© 2012 AID AFRICA  UK Registered Charity Number 1116336

Summer Report 2015

including February-May trip

OHP CENTRE

LIVESTOCK

Dairy Goats

Room for improvement!  Milk quantities available for babies are currently very low, we’re backing up with cows milk and formula for infants with no other milk resource. We need female goat kids to be born and grow up into prolific milkers to keep the herd viable, but some does are not coming into season, and others aren’t becoming pregnant. No seasons—no mating —no kids—no milk. With breeding so erratic and unreliable, we don’t have the luxury of spacing pregnancies to provide continuous milk flow. But in recent weeks, more does have been mated, and 3 female kids have been born.

Not as many kits as we’d hoped, but the “Rabbinga” Project is still progressing—a combination of rabbit breeding in the community for meat/income generation alongside moringa trees providing vegetable-based multi nutrients. Training in rabbit care and management is ongoing.

we invited community farmers to have their chickens vaccinated against Newcastles disease. Sometimes chickens are their only asset!

Rabbits

Chickens

AGRICULTURE

Agriculture on our main site in Chiringa

• Moringa tree planting is still our main priority and has been extended.

    The leaves are processed into a  nutritious powdered food supplement

    (see below)

• A plot has been prepared as a Tree Nursery for the Reforestation

    Programme, and compost made.

• Vegetables are still grown in our gardens for distribution — mustard,

    eggplants, tomatoes, and carrots.

Makhonja—our second site

• Nearly all the site is now over to moringa in raised beds, and cassava for seed multiplication. We’ve also planted leguminous trees as green manure intermittently, and the thorn hedge around the periphery is now growing much more vigorously inside the temporary grass fencing.

Training in conservation farming continues

Dickson, the Malawian trainer of the international programme “Farming God’s Way” comes to site several times a year to teach and encourage local subsistence farmers.

Processing Unit

We’ve nearly finished the interior of the Processing Unit—thank you I & J!

The kitchen and field office were ready earlier, and now the back section (moringa processing) has been floored, plastered, and electrics fitted. Plumbing will be sorted next trip, along with developing our plans for harvesting “grey” water from the processes for irrigation and cleaning.

We also managed to research and resolve some of the challenges…

We built a dehydrator from plans found on the internet, to dry our moringa

leaves. It’s an odd shaped solar unit, with a perspex-topped sloped chamber

lined with black metal mesh which conducts heat from the sun up into the

drying compartment lined with moringa-loaded mesh-covered shelves—

initial trials look promising.  

Our new milling machine is fantastic—it not only grinds dried moringa leaves to a fine powder to be given as a food supplement, but also mills maize, soya, groundnuts, dried fish—all the ingredients we use in our fortified porridge for vulnerable toddlers, so we can now prepare it on site.

Moringa powder, issued as a food supplement. Leaves contain Vits A & C, protein, calcium, potassium and iron

Transport

Our old Honda car has been a really reliable vehicle despite it’s great age, but now is deteriorating fast. It broke down on an airport run (the RH front suspension collapsed), and again later locally when LH side went, so 2 of our watchmen were sent overnight to guard it. It’s overheating, and of course there’s no AA or Green Flag for rescue out in the bush!  It urgently needs replacing……..  

BUV (basic utility vehicle) has been repaired and is

running well

Our new Kavaki motor-trike - thank you D & M! -

has now been run-in—just in time to significantly support

the building of the Nalamamba bridge.

Driving Licences—we already have 3 staff members

with full motorbike driving licences and have started the

process for another 5 more. We have just one staff

member with a car driving licence, so need to put

another through a training programme.

Our new motor-trike, suitable for both tamac and off-road!

Staff

All 17 staff members are working well -“Employee of the month” is still popular and well supported. We re-established staff breakfasts from February till the end of April as some staff members were coming to work hungry.

A Maize Loan was issued to each staff member at their request—enough for 12 x 50kg bags of maize—subsidised by OHP thus reducing the monthly repayments

Home improvement loans were also granted—the properties of all our staff were damaged in the storms, so many have asked for loans for cement to reinforce or rebuild.  Additionally, we’ve replaced all their broken-down toilets with new pits and shelters as per our community programme and given each the resources to build a double clay burner within a field kitchen—bamboos, bricks for stove, plastic sheeting and fixings—they supply the mud, grass thatching and labour.

Our friends, Les & Kathie, who live in Malawi, are still doing a great job for OHP as overseers, checking accounts and progress monthly.

We were able to give out lots of donated goodies —knitted blankets & jumpers, clothing, reading glasses, vegetable seeds, we even brought a football kit from the UK, much to the delight of our local football team!   

Lesta thrilled with her chair - for the first time in years, she can tour around her village

Esther’s old chair!  

Open Hands ….

We were privileged to supply 2 wheelchairs, donated by Blantyre Rotary, applied for by Les & Kathie. Both went to local ladies, Esther and Lesta, both with severe degrees a paralysis - these chairs will change their lives!  Esther did have one a long time ago (see pic!) but  it’s not in the best condition now!

Next …..

Processing Unit—complete the moringa section: kitchen unit built, sink plumbed in—grey water collection—water, waste and toilet connected—cess pit & soakaway dug and tanked—walls painted, windows glazed,equipment & processes finalised, more dehydrators built, plus alternatives if necessary for the rainy season.

House kitchen—unit finished with sink unit

Reforestation Programme advanced–tubed seedlings given out for planting with rains, more seeds sown, compost made, locations identified for wooded areas, more clay stoves promoted

Thanks …..

Special thanks - to all our friends and supporters who empower us to help the most needy, but especially to D & M M for our wonderful new trike, I & J E for financing the moringa processing area, FOMA for funding the toilets, bridge and house, and WW providing for the borehole repair.

Thanks too to Chris L, who came over to present the Living Hope Bible Conference for local pastors, but also worked so hard practically with us on site.

So many others have contributed so faithfully and generously—thank you all for your help!

Donate now!

Winter 2015