On 23rd March, our Nyumba y a Masambiro Youth team played an exciting football match against Khomola Youth at the Beach Ground. Although the final score was 1–2 in favour of Khomola Youth, our team played with determination and showed good teamwork and sportsmanship throughout the game.
The match was attended by over 100 people from the community, who came to watch and support the players. Before heading down to the ground, there was music and dancing in the NYM Youth Hall, creating an enjoyable and lively atmosphere for everyone.
After the match, everyone shared a delicious meal of goat, nsima, rice, and tea, which gave the youth and supporters time to sit together and chat.
The day also included discussions encouraging the young people to work hard, play well, and maintain good behaviour. There were question-and-answer sessions between the two youth groups on school subjects, helping to build confidence and support learning.
Although the result did not go NYM’s way, the day was a positive time of sport, learning and community involvement. We are proud of our youth team and look forward to the next match!
Phunzira is delighted to share the successful completion of Phase Two of our menstrual health and hygiene program in partnership with Supreme Sanitary Pads, a social enterprise based in Nkhata Bay that produces reusable menstrual pads locally.
Following the impactful rollout of Phase One in six primary schools within the Nyumba Ya Masambiro (NYM) catchment area, Phase Two has now been delivered to the remaining four primary schools—meaning that all 10 primary schools in the area have now received the education and distribution program.
Following the training received in phase one, phase two was taught and rolled out by Stanley and Shidah from Nyumba Ya Masambiro. As in Phase One, the program was delivered to both boys and girls, with a mixture of joint and separate sessions to ensure sensitivity to local customs while actively working to break down stigma and misinformation surrounding menstruation.
In addition to student sessions, local ambassadors from the school mothers’ groups were trained to ensure the sustainability of the program. These ambassadors are now equipped to continue delivering menstrual health education within their schools and communities, strengthening long-term impact.
Each student who participated received a reusable sanitary pad pack containing:
1 lined tote bag (which can also be used as a school bag)
5 reusable sanitary pads
2 pens
2 pencils
1 exercise book
1 eraser
1 pencil sharpener
As before, boys participating in the program were encouraged to pass the sanitary pads to sisters, mothers, or friends who could benefit from them—fostering understanding, support, and shared responsibility.
Each pack provides enough reusable pads to manage a monthly period, with pads lasting up to two years when properly cared for. The packs also include educational guidance on menstrual hygiene and safe usage. By providing a reliable, washable, and long-lasting alternative to disposable products or chitenge rags—which are commonly used and highly prone to leaks—the program helps ensure dignity, comfort, and significantly reduces the risk of school absenteeism during menstruation.
With the completion of Phase Two, this initiative has now reached every primary school within NYM’s catchment area—marking a major milestone in our mission to make education more inclusive and equitable.
Supreme continues to operate as a true social enterprise: every purchase supports local employment and reinvests profits into the business and further educational outreach. We are proud to continue working alongside them to address menstrual health challenges, break stigma, and help girls stay in school.
This achievement represents a significant step forward for the Ruarwe community. We now look ahead to finding the funding with the view to expanding the program to the two secondary schools in the area and to continuing menstrual health education for future cohorts of students.
NYM continues to host ad hoc tutorials throughout the year. At times, these are individual one-to-one tutorials for students run by the staff according to their own strengths, and at other times, whole classes are brought to NYM by primary school teachers to receive extra lessons on our site.
In the hot season, everyone is keen to leave the heat of the classroom in the afternoon for their extra tutorials and take up lessons in the shade of the many trees we have on site at Nyumba ya Masambiro.
Nyumba ya Masambiro will always remain an open space for any members of the community to come and converse, learn, and be together, and we are grateful to the teachers from Ruarwe Primary School next door for using our open space to conduct their extra lessons.
We are delighted to share the joyful news of a special collaboration that has connected learners across continents through the power of storytelling.
In 2023, two teachers travelled from Inverkeithing, Scotland, to our community in Ruarwe. During their visit, they worked closely with learners at both Ruarwe Primary School as well as youth visitors to Nyumba ya Masambiro to collect and record local stories — tales of daily life, imagination, culture, and hope.
At the same time, back in their own school in Scotland, students were also busy writing and sharing their stories. The result is a beautiful exchange of voices and experiences, bridging communities through creativity and mutual learning.
We are proud to announce that these stories have now been officially published into books. Even more exciting, copies of the books have arrived in Ruarwe, where learners can see their words in print and read the stories of their friends in Scotland.
The books are now available at the NYM Library, where community members, students, and visitors are warmly invited to come and read them.
This project is a wonderful reminder that while our communities may be separated by distance, stories have the power to bring us together. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the teachers, students, and everyone involved in making this cross-cultural journey possible.
The Youth Hall at Nyumba ya Masambiro continues to be an open space for the wider community to hold meetings. In the last few months, it has been used by the chiefs’ council, youth leaders within the community and Temwa for example. Temwa, the NGO based in Usisya, 20km south of Ruarwe, has similar objectives to Nyumba ya Masambiro. Working within the realms of health, education, agriculture and the environment, Ruarwe is within the catchment area for Temwa. Once or twice a month, Temwa comes to host a friendly football match tied in with education within the Ruarwe area. On these visits, they make use of the Nyumba ya Masambiro Youth Hall for their preparatory meetings and discussions. We are grateful that Nyumba ya Masambiro remains a safe and open space and the preferred meeting space for community members far and wide!
Nyumba Ya Masambiro was delighted to host The E.A.R.T.H Workshops team from Butterfly Space in Nkhata Bay who came to share their knowledge and expertise on all things environmental. Standing for Environment, Agriculture, Reforestation, Topsoil and Health, the workshops provide a bottom-up approach to empower communities to be resilient, independent and find solutions to protect our soil, improve farming methods, reduce damaging activities, as well as improving nutrition through better, more environmentally friendly cooking methods.
The workshops were attended by a variety of community members from Ruarwe, and surrounding villages as far away as Kwenthu Village as well as staff from Nyumba Ya Masambiro and the clinic. On one day a primary school class was invited to join the session to start to inspire positive environmental thoughts and practices in the younger generations. This has been continued by one particularly proactive primary teacher, who has continued to bring his class to NYM to have lessons under the guava tree and discuss and analyse the positive impacts of the E.A.R.T.H workshop principles as put into practice at NYM.
A huge thank you to the team from Nkhata Bay for sharing your knowledge with the community in Ruarwe and your ongoing support as farmers, community members and NYM and clinic staff put the principles of your program into practice.
Nyumba Ya Masambiro has successfully run a community-wide football and netball league for mens and womens teams around the community. The League ran at weekends from 7th June to 8th July. 36 Football and Netball teams from the wider area competed and all teams won financial prizes to go towards their clubs for equipment such as new balls, new nets, new bibs and kits, as well as travel funds to allow them to continue to play against other teams in the wider area in the future.
Played at the football and netball pitches at the top of the big hill above Ruarwe Village, the games drew huge crowds from around the area. Bringing wider communities together to support their teams and each other, the joy was palpable and spirits really high.
NYM Youth Club football team took part in a football tournament playing the youth team from Khomola Village in our catchment area. They had an afternoon of hype and entertainment together on Friday 3rd May at the NYM youth hall and in the gardens around the centre (think a Ruarwe version of a Pep Rally!). This was followed by a match at the Ruarwe football ground at the top of the hill on Saturday 4th May in the afternoon. Everyone was in really good spirits and both teams played well, with an end result of 3:2 to the Khomola youth team. With a winners prize of MWK3,000 and a losers prize of MWK2,000 paid out for the players to buy essential supplies for their teams.
The NYM youth club is going from strength to strength with 50-70 kids turning up to each session, which still focus on education, creativity and sports and exercise. Having a safe space for kids to hang out and socialise is so important for Ruarwe village and the surrounding areas and linking up with other youth clubs and teams builds a network in our wider area.
NYM is now preparing for a Senior Youth Football league for both men’s and women’s football teams in the area. With 40 Senior Youth and community teams taking part (20 men’s teams and 20 women’s teams), and further cash prizes to keep the clubs supplied with footballs, boots and kits. The league is due to begin in mid-June so watch this space for upcoming updates!
The Nursery continues to go from strength to strength, having initially reopened with just over 20 students, there are now over 35 registered and attending daily. NYM’s nursery continues to be praised by the local primary schools for assisting children to enter primary-level education with sound educational knowledge and solid foundations for learning. Nursery students receive a subsidised fortified maize porridge breakfast every day. Given the recent devaluation of the currency and increase in prices, this subsidised meal is a vital provision for the majority of these children. NYM has not increased the price of the nursery fees to cover this change, and is currently assuming that cost with the support of the grant money. As ever we remain grateful for any and all donations, which continue to support the projects ongoing at NYM.
Following a change of nursery teacher due to maternity leave, NYM’s former Youth Co-ordinator Ekhesha, known to many of our former volunteers and now a qualified teacher at Ruarwe Primary School, has commenced voluntary training with the new nursery teacher on all the activities previously run at NYM. This includes activities undertaken within nursery school as well as teaching around Youth Club, sports events, educational quizzes etc, all of which we aim to restart in the coming months. We are delighted to see Ekhesha thriving in his new post, and also coming back to support NYM in its ongoing projects! Yewo Chomene!
NYM has re-opened its nursery school after nearly 3 years of closure due to covid. A lady within the catchment area was employed to educate and guide the children, with the support of other NYM staff for cooking and cleaning. NYM’s nursery has been praised by the local primary schools for assisting children to enter primary-level education with sound educational knowledge and solid foundations for learning. The nursery re-opened on 13th March – it started with only 8 learners and grew to 25 learners by the end of April. As well as providing the young ones with daily nutrition (fortified maize porridge) and educational activities (alphabet, numbers, calendar…), the aim is to adopt a holistic approach to learning by providing workshops for children and parents on current issues such as nutrition, sanitation, protection of land and trees for future sustainability, dangers of overfishing in the lake, and plastic waste management. The aim is to start sensitising learners when they are young, so they can grow with a keen interest in their surrounding environment, as well as acquire useful knowledge and skills on how to protect and sustain it in the future for their individual and communal benefit.
Phunzira 