Blog – Watering Malawi

Give Water. Give Life.

Watering Malawi advocates for long-term solutions to extreme poverty and hunger through access to clean water, simple irrigation and sanitation systems. Currently we are receiving disaster response relief donations only.

Donate

Floods come. Clean water matters.

Tropical Storm Ana, has killed scores of people across southeastern Africa and left tens of thousands homeless. Donate now.

Donate

Floods come. Gardens wash away.

85% of Malawians are subsitent farmers. After clean water, the need for food is next. With gardens washed away food supplies will be diminished and demand will be high. You can help.

Donate

Floods come. Schools close.

Watering Malawi has partnered with NGOs to access clean water and sanitation for thousands of students. Now we need to help them get back to school! Donate now.

Donate

Floods come. Clay houses collapse.

Extreme poverty results in shelter insecurity. Many buildings are not constructed to withstand extreme climate change. Losing one's home and belongings can be a rainstorm away. Donate now.

Donate

Keeping Girls In Schools – Girl Power Malawi

Water is life. Sanitation is dignity. Those two phrases go together like salt and pepper, or peanut butter goes with jelly. Once you access water, there is a host of outcomes that follow. Sure clean water means healthier villages, happier children, the possibility of new streams of income sources made possible through irrigation or fish farming industry. But there are also some potentially unanticipated but very obvious once you think about them, outcomes that are not quite as marketable.

Girl Power Update

I ask that as we wash our hands, take a shower, or quench our thirst with ease, we remember to give thanksgiving for clean water and offer prayers for our sisters all over the world who are spending their day walking for water.

Strong Woman Strong World Part II: Spending the day with Her Excellency, Dr. Joyce Banda

There is a song in the holiday classic movie, White Christmas, that begins with Bing Crosby’s character asking, “What do you do with a general when he stops being a general?” It’s the same kind of question Amanda and I

Strong Women, Strong World: Part I Two Strong Women Visit The United Nations

The Strong Women, Strong World trip to New York was arranged months ago. It is an annual event sponsored by World Vision in Manhattan. This year’s pre-event included a conversation at the United Nations. Watering Malawi colleague, Amanda Short and

School Shoes

I feel like a failed college mom. Our schoolgirl started classes this week in Malawi. The problem is that she started a full week behind her classmates. She didn’t have what she needed. Her uniform was not ready. Her school

Girl Power.

Many girls dream of going to college, but one in three Malawian girls become brides before they are 18. Worldwide pregnancy is the leading cause of death for girls between 15-18 years of age. It is hard to believe but

Meet Four Strong Malawian Women

“If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire.” – George Monbiot

Meet some Malawian women who personify the truth of Monbiot’s statement.

Stuck

The rainy season has just ended, which is why I travel in April and not March. Oddly, it begins to rain. The crowds grow. The raindrops turn to downpour. People, standing under umbrellas and trees, or seeking shelter in doorways, wave. We wave back. Chingali is excited today. The president is coming! And we are trying to race ahead of her convoy to get to the district office.

Too late.

Church in the Dirt

Going to church in Malawi, like most things here, takes time. I used to begrudgingly drag my flip flops through the sand before plopping down on a thin wooden bench for a few hours of church. No longer a bored

The Girl Child.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a bill of rights for women called the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Heard of it? Me neither. Thirty years later, the women it was written to empower still haven’t gotten the memo. Why is that? And why is a bill of rights for women needed anyway?

« Previous