Our
aim

Our primary aim is to provide a home, family, education and love for orphaned and vulnerable children in the southern part of Malawi - children who would otherwise find themselves living on the streets in Blantyre. Through the direct charitable support of people living in the UK and elsewhere, we want to maintain and develop the happy home we have built for these children to give them a bright future – and keep their smiles alive.

A secondary aim is to make a positive contribution to the local village and surrounding area.

We offer employment, share resources and provide help to the local primary school with equipment, uniform and occasional teaching assistance from visitors to the Smile Malawi home.

Our children

Tom age 8

Tadala age 8

Steven age 11

Junior age 13

Doreen age 17

George age 17

Meet Tom aged 8 years old.

.

Meet Tadala aged 8 years old.

.

Steven age 11.

.

Junior age 13.

.

Doreen age 17.

.

George age 17.

.

 Here are just a few of the gorgeous 37 children currently living in the Smile Malawi family home. They range in age from 3 to 19. They range in age from 3 to 19.

Our home

The Smile Malawi home is set in the rural community of Kapeya village, just 40 minutes drive from the southern city of Blantyre. In 2004 we bought land next to the village and started to build the home from scratch using the skills of local people.

Today, our home consists of the main residential house, which also contains the office and main kitchen, a second smaller residential house for the older boys, the matron’s house, 2 guest houses and a pig sty. The buildings are surrounded by 10 hectares of fertile gardens, which provide fresh vegetables and fruit as well as the majority of the maize crop each year. Maize is the staple diet of Malawi and the children eat a stiff doughy mixture called ‘nsima’ which is made from maize flour ground from the kernels at the local mill.

This is accompanied by a small amount of stew and vegetables. Some of their meat comes from our own animals. We now employ 25 local people to help run the home on a 24 hour shift basis.

Our village

 The villagers live in simple mud-brick houses dispersed across the countryside and many of the families consist of three or four children with a single mother, due to the impact of AIDS and other diseases such as malaria. There are no facilities in the area other than the overcrowded primary school. We are therefore ready to help the villagers in whatever way we can to give them better lives too.

For example, after the recent floods of January 2015, Smile Malawi provided the bricks with which some of the affected local people could rebuild their homes. Our borehole provides an additional source of fresh water for the village and we also provided the electricity supply to the village that now feeds the newly-built adjacent maize mill, saving the women a two-mile walk to get their maize ground.

Today, our home consists of a main house, a residential houses for the older boys, the matron’s house, a guest house and a pig sty, surrounded by fertile gardens, which provide fresh vegetables and fruit, and meat for the children.

Our
goals

In order to secure the future viability and sustainability of Smile Malawi, we have set ourselves these fundraising objectives for the next 5 years to 2020:

• To secure sustainable fundraising support to cover Smile Malawi’s future running costs and schools fees – a target of £60,000 per annum
• To launch campaigns to sponsor one-off development projects - for example, to refit and update the kitchen to cater for the growing needs of our children or to build an additional guest house for visitors
• To develop responsible tourism in Malawi with working holidays at the home
• To encourage friends, family and colleagues to join our ‘family’ of supporters – raising money through fun fundraising events and regular monthly donations
• To make it easy for us to connect with our extended ‘family’ and for them to donate online and ‘in the moment’ through social media.