MALAWI LINKS

Waterloo United Free Church has been supporting several projects in Malawi for over 10 years. We were initially introduced to the needs of the Mchinji Home of Hope orphanage by a visitor to our church by one of their trustees who was on holiday staying with their family in Waterloo.

Home of Hope

Home of Hope children's mission in Mchinji, Malawi, is home to over 600 orphaned and other vulnerable children. Home of Hope provides shelter, care, food, medical care and education to needy children to help bring them to independence as well as for people in the local community. 

The Home of Hope has five different parts: the village, a farm, a school, medical clinic and a vocational training centre. 

 The Reverend Chipeta, who founded and ran the orphanage for many years, was orphaned at 14 years of age. Many years later, after two of his own children passed away, he and his wife took in their grandchildren to care for and raise. Reminded of his own childhood, they wanted to help other orphans and needy children and wanted to set an example to children in Malawi, that even an orphan can grow up to receive an education and go on to gain independence.

Our friends in Malawi also support other projects, which include two schools for blind children, and they have developed a newly built kindergarten school, which is also used for community gatherings.

From Waterloo to Malawi

A few of our church members have visited the projects in Malawi and the experience they had there has encouraged our church members to provide much needed financial and prayer support for the projects. We sponsor a number of children, provided funding for their education, have shipped out some furniture and equipment which was surplus to our requirements and also provided support for the schools and kindergarten including the building of a new maize mill which has provided much needed support for one of the schools and its local community. 

Malawi Lunches

Every two months we hold a 'Malawi Lunch' following our morning service, we eat together and donate the cost of our lunch towards the education costs at the orphanage.

Finding out more...

The Home of Hope website https://www.homeofhopemalawi.org provides details of how to donate and some specific current projects, one of which is to provide Baby Necessities Gift Packs. In Malawi, baby items are very expensive so few mothers have access to such necessary items for their babies' development. The packs will help provide nutritional supplements to vulnerable babies. Most babies at Home of Hope do not have a loving home environment to nourish them and therefore donations will directly help them to have the basic supplies needed for their development.