Giving to Malawi
There are many ways in which you can donate to help the people of Malawi, as they rebuild their country after Cyclone Freddy.
You are very welcome to send a donation to the church, and ask us to distribute them to Malawi.
You could give to a mainstream charity based in the UK. There are several established charities who have worked in Malawi for some time. For instance, Christian Aid, Water Aid, and the government Disasters Emergency Committee.
Matt Williams, one of our church members, knows Malawi well and has personal contacts in the country to whom you could send donations.
You could also donate via another of our church members, Meilta Gordon, currently living in Malawi. She has recently identified three charities we could support. She writes:
"As you know, this disaster was fuelled entirely by avoidable human factors – climate warming and chaotic weather events; poverty and urbanization; land pressure and severe deforestation. In order to work towards preventing such disasters in future, we have reserved about 50% of your donations to give directly to 3 environmental groups working locally, of which we have favourable experience, as below:
Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi:
WESM is a longstanding local charitable organization with groups/branches in many towns including Blantyre, Lilongwe, Nkhata Bay, Mzuzu, Mulanje and Thyolo. Local branches prioritise and run afforestation and conservation projects. WESM actively supported recent campaigns and a successful legal case to ban the use of thin plastics in Malawi. WESM also employs a schools officer to run “wildlife clubs” in many government schools, directly reaching thousands of local children with environmental education. You can see their 6-monthly report on their website.
Treez Zomba:
Treez works on the deforested slopes of the Zomba plateau with local communities and traditional leaders, to plant and preserve indigenous forest, and control damaging wildfires. Engagement with communities includes sponsoring football teams and church choirs. They have a community model that emphasizes education and supports keeping trees alive year-on-year, rather than just planting seedlings, encouraging a longer-term and more holistic commitment.
WeForest:
https://www.weforest.org/project/mount-mulanje/
A larger international afforestation organization who work at scale on the Mulanje Mountain Massif, a world heritage biosphere reserve (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulanje_Massif), in collaboration with other local organisations and communities. MLW works with WeForest for carbon-offsetting of our airflights for our global health research."