Month: June 2013

The nutrition unit looks after children who are underweight due to food shortages.  The children are fed Lukina Pala( an enriched maize porridge) and are monitored for weight gain until they are near to normal for their height/age.  They stay at the nutrition unit in Ekwendeni Hospital with a carer – mother, auntie or older sister. The children have little energy to begin with and it is quite boring for the guardians who are desperate to learn all the skills they can including knitting, sewing, cookery, and hygiene.

The carers and children need clothing – childrens sizes for 2-8 year olds, and adults all sizes.  They also need blankets, soap and toiletries.

• Clothing – childrens sizes 2-8 years and adult
• Blankets
• Soap (bar) and toiletries
• Children’s books, colouring books, pencils, toys
• Knitting and sewing materials
• Kitchen utensils

Please label parcel to

Nutrition Unit
Ekwendeni Hospital
Mrs Joyce Mkandwere

Discussions are being held with various organisations regarding the development of a much larger water well programme for Malawi based on the Raven Trust’s experience so far.  This includes a mapping and reporting exercise using an ‘App’ on a mobile phone with GPS facilities.  Any broken wells will be repaired using local personnel and resources.    The aim is to have any reported broken well repaired within 14 working days.

A programme is being set up to analyse water quality both locally (on site) at the well and in laboratory conditions at Ekwendeni Hospital. The information gained from all this work will be available to be accessed by the academic community to use in research.

As this is such a big project, funding has been sourced separately for the reporting and repair of wells and for the analysis of water quality.

 

Across Malawi a large number of water wells and boreholes are not working.

 

In conjunction with Kiston  Mhango’s  PHC (Primary Health Department) a good start has been made on bringing back into service broken wells around the Ekwendeni area.  Watson knows how to repair the various well types and has now been given the tools to do the job.  Ben is providing transport for the remote wells.

One well that had a broken pump rod had not worked for over two years.  The repair involved lifting some 50 metres of pump pipe, fitting new seals, connections and a new pump rod.  The job took about 3 hours to complete. What a difference a working well makes to particularly the women at this well who had to walk 1 Km to a scrape in the ground and 1 Km back twice a day to get their water.  There are plenty more to repair….

Three interesting items have been requested  Does anyone have any of the following…

 

 

1.       A 16 or 18in bell for a church required by Helen Scott at Ekwendeni

 

 

 

 

2.       A Myford metal working lathe for the water project so that it can manufacture specialist parts

 

 

 

 

3.       A large double (or two single) deep Belfast type sinks for the Jamieson house laundry room

 

 

If you can help, please get in touch with John or Sue by phone or email. Thank you.

Work has progressed on finishing Jamieson House which will provide much needed accommodation for overseas visitors to the Mzuzu area.

Recently the gas cooker was installed, storage cupboards built and curtains hung. There is still plenty of painting to be undertaken but the house is looking very smart and practical.