For a long time, Africa was spared from the pandemic. Now it seems to have arrived in Malawi too (Der Tagesspiegel on 23 April 2020). The entry ban has been in place for some time, so our plans were also rendered obsolete. The planned lockdown is now pending in court because the population has put up massive resistance. This is because there is no continued payment of wages, no unemployment insurance, and no short-time work allowance in the country.
The Tchapa School is the school closest to Chiuno Village, located 3.5 kilometers away. We visit a class with 116 students sitting close together on the floor. There are no tables or chairs. The teachers are often overwhelmed.We want to remedy these conditions, which we find unbearable but are common in Malawi, by building a…
02 July 2018 I’ve just returned from the 4th vaccination appointment. One important part of the preparation is now complete. And soon it will finally begin. It’s obvious why Germany couldn’t win the Football World Cup—after all, the Senior Expert Service in Bonn had already booked our flight for the day of the final… 17…
Why are we doing this? A project involving schools and so on? Begging and pleading for support and putting up with the sometimes unspeakable bureaucracy of the funding institutions? We are doing this because the local people are very clear in their message: they know that they lack education, and they want their children to…
In 2019, we collected plastic and metal scrap for the first time and ended up disposing of 50 bags filled to the brim. The campaign was exhausting, but incredibly motivating. In 2023, Malawi’s president took up this idea and launched a national Clean-Up Day, which has since taken place every third Friday of the month….
The workshop is outdoors and only partially covered. Sawing and drilling are done with a hand drill. There is no electricity. The only drill bit is 10 mm thick and already quite blunt. It is used for pre-drilling and then doweled with a wooden dowel. There are only a few screws, so the wood is…
In Chiuno Village, where there is no running water or electricity, dealing with legal forms is also a new challenge. The community-based organization corresponds to a non-profit association in Germany at the municipal level. Here, as there, the members and their boards are subject to a set of rules based on legal requirements. The social…