Category: Community

Community, Education, Malawi, Volunteers, Youth

The children’s area of the Nyumba ya Masambiro library gets a make-over!

Phunzira

Volunteer Kate Probert from New Zealand and volunteer Denise Dolan from Ireland have been really busy and have completed a redecoration of the children’s corner of the library at Nyumba ya Masambiro. Last decorated in 2010 when the centre was built, the new paintings, quotes and comfy seating area have made the library much more appealing to the youth of Ruarwe and we are seeing many more children coming to attend the library, pick up a book and relax in the area.

Thank you to Kate for the vision, Denise for the wonderful quotes and the staff for the translations and all the help provided – the children’s area really looks great now!

Community, Donations, Healthcare, Malawi

Donation of a portable nebuliser to Ruarwe Clinic

Phunzira

In January, Ruarwe Clinic was delighted to receive the wonderful donation of a portable nebulisation unit. Nebulisers can administer saline, adrenaline, salbutamol and more to alleviate symptoms of respiratory conditions including asthma, chest infections and more. Respiratory conditions represent a large portion of conditions seen in Ruarwe and the surrounding areas due to a number of factors, a key one being the need to cook over open fires year round resulting in regular exposure to smoke inhalation.

Out-going Zulunkhuni River Lodge managers Anneke and Hartmut, who have contributed so much to this community in their time here, donated the nebuliser unit via Phunzira. We would like to extend a huge thank you to Anneke and Hartmut for this extremely generous donation, which is being used on a regular basis and is making a huge difference to the community in how staff at the centre can now treat respiratory emergencies. Yewo Chomene!

Community, Donations, Fundraising, Healthcare, Malawi

Donation of Maternity Items to Ruarwe Clinic

Phunzira

At the start of this year, Ruarwe Clinic received a wonderful donation of maternity medical items. Donated by Anneke and Hartmut Jagau and Phunzira, the clinic received Maternity Pads, Sterile Cord Clamps, plastic Fetoscopes and Vaginal Speculums as well as Urinalysis Sticks.

Given the remote location of Ruarwe, pregnant mothers are encouraged to go to either the larger clinic in Usisya, Nkhata Bay District Hospital or Mzuzu Central Hospital to deliver. This journey and the stay away from the village, and their families as they are waiting to deliver, can be prohibitively expensive for many expectant mothers. As a result of which, many mothers remain in Ruarwe to deliver. The District Health Team is building a new and improved clinic building in Ruarwe, which will have the space, drugs and equipment to facilitate safer deliveries in the village. The wonderful Community Midwife Technician Helen Msisya from the Ruarwe Zone has been trained and assigned to Ruarwe Health Centre for this purpose. While community members await the completion and opening of this new facility, the staff at the clinic requested these items to facilitate safer deliveries already happening in the village. A huge thank you to the Jagau family and Phunzira donors for making this delivery of essential equipment possible!

Community, Donations, Malawi, Sports, Youth

Donation of Netball Dresses to Nyumba ya Masambiro

Phunzira

We are so grateful to the team at RUMS, the medical school attached to University College London, for their donation of netball dresses to Nyumba ya Masambiro. The dresses were brought out to Malawi and the staff at NYM was delighted to show them off immediately.

The dresses are being stored at Nyumba ya Masambiro but word has been passed around that any local team is welcome to come and borrow them when they have a competitive match in the area. The dresses were used for this purpose by Khomola Village team in a match against Banda Village. Khomola were so thrilled with the use of the dresses that they were spurred on to a 3:2 win against Banda!

We are always keen to promote and encourage female participation in sport and netball is very popular in Malawi, and a sport that women are happy to play. This donation of dresses and their availability for use is already encouraging more matches being scheduled. We are also delighted to see that women’s netball matches in recent months are also starting to draw bigger crowds, more like those often seen at the men’s football matches so we are starting to see a move towards more equality in sport, which is such a fantastic achievement by these community netball teams. RUMS – Thank you so much for your donation of these dresses and their contribution to gender equality in sport in this area in Malawi – Tawonga Chomene!

Community, Donations, Malawi, Volunteers

Introducing NYM’s upgraded kitchen

Phunzira

We are absolutely delighted that the kitchen at Nyumba ya Masambiro has seen a big renovation this year. The kitchen sits up on the rocks behind the Library with views through the trees down to the lake. It is one of the hubs of NYM, serving as the site for meetings, nursery porridge cooking, morning tea drinking, volunteer lunch eating and the perfect spot to cool off during the hot season as it is so well located that it catches any breeze passing through the valley.

Previously an entirely wooden structure, the new kitchen has a more stable concrete floor with an A-frame roof which has been raised up higher to even better catch the breezes, and a nice big socialising table.

We would like to thank Claire who donated the funds for the concrete for the floor and the staff at NYM who did a great job at salvaging so much material from the original kitchen to allow it to be built in the most environmentally sustainable way possible. Yewo Chomene!

Community, Education, Malawi, Volunteers, Youth

Educational Volunteer Marci Koenig

Phunzira

In January, Nyumba ya Masambiro hosted volunteer Marci Koenig for 4 weeks. Marci originally travelled to Ruarwe with her sister Nathalie last year and decided to return this year to volunteer at the education centre. Marci has extensive training and experience with teaching early years education in remote locations in South Africa, where English is not necessarily the first language of the students.

Marci brought her skills and enthusiasm to work alongside the Youth Coordinator in the nursery and youth club as well as running smaller group sessions in the library. Using art and games to facilitate fun learning she really made a great impression on the children she worked with.

Thank you Marci for your joy and passion! Yewo Tawonga!

Community, Malawi

Farewell our friend Jake

Phunzira

It was with great sadness that we had to say goodbye to super staff member Jake the Guard dog yesterday. Jakey has been the guard dog (and everyone’s friend) at Nyumba ya Masambiro since its inception in 2010.

While Jake’s main role at the centre was to chase the monkeys away from the crops in the gardens and keep the watchmen company through the night, he took it upon himself to befriend and accompany every volunteer, visitor and staff member to come through the site.

The most sweet-natured and gentle soul, Jake loved a patch in the sunshine to rest and always had a happy grin on his face. He suffered from a short but very severe illness but we are hugely grateful that he remained cheerful throughout and showed no signs of pain or discomfort right up to the end. Thank you Jake for all your love – you will be very much missed!

Community, Fundraising, Malawi

Gardening grand plans at NYM

Phunzira

Recent months has seen a real push in crop management at the Nyumba ya Masambiro gardens. James Nyirenda has been the gardener at NYM for a couple of years now and he works incredibly hard to make his vision for the garden a reality. Under his watchful eye the sugar cane crops have flourished bringing in small but steady income to the centre.

Once a week all the staff at NYM down their tools to work together in the gardens, planting cocoa yams at the end of the year was the big target and two large garden areas were weeded, turned over, watered and planted with cocoa yam seedling stems. These are being tended under the watchful eye of James to be ready after the rains for harvesting and selling to community members. Selling crops from the gardens is one of the micro businesses run at NYM, the income of which ensures that community members can continue to benefit from the education services being offered completely for free.

James has grand plans for the gardens for 2019 including planting many varieties of sweet potatoes, replanting some papaya tree seedlings as our papaya trees are now too old to fruit successfully and expand both the sugar cane and cocoa yam crop areas. Watch this space for more news on how the gardens develop!

Community, Malawi

Celebrating the Night Watchmen

Phunzira

In December we held a party to celebrate the great work that the night watchmen do at Nyumba ya Masambiro to keep the beautiful centre and gardens safe. Khumba Gondwe and Tharzan Msuku are two of NYM’s longest serving members of staff and they really do go above and beyond their duties protecting the centre.

They often use the cooler evening and morning daylight hours to dig over soil in the gardens, they water crops early in the morning just as the sun comes up to give the crops a chance to drink before the sun is high enough to evaporate the water away, they pick up any litter that has been dropped on site or blown in by the winds, and very importantly they keep little guard dog Jake company as he rests from his daytime job of keeping the monkeys away from the crops!

It is so important that good and consistent work is acknowledged and rewarded and so we held a small party with soft drinks, biscuits and crisps in the library. The trustees were present and spoke wonderful words of praise for the watchmen and they were each gifted a 20 litre bucket with a lid and 2kg sugar, which they each carried home with great, well-deserved pride.

Tharzan and Khumba, we would like to thank you both for your many years of hard work and here’s to many more – Yewo Chomene!

Community, Malawi

NYM End-of-year Trustee Meeting

Phunzira

The beginning of December saw a Nyumba ya Masambiro Trustee Meeting held in Khomola Village where NYM Chair Trustee VH Jolote lives with his family. Secretary Trustee Flarey Singini and Phunzira Secretary Trustee Philippa Mander on behalf of NYM Trust Member Rosa Nissim hiked the one hour journey up into the Rurawe zone mountains to Khomola Village. Following a delicious breakfast the trustees met for almost 3 hours discussing the achievements of 2018 and any issues encountered, as well as plans for 2019. In 2018 NYM and the Ruarwe clinic were able to host 10 international volunteers, which has been of huge benefit to both the community members and the volunteers themselves.

We would like to thank all our donors for their generosity, which allows Phunzira and NYM to continue to run all its community projects. We would like to thank the many volunteers for sharing their expertise and energy with the NYM staff, the clinic and all the community members who benefit from these projects, and we invite you all to continue with us in our journey into 2019 as we continue with all our work and projects.