$3,000 Rotary grant supports Malawi Children’s Village

PALMER — The Palmer Rotary Club presented a $3,000 grant to the Malawi Children’s Village recently. The grant, made on behalf of the Palmer club and the Alaska-Yukon Rotary District, will be used in Malawi to buy badly needed desks and school supplies.

The club’s presentation of the grant was followed by Dr. Tom and Ruth Nighswander’s slideshow of photos of the Malawi Children’s Village March 19 and their description of its secondary school, vocational school, and orphan care program. The Nighswander live in Anchorage and were both Peace Corps volunteers in Malawi in the 1960s. Now they are involved in the operation and support of the Malawi Children’s Village, where they work for about a month once each year.

The village provides services for orphans and other vulnerable children, their families, and villages of the Mangochi area of Malawi, focusing on current and emerging concerns like HIV/AIDS and malaria care and prevention, food security and education.

Malawi is said to be the poorest country in Africa. Located between Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique in southeast Africa, it is politically stable and safe, at least by African standards. The village-based orphan care runs both a secondary school and a vocational school. The secondary school has about 400 students, roughly half girls and half boys.

The village is run by Malawians with the help of international friends. It is a Malawian non-governmental organization overseen by a local board of directors and administered by a Malawian staff. In addition to the staff, a team of Malawian village volunteers helps to monitor the orphans in the villages. Financial support and oversight is provided by a US-based 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization run by a board of directors who are all volunteers.