training in 2016. Mary sews flannel pads for the PantiPack menstrual kits and earns a reliable income. She also sews other items to sell in her community. Mary reports that her sewing income “helps me buy food for my family.” She was able to buy a goat with her sewing income, and eventually had 5 goats, but 3 died from disease. She hopes to raise and sell enough goats to repair the roof on her home.

Mary is grateful to be one of the Women of Grace widows. She says “It’s a very good thing; as a group, we support each other, know each other’s problems, and enourage each other.” “Thank you very much for what you are doing. May God bless you and multiply your blessings.”

Talita Banda

Talita Banda has lived in Mzenga village all her life. She was born on July 5, 1961 and attended Mzenga School through Standard 5. In 1976, at age 15, she married and she and her husband had 8 children together. Her husband was a laborer at Kawalazi Estates, a local macadamia nut farm. In 2001, he experienced stomach problems, became very sick and died. Talita, age 40, was pregnant with her youngest child at the time. This youngest child finished secondary school in 2022.

Talita joined the widows group in 2008. She initially learned how to bake cakes and how to make doormats from scrap fabric. In 2016, she volunteered for the sewing training offered by the Women of Grace. She now sews flannel pads for the PantiPack menstrual kits, earning a regular income. She supplements this by using her sewing skills to make dresses and do sewing repairs for her neighbors.

Talita expressed gratitude that the program has continued for so many years. She said “Learning to use a treadle machine was challenging, but we kept pushing ourselves to learn. The community in Mzenga is benefiting because now we are teaching others to sew.” Talita is pleased that the sewing workshops “provide a comfortable learning situation, with training at our level.” She had special thanks for Sam Chirwa, the Women of Grace field manager, because “he has never given up on us.”

WOGWF ASSISTS WITH HOUSING ISSUES

In a rural Malawi village, houses are typically made of local brick with grass roofs. A good house has a foundation of several layers of bricks to keep the home elevated above ground level in anticipation of the rainy season. An iron sheet roof is a valuable improvement to the home but not the only important feature to consider.

Brick foundation and iron sheet roof

Bare feet on the hot roof!

Widow Esnart’s house

Widow Esnart Phiri was very grateful to receive an iron sheet roof on her house this year. The $1200 cost is out of reach for a widow in Malawi. The builders worked in their bare feet, installing the rafters and roof in the hot sun. Spaces between the top of the brick walls and the roof will be filled with plaster once the iron sheets are secure.

Widow Esnart Phiri and Margot McGorman

During our trip to Malawi, Esnart became ill with malaria and a high fever. We were able to pay for hospital transportation using money from the Critical Needs fund. Once she received medical treatment, she recovered within a few days and was able to return to the sewing training.

The women at Mbowe decide as a group how to share among themselves the housing money we send. In the past few years, they have chosen to make improvements to their drainage, walls, and floors as most of them already have iron sheet roofs. Cement is used for these projects. The cement is mixed with sand and water to make the correct consistency for each application. The women participate by carrying the necessary sand and water in buckets up to their hillside homes from the river.

Drainage

In the torrential downpours of the rainy season, houses are at risk in rural villages. At Mbowe, the hilly terrain means most houses have uphill and downhill sides. Run off from the uphill side can begin to erode the foundation and brick mortar. Over time, this will weaken the wall on that side.

With ground level cement gutters, run off can be directed away from the foundation to protect the house. The culvert under the door walkway keeps water from running into the house. A gutter like this requires 4 bags of cement.

Sometimes an outside wall is plastered part way up to protect the mortar between the lower layers of bricks. Sometimes the entire wall is plastered all the way up. Plaster is a thinner consistency than concrete so a bag of cement goes further.

Walls and Floors

In the red clay soil of Malawi, where there is never a winter frost, insects thrive year round. In a typical rural home, insects, especially ants and termites, can easily burrow up through the dirt floor and clay brick walls and infest the house. A concrete floor and plastered walls can eliminate this unpleasant health hazard. This project requires 8 bags of cement for a typical widow’s house.

THE PANTIPLUS PROJECT CONTINUES TO BE A GREAT SUCCESS!

PantiPlus Sewing Training

This year, the widows learned to make the final component of the PantiPack. The PantiPurse holds all of the menstrual kit items and each purse has a menstrual tracker sewn inside. A safety pin, easily moveable each day, helps girls track their cycle and understand changes in fertility throughout the month.

The menstrual tracker is written in English and Chitumbuka (the local dialect) and also includes pictures.

The widows in the remote village of Mzenga work on treadle sewing machines.

They produce a monthly quota of pads and wet bags that dovetails with the number of purses and panties produced at Mbowe on electric machines. The widows are assembling the PantiPacks and have begun learning how to teach girls to use the kits at the school distributions.

Distributions are planned at local schools when sufficient PantiPacks are assembled.

Going Intergenerational

This year, 6 younger women from Mbowe began to learn to sew. With their sharp eyes and nimble fingers, these women show great promise. As members of the widows’ families, they are keen to help bring income into the family unit. Over the next year, they will be mentored by the experienced sewers at Mbowe, learning first to make the PantiPurse, then progressing to the more complicated Panties.

Chrissy learns to sew

Gladys demonstrates to Febbie

Brenda makes a pad