Thipa village in Kasungu Province is typical of rural Malawi. It’s a group of small mud brick houses nestled in the shade beneath tall trees and surrounded by maize and tobacco fields. The village is 6km from the nearest road down narrow, bumpy earth tracks. Long brown tobacco leaves hang in drying sheds, waiting collection by the tobacco companies based in this area. Chickens and goats wander through the central clearing, located around the dead trunk of a once large Baobab tree, a traditional meeting point for the community.

Continue reading “Drones, through the eyes of a village health worker” →

St Michael’s Girls School in Mangochi is one of the better secondary schools in Malawi, although by international standards it doesn’t look like much. The buildings are run down with broken windows here and there. Goats from the local village roam freely across the campus, butting heads or lying on stone benches in the shade. But the students are smartly dressed, happy, and keen to learn. The teachers are skilled and motivated.

Continue reading “Little by little: Malawian school girl follows her dreams” →

Makankhula Full Primary School in Dedza is typical of Malawi’s rural schools. A row of brick and concrete buildings front onto a wide playing field between a range of low hills and the main road from Lilongwe to Blantyre. While older children learn in the classrooms, their younger counterparts sit in the shade beneath giant trees, watching teachers write on portable blackboards leant against the trunks.

Continue reading “Local hero: a rural teacher keeps children in school” →

It is the start of the rainy season on the shores of Lake Malawi, and the landscape which until recently was yellow and brown is now a lush green. Streams and rivers flow where before there were dry, dusty river beds. People have planted crops. There are fields of maize, as tall in places as the mud huts of farmers, and towering over children who run past them.

Continue reading “Desperate measures: hunger crisis forces girls to sell sex” →

A rough earth track leads 30km from Zomba, the former capital of Malawi, to Nyangu village, on the shores of Lake Chilwa. It is an idyllic scene of rice fields and fishing boats, beyond which the lake — Malawi’s second largest — stretches an equal distance to mountains on the border with Mozambique. The water is clear and the surface sparkles in the sun.

Continue reading “Caught in a trap: fishing village feels strain of hunger crisis” →