Taken from http://www.blipfoto.com/wellsforzoe

It is now 5 months since the women with the knitting needles headed over to Dzandi to set up the Cottage Industry, and I am happy to say it is progressing fairly well.

The fact that the women involved are receiving payment per item they produce means they are receiving an income, which, as stated before, means the entire community are benefiting.

We initially had some teething problems getting wool out to Malawi as the cost and reliability of transportation was difficult. We are now utilizing the altruism of people traveling over and back to be our courier’s.

So what products are arriving back to Ireland and what are we doing with them? Well, knitted fingerless mittens, headbands and hats are the main items returned. Some times they will need a bit of tidying and generally the fingerless gloves arrive as a square and we sew them up ourselves.

We have also received coasters, mats and a small amount of jewelry. We are selling these items with all money received being ploughed back into the industry. We have sold them wherever possible:

-     In the National Maternity Hospital, at a Christmas Fair.     Thanks to all the staff in the NMH, they are always supportive of events.

-     The Christmas Fair in Milltown Church, who allowed us to put in a table at their event. Thanks to you also.

-      The Shop in Holy Cross Church. A big thank you for facilitating this.

-      Family and friends. I’d say lots of our families got knitted items as gifts.

We still have lots of produce left so Christina and myself are heading off to Donal in Donegal and hopefully he can take some off our hands.

Going forward we need to fine tune the transportation to and from Malawi and develop new patterns for the women to follow. Perhaps they are now ready to knit jumpers, as the Lord knows we are drowning in fingerless mittens!

So hopefully 2013 will see the Cottage Industry going from strength to strength.

Catherine McCann

The annual Ladies Lunch took place in November  in Siam Thai, Dundrum.  This is always a lovely day out and this year was no exception. We actually had great fun. This year we were entertained by the “Eucharistic Congress”, a group of ukulele players who really entered into the spirit of the event and were not daunted by 60 enthusiastic women. The lads gave of their time freely and truly added to the atmosphere of the day. Thanks boys.

It is an ideal opportunity to glamorise yourself and put on your best ‘guna’ and highest heels. While there you can add a hat or head- piece courtesy of Dessie, or experiment with your make-up with Marina’s help. This year you could have endeavored to become a domestic goddess as Anne Marie taught us art of sugar craft. Did she succeed?  I wonder!

Our food was lovely and the staff of Siam Thai was more than helpful, but then they always are.

The theme of our lunch this year was one of “women supporting women” and while that spirit was evident at our lunch perhaps it will also be the spirit that will empower the women in Malawi.

Thanks to the sponsors of the event,

Castlemartyr Resort Hotel

Ritz Carlton Hotel

Jamie Oliver’s Restaurant,

Supervalue in Churchtown,

Roly  Saul

Siam Thai

Paula Jennings

Moira Lynam

Anne Marie Dunne

Maureen Reidy

We truly thank all the sponsors, as no matter how many tickets we sell for the lunch, it would be impossible to make any profit without your generosity.

Our Ladies Lunch is attended by ladies who come along to support Cara Malawi, while having a bit of fun at the same time.  We in Cara Malawi acknowledge and appreciate the fact you give of your hard earned money in these difficult times. Thank you, and looking forward to seeing you all next year for more fun, “craic agus glamour”.

Catherine McCann

This summer my friend Ruth and I took a step into the unknown and travelled to Malawi, the ‘warm heart of Africa’ where we spent 3 weeks working on behalf of Irish based charity Cara Malawi. There are not words, or at least none that I can muster, that could endeavour to adequately capture this experience and what it has meant to us. Malawi and its people have left us with countless memories and have carved a place in both our hearts that I know will draw us back there again.

I find it funny that some of the most life changing experiences we have, come about purely by accident. In this case, my trip to Malawi resulted from a random conversation back in December with Ruth, who on hearing me mention a possible interest in volunteer work in Africa, contacted her friend Christina Lynam, founder of Cara Malawi. Before I knew it, flights were booked to Lilongwe and I was on my way to Donegal to meet with Donal Sweeney to find out more about cottage industries which Christina hoped could be set up with a women’s group in the village of Dzandi in Malawi. The idea was that women could produce saleable knitwear in their homes and generate an income for their family, a process that had benefitted many communities in Donegal in past times. Not only did Donal provide the wool for our project but he also introduced us to some very talented local knitters who gave us some great ideas for simple products that the ladies could learn to produce. I picked up a pair of knitting needles for the first time in 17 years and was amazed (and relieved!) that a simple knitted square could be transformed into a number of products from hats to fingerless mittens.

And so off we set for Malawi, our suitcases full of Kilcarr yarn and knitting needles and ourselves, full of anticipation and some vague notion of how this project might unfold. The first couple of days were pretty overwhelming and, truth be told, so was every day I spent in Malawi. We received the most amazing welcome in the village of Dzandi. Our car was surrounded as we approached the village by the local ladies singing and dancing. We were introduced to the village chief and the women’s group who we would be teaching in hopes of establishing a cottage type industry in their community. What seemed like the whole village came out and expressed through song, chanting and dance how happy they were to meet us, how much they appreciated the opportunities we were offering and how they saw this as a bridge of friendship between countries and communities. We took lots of pictures and video clips in the vain hopes that we might capture for others something that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.

The women’s group were eager to get stuck in straight away and this enthusiasm and fantastic work ethic did not fade over the three weeks. We set up in a classroom of the local school and began to teach some basic knitting and sewing skills. The ladies showed great ability from the beginning and were so dedicated and determined, many of them continuing to work while nursing a baby or with a child strapped to their back. Although the women showed potential, we were still starting with the most basic skills. For example, many of the women needed to be taught how to use a scissors, hold a pencil and thread a needle. Threading needles is proved especially difficult given that many of the women have poor vision and light in the classroom was pretty terrible. Furthermore, we were fighting a constant battle with dust and dirt. It was incredibly difficult to keep the materials and products clean and dust free, and it was certainly not something the women tried to do naturally. The idea of wiping off the tables before starting work seemed to them a completely novel and silly thing to do!

Each day the classroom was a hive of activity with the women singing as they worked. Indeed, we were greeted each morning with song and a generally our day would end with some singing and dancing. The ladies tried their best to teach us how to dance (it’s all in the hips apparently!) and although I thought we did alright, the peals of laughter throughout the group each time indicated otherwise! Their spirit and sense of fun made the whole experience a real joy.

By the end of our stay, the women we producing excellent knitted headbands and had also begun work on a sewing project. It was so rewarding to see women who had struggled so much on day one progress so quickly and to see their own pride in comparing their first attempts to their latest produce. Although we saw progress and the project experienced the beginnings of success, it was not without challenges or set backs. In fact, every day we spent in Malawi, presented itself with a new challenge or stumbling block that needed to be overcome. We often grew weary from these constant battles but the overall spirit of the ladies and the project propelled us forward and kept us going.

Many of the items produced by the ladies were shipped home and we are hoping to sell them to fund the project as it develops. In the future, we hope that the training and support we have give the women will allow them to run their own self sustainable cottage industry. The whole experience was incredible and it was fantastic to see first hand how the work done by Cara Malawi is helping communities to develop and strengthen so that they may find lasting solutions to poverty. It was a privilege to be involved with the ladies in Dzandi and to be associated with Cara Malawi. To the people of Malawi, the charity and all our family and friends who have supported this project in any way; zikomo kwambi

Until two years ago Kaphuka was a typical isolated rural sub-saharan village. People rose with the sun, spent the daylight hours working, and slept when darkness came. There was no artificial light and so there was little time for the children of the village to read or do homework. If someone became sick after nightfall, as they often do in a region that is rife with malaria, trying to get to a hospital in the darkness down potholed dirt roads was almost impossible. There were no phones, no television and no music.

Mrs Kawambe and Mrs. Namare are unlikely revolutionaries, but they have fundamentally changed Kaphuka. The next day I meet them in their workshop, a small red mud hut in the centre of the village. Both are elderly grandmothers; one tall, thin, kind eyed, the other short, round and smiling. As we talk they stand with their shoulders touching as if they share the same personal space. They have been through a lot together.

In 2008, having never been further than Lilongwe, the nearest city, they left their families behind for six months to attend the Barefoot College in Rajhastan,India. The college was set up by Bunker Roy, a high caste Indian, in 1972. Royhad the benefit of the best and most expensive education in India and was destined for a position in the diplomatic service. On a whim, after finishing his final exams, he went to stay in a rural Indian village for a few months. While there he came to the realisation that his education was worthless outside the environment of a small elite and gave him no practical skills that could benefit people who really needed help.

So, putting his diplomatic career on hold, he founded the BarefootCollege, a place where women from the poorest backgrounds, with no formal education, and often illiterate, come to learn how to become architects, engineers, medical workers and other types of professionals. Roy refuses to accept men into the college as he says ‘they are too ambitious and untrainable. They take what they have learnt and use it to leave their villages and go to the city’. Instead, most of the students in the college are grandmothers, who, because of their position within their communities are assured to return to their villages after completing their training.

Mrs. Kawamba tells me that an Irish charity – Cara Malawi – supported them when they left Kaphuka for six months to go to India. There were students from over ten different countries on the solar engineering course they attended  I ask how they were taught given that they had no common language. She hands me a thick training manual that she brought back from India that explains the complicated task of constructing and fixing a solar panel using a universally  understandable colour-coded system of learning. Likewise, Mrs Namare tells me she could communicate with the other students from places as diverse as Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka through mime and expression. “We were all grandmothers” she says, holding her hands out, as if this is explanation enough.

After six months, the two were fully trained solar engineers, able to dissemble and reassemble a solar panel, or build one from scratch, given the right materials. They returned to Kaphuka expecting to start work but there was a three month delay in the necessary parts arriving. Mrs. Namare says some people, especially the men in the village, began to doubt them. ‘They thought we had learnt nothing in India, that it was a joke’.

Finally a truck arrived carrying the equipment. The two women disappeared into the hut they had reserved to act as their workshop. Within 24 hours they had constructed a solar panel on the thatched roof that was connected to a bulb in their workshop. They strung another wire outside and hung a bulb in the eaves of the thatch. That night they switched on the lights and waited. Mrs. Kawamba describes what happened. ‘we looked outside and all the children of the village had come with their books and sat on the step out there and did their homework. People then began to believe us and everyone wanted a solar panel’.

The villagers now all pay a small amount into a fund that allows the two women to work full time in their workshop, fixing solar panels and solar powered storm lamps and building new ones. Over a hundred huts now have their own panels. We speak loudly in order hear each other over a pulsating dub reggae beat coming from outside. We finish talking and I wander outside to find the source of the music. I meet a young man who is running a barbershop and mobile phone charging service next door. It is a simple hut, with one side open to the elements. A mess of different mobile phone chargers lie beside an electric shaver and a radio plugged into a source connected to a solar panel overhead.  Before Mrs Kawamba and Namare came back fromIndiathe nearest electrical point was over a 20 km walk away down a rough uneven road. To charge a phone would mean a two day journey with the expense of staying the night. Now, for a small fee, you can charge your phone while getting a haircut.

The effect of the spread of mobile phones in Africa has been huge. Throughout the developed world’s financial crisis, the grim predictions about the economic consequences for Africa have failed to come to pass. Africa is booming while the rest of the world languishes. Kaphuka, like most of  Africa, is in essence a community of nascent small businessmen, their business being agriculture. What businesses require to grow is capital, credit and a market. Innovative banking techniques originating in Kenya that allow users to gain credit, send money and conduct other transactions by mobile phone have spread all over Africa, stimulating economies and contributing to a growth in GDP in 2010 in most sub-saharan countries that far outstrips that in the developed world. A dusty mobile phone charger and phone in a barber’s hut is the source for  banking, comparing grain prices, trading and weather updates for a previously isolated community like Kaphuka.

That evening we walk through the village. Children sit in the glow of solar powered stormlamps, their fingers tracing the lines of their school books, their lips reading the words silently, while inside, lightbulbs illuminate the figures of their mothers as they prepare food. Somewhere a radio burbles quietly, giving news from the rest of the world.

Sam Mc Manus

Until two years ago Kaphuka was a typical isolated rural sub-saharan village. People rose with the sun, spent the daylight hours working, and slept when darkness came. There was no artificial light and so there was little time for the children of the village to read or do homework. If someone became sick after nightfall, as they often do in a region that is rife with malaria, trying to get to a hospital in the darkness down potholed dirt roads was almost impossible. There were no phones, no television and no music.

Mrs Kawambe and Mrs. Namare are unlikely revolutionaries, but they have fundamentally changed Kaphuka. The next day I meet them in their workshop, a small red mud hut in the centre of the village. Both are elderly grandmothers; one tall, thin, kind eyed, the other short, round and smiling. As we talk they stand with their shoulders touching as if they share the same personal space. They have been through a lot together.

In 2008, having never been further than Lilongwe, the nearest city, they left their families behind for six months to attend the Barefoot College in Rajhastan,India. The college was set up by Bunker Roy, a high caste Indian, in 1972. Royhad the benefit of the best and most expensive education in India and was destined for a position in the diplomatic service. On a whim, after finishing his final exams, he went to stay in a rural Indian village for a few months. While there he came to the realisation that his education was worthless outside the environment of a small elite and gave him no practical skills that could benefit people who really needed help.

So, putting his diplomatic career on hold, he founded the BarefootCollege, a place where women from the poorest backgrounds, with no formal education, and often illiterate, come to learn how to become architects, engineers, medical workers and other types of professionals. Roy refuses to accept men into the college as he says ‘they are too ambitious and untrainable. They take what they have learnt and use it to leave their villages and go to the city’. Instead, most of the students in the college are grandmothers, who, because of their position within their communities are assured to return to their villages after completing their training.

Mrs. Kawamba tells me that an Irish charity – Cara Malawi – supported them when they left Kaphuka for six months to go to India. There were students from over ten different countries on the solar engineering course they attended  I ask how they were taught given that they had no common language. She hands me a thick training manual that she brought back from India that explains the complicated task of constructing and fixing a solar panel using a universally  understandable colour-coded system of learning. Likewise, Mrs Namare tells me she could communicate with the other students from places as diverse as Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka through mime and expression. “We were all grandmothers” she says, holding her hands out, as if this is explanation enough.

After six months, the two were fully trained solar engineers, able to dissemble and reassemble a solar panel, or build one from scratch, given the right materials. They returned to Kaphuka expecting to start work but there was a three month delay in the necessary parts arriving. Mrs. Namare says some people, especially the men in the village, began to doubt them. ‘They thought we had learnt nothing in India, that it was a joke’.

Finally a truck arrived carrying the equipment. The two women disappeared into the hut they had reserved to act as their workshop. Within 24 hours they had constructed a solar panel on the thatched roof that was connected to a bulb in their workshop. They strung another wire outside and hung a bulb in the eaves of the thatch. That night they switched on the lights and waited. Mrs. Kawamba describes what happened. ‘we looked outside and all the children of the village had come with their books and sat on the step out there and did their homework. People then began to believe us and everyone wanted a solar panel’.

The villagers now all pay a small amount into a fund that allows the two women to work full time in their workshop, fixing solar panels and solar powered storm lamps and building new ones. Over a hundred huts now have their own panels. We speak loudly in order hear each other over a pulsating dub reggae beat coming from outside. We finish talking and I wander outside to find the source of the music. I meet a young man who is running a barbershop and mobile phone charging service next door. It is a simple hut, with one side open to the elements. A mess of different mobile phone chargers lie beside an electric shaver and a radio plugged into a source connected to a solar panel overhead.  Before Mrs Kawamba and Namare came back fromIndiathe nearest electrical point was over a 20 km walk away down a rough uneven road. To charge a phone would mean a two day journey with the expense of staying the night. Now, for a small fee, you can charge your phone while getting a haircut.

The effect of the spread of mobile phones in Africa has been huge. Throughout the developed world’s financial crisis, the grim predictions about the economic consequences for Africa have failed to come to pass. Africa is booming while the rest of the world languishes. Kaphuka, like most of  Africa, is in essence a community of nascent small businessmen, their business being agriculture. What businesses require to grow is capital, credit and a market. Innovative banking techniques originating in Kenya that allow users to gain credit, send money and conduct other transactions by mobile phone have spread all over Africa, stimulating economies and contributing to a growth in GDP in 2010 in most sub-saharan countries that far outstrips that in the developed world. A dusty mobile phone charger and phone in a barber’s hut is the source for  banking, comparing grain prices, trading and weather updates for a previously isolated community like Kaphuka.

That evening we walk through the village. Children sit in the glow of solar powered stormlamps, their fingers tracing the lines of their school books, their lips reading the words silently, while inside, lightbulbs illuminate the figures of their mothers as they prepare food. Somewhere a radio burbles quietly, giving news from the rest of the world.

Sam Mc Manus

Once again Betty and Matt Clancy donated 4,300 Euro to Cara Malawi arising from the annual Colm Clancy Memorial Walk which is held in the beautiful Glenveagh National Park in Donegal.

ADESCO has provided the necessary funds for the acquisition and installation of milling machines in the Maize Mill in Kaphuka. These will be installed in July 2012 and the Mill will be operational in August 2012.

Runners in the Mini Marathon raised 1500 Euro for Cara Malawi – well done and thanks to all who ran on our behalf.

Australia: