G4G’s U.S. staff landed in Lilongwe, Malawi this past Monday to work side by side with our Malawi staff. Since we can’t be in-country nearly as much as we’d like, we have a lot of ground to cover during our one-month stay. We’ll be visiting all of our program partners to assess their progress, evaluate our programs and conduct surveys to see how we can best work together to serve the children in their care.

The first partner we visited was Bright Vision, an organization providing services to hundreds of toddlers, students, elderly community members and people living with HIV/AIDS in the surrounding villages. While at Bright Vision, we visited four different “nursery-school” centers–although they can hardly be called such by American standards. While community members had come together and volunteered their time to provide day-care services for the children, there was no actual “center” for the daycare to be held, no educational materials or toys for the children to play with and certainly no compensation for any of the workers.

At the third center, we noticed a huge pile of bricks sitting unused in a near-by field. We asked Stanley, the Director of Bright Vision, what the story was. He told us that the community had molded hundreds of bricks from mud (hundreds of hours of labor) to build a nursery school center for the children, yet they could not afford the cement to erect the structure. It was this lack of access to basic material inputs that was keeping Bright Vision from advancing their programs.

Despite the material shortcomings of the organization, I was so impressed with Bright Vision’s motivation, initiative and resourcefulness with the few materials that they did have. Every notebook, pen, stapler, and pair of shoes provided to Bright Vision by Goods for Good was being utilized to its fullest.

At the end of our stay- we sat down with local leaders, executive committee members and volunteers to discuss their needs and future plans for the organization how Goods for Good can best assist them in achieving their goals.

To support an organization like Bright Vision, click here. A little bit goes a long way.

Light Up Malawi, a venture  to bring 100% sustainable energy to Malawi, recently donated a solar power charger to Goods for Good partner organization Luzi. Founded and run by Malawians, Luzi is a community-based organization whose mission is to reduce the suffering of children impacted by HIV/AIDS. Luzi managers a large networking of nursery schools and youth programs that care for the most vulnerable children in their community.

Luzi will be using the solar charger as an income generating activity. The organization will permit villagers to use the charger to charge their cell phones and in return, Luzi will make a small profit.

Thank you to Light Up Malawi- we hope this is the beginning of a wonderful new partnership!

Goods for Good matches excess goods with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.

Schools in Malawi suffer from a desperate lack of infrastructure– many don’t even have roofs. Class is canceled due to harsh weather conditions and students and teachers don’t show up regularly because of low morale and motivation. Student’s educational opportunities are severely hindered by these conditions.

Goods for Good is embarking on an innovative new project to get these classrooms covered: we’re repurposing former billboards by turning them into roofs. There are about 1 million billboards in the U.S. alone; after about a month-long lifespan, these heavy-duty vinyl boards are thrown into landfills. G4G is working with HWKN Architecture to turn them into a low-cost, easily implementable roofing solution for our schools. Stay tuned for more on this project!

See more pictures HERE

Goods for Good matches excess goods from the U.S. with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.