A peaceful and politically stable country, Malawi is also one of the poorest countries in the world. Malawians daily problems are a combination of poverty, drought, flooding and a lack of resources. Malawi is home to approximately 17.3 million people and 67% of the population is under the age of 25. The majority depend on subsistence agriculture.
School is Free
In 1994 the Malawi Government made Primary School Education free. Around 30% of primary school age children are still not attending school however. The need to grow food, find food, do casual work for payment, care for parents and younger siblings outweighs reasons for attending school.
Girls Not Going to School
The overwhelming number of children dropping out of schools are girls due to the need for someone to stay home while parents are looking for money/food and of course early marriage.
Future Namacha
My name is Future Namacha and I am Seibo’s communications officer. My job gives me the opportunity to interact with different stake holders there by increasing my self-esteem as well as the positivity of my social relationships.
The most exciting part is when I visit a school and get greeted with smiling faces of children who are always eager to be on camera. It is very interesting to collect stories from these children of how our porridge benefits them.
Cheers Seibo.
The most exciting part is when I visit a school and get greeted with smiling faces of children who are always eager to be on camera. It is very interesting to collect stories from these children of how our porridge benefits them.
Cheers Seibo.
Sawako Nevin- Director
Staying in Malawi for the second time accompanying her husband. Sawako is the originator of the Send Your Girls to School Project for which she collaborated with Malawi’s top musician Lucius Banda to create a campaign song. The song is encouraging adults around primary school girls to send their girls to school and let them shine. Sawako recently organised a fundraising event to support a Malawian NGO ‘Girls Empowerment Network’s reusable sanitary pad project as the lack of hygiene materials is one of the reasons for girls students’ high absenteeism and drop out rates. She was also involved in launching the JOCA-sponsored school feeding programme in Kazomba Primary School in Mzimba South in Malawi. This is the foundation of Seibo’s school feeding project which starts in February. Being a graduate from Seibo primary & junior high school in Osaka, she gave the organisation its name.
Victor Mthulo
I am Victor Mthulo, working as Seibo’s Program Supervisor. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Education (Humanities) from the University of Malawi – Chancellor College, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Managing Rural and Community Development from the ShareWORLD Open University. I joined Seibo in August 2023 – will be one year in just two months. My normal day involves making payments and compiling finance reports; preparing and checking team plans and following up on tasks and activity reports; checking and consolidating program data such as requirements for likuni phala, attendance, enrolment, feeding and stock balances; budgeting and grant requests and staff performance management. I also handle staff recruitment and drafting of program documents such as operating procedures, and signing off key correspondence. I love my job because it offers me a rare chance to play a role in making things happen, things that determine the health, education, destiny and hence development of our community and country. I have a history of loving porridge so much when I was a kid, and feels satifying to be one of the enablers for other kids to have a warm cup of porridge in school.
2015 Catastrophic Floods
At the beginning of 2015 Malawi was hit by some of the worst floods in memory which has wreaked havoc on many subsistence farmers with crops destroyed, villages obliterated, homes swept away and livestock killed. Already almost 5 in every 10 children in Malawi were stunted and without proper nutrition these children will not recover. Already too many children in Malawi were not surviving to see their 5th birthday.
The Most Vulnerable
The under-5 population were without help. In areas where nursery schools existed there were no feeding facilities to provide a meal and other areas had no nurseries at all. Seibo began as a response to the need of these children. On the 11th of February 2016 feeding began at local nurseries in the Chilomoni township and with the support from donors both in Japan and abroad was already feeding 633 children in the first month. The United Nations World Food Programme says 37％ of children under 5 are stunted. This is just the beginning.
The Scale of the Challenge
With a total enrolment of 5 million primary school children in Malawi of which 60% are located in the rural areas we propose to simultaneously target clusters of rural schools as well as provide under-5 feeding in these areas through nurseries.
The goal remains to feed every hungry child in the world at hot meal at school.
The difference between a child holding an empty or full cup of food can determine which direction our world will travel. Together we can make that difference with every school meal we provide.