Malawi: for the poorest, food is still a problem




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Malawi: for the poorest, food is still a problem

Help Age International, May 15, 2003

Photo: Older People making bread at Chiwaya Day Centre © John Cobb/HelpAge International. In Malawi, food shortages have eased this year, but among the poorest, life is still very precarious and the future uncertain. Harvests were better in some parts of the country, but floods, dry periods at the wrong time and the rising cost of fertiliser still leave many people short of food for the season.

Older people looking after HIV/AIDS orphans have a special need to find support to sustain themselves through the year. HelpAge International's partner, the Elderly People's Association of Malawi (EPA), is developing day care centres that allow older people to come together and find ways to increase their meagre income.

Day care centers
Hellen Chasowa, director of EPA says, "We are building day care centres to help older people to help themselves. We are encouraging alternative income-generating activities such as bread baking, knitting and keeping chickens for their eggs. Most importantly we believe the centres will make the community more aware of the growing importance of older people in the face of the AIDS epidemic."

EPA has built day care centres in four districts with last year's funding from the UK Disasters Emergency Committee and from Help the Aged in the UK. The centres are designed to encourage the most vulnerable older people to help themselves. "Unfortunately due to unpredictable weather and lack of fertiliser, many people will have nothing to harvest. We are still having to provide them with food assistance, " Hellen says.

Supporting a grandmother and grandchildren
For Irene Lusiasi, 80, and her eight orphaned grandchildren, life has improved. Last year, she was trying to cultivate her own land and hold down a job picking coffee on a nearby estate.

EPA has provided Irene with a monthly maize supplement and a corrugated iron roof for her house. She has been able to give up work on the coffee estate and now has access to the new day care centre in Chiwaya village. In addition to receiving a meal once a week Irene hopes to start knitting to earn a little income.

Irene explains, "Life is better than it was this time last year. I am very happy to have given up work on the coffee plantation so that I can spend more time at home with my grandchildren. The day EPA put a tin roof over my house was the most exciting day of my life. It was a dream come true. When it used to rain I knew that soon I would be swimming in water, but now I just hear it clattering off my roof, whilst I feel safe inside."

Children at school
Free primary school education enables Mrs Lusiasi's grandchildren to attend Chesowa Primary School, two kilometres away, although the cost of buying the school uniforms is a problem. "I rely on well-wishers or I struggle to find money for them."

When the grandchildren are not at school, they help their grandmother with cooking, collecting water, and gathering firewood. Collecting wood can take up to four hours each day.

Catharine, Irene's eldest granddaughter describes the importance of her grandmother, "Our grandmother is so wonderful. She helps us in so many ways. She feeds us, dresses us, and brings us up properly. When we see her we see our mother. If she were not here we would have been scattered around other families and would not be treated in the same way. We are so grateful that she is still with us."

"From next October I will have nothing"
Mrs Lusiasi's maize crop will again be poor, "This year I will harvest, but there won't be as much as I expected. When I should have been weeding the young shoots I fell sick and had to go to hospital. My children did their best, but my yield has been affected."

"From next October until April I will have nothing. Without assistance from EPA I will be selling firewood on the side of the road." The sale of firewood is illegal in Malawi, but poverty forces people to take the risk.