We just received pictures from St. Mary’s Orphan Care’s Chaka Cha Rainbow festival, which celebrates the end of the academic schoool year and the beginning of the holiday season. The children supported by St. Mary’s programs participate in singing and dancing and perform in a talent show for the community. At the end of the celebration, G4G-provided gifts are awarded to the children who have worked the hardest in school during the academic year.
St. Mary’s is home to 130 orphans and provides essential school support, material support, medical care and food to hundreds of other vulnerable children. Goods for Good provides ongoing material support St. Mary’s programs. All uniforms seen here were created by local Malawian tailors with G4G-provided fabric.
Click here to learn more about our Tailor-in-Training program.
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the United States with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
In 2008 Goods for Good donated a community center to Nkagamira village to advance early childhood education in the area. This article, recently published in Malawian newspaper The Nation, discusses the centers various purposes and benefits within the community.
Such encouraging and motivating results!
Goods for Goods matches excess goods from the United States with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
Program Manager Patricia Schmiedigen brought back these beautiful drawings created by the children at St. Maria of Mediatrix, a G4G partner and orphan care center in Malawi. St. Maria of Mediatrix is home to 50 children and receives ongoing material support from Goods for Good in the form of school supplies, clothing, shoes and health and hygiene products. All drawings were made with G4G-provided supplies.
These definitely brought a smile to everyone in the NY office !
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the United States with the needs of orphans and vulnerable children in the developing world.
Goods for Good provides material support to 183 community-based organizations, public schools and orphan care centers in Malawi. St. Mary’s Rehabilitation Center was our first program partner in Malawi and receive continuous material support from G4G. It is currently home to 130 children, many of whom were orphaned by AIDS, and provides essential school support, medical care, and food to hundreds of other children.
This week, G4G Program Manager Patricia Schmiedigen visited St. Mary’s and brought back a wonderful report on their programs and the children they serve:
“What really moved me was how happy and confident the kids at St. Mary’s are. When I arrived, they greeted me warmly and without hesitation. I was also impressed by their wonderful community garden, which supplies enough food for everyone there. Each child receives a perfectly balanced meal in their own bowl with their name on it. The kids were so healthy! I picked up one little girl into my arms and said in Chichewa, “Oh my, you are so big and strong!” Sister Rosemary, Program Director at St. Mary’s, looked at me and said “and she is the one on medicine.” This little girl, who was as big and strong as all the others, was born HIV positive and now takes ARVs everyday. I was so impressed by the quality of care the children at St. Mary’s receive.”
Our 40 foot container packed full of donated excess goods has just arrived in Malawi!
After a long journey at sea, 800 calculators, 4,000 bottles of anti-bacterial soap, 2,800 teacher bags, 30,000 cups and over 15,000 notepads (and much more) have finally arrived at our program sites outside of Lilongwe.
Members of the local community helped to unpack and store the goods, which will be distributed to 14 Goods for Good partner community-based organizations, public schools and orphan care centers in the coming months.
Thank you to all our supporters - you made this shipment possible!
Click HERE to see more pictures of the shipment’s arrival.
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the U.S. with the needs of vulnerable children in the developing world.
The Goods for Good program department is very excited to announce a new addition to the team! Blessings Lungu will be continuing the work of Aaron Lewani as the Goods for Good Malawi Program Manager. Blessings has previously worked as a Field Monitoring Assistant for Word Food Programme, District Planning Advisor for the United Nations Development Program and Program Monitor at Chinsomo Children’s Club in Malawi.
Takulandilani Blessings (Welcome in Chichewa) We’re glad to have you on board!
On our most recent trip to Malawi, we brought along friend and filmmaker Damani Baker. Over the course of one week he took footage of the everyday activities that go on at our many different project sites.
Watch his video, From Excess to Progress, to learn more about G4G’s work in Malawi.
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the U.S. with the needs of vulnerable children in the developing world.
Over 3,400 pens and almost 800 pencils were distributed today to students at St. Mathias Primary and Chankhungu Primary schools in Malawi. Local chiefs, group village headman, teachers, school committee members and Goods for Good staff were all present and participated in the distribution process. Before the distribution began, schoool committee members spoke to the children, advising them to “take care of their beautiful new pens and to only use them for learning.”
Mrs. Emma Ntchita, a standard one school teacher at Chankhungu Primary, told Goods for Good Malawi Program Manager, Aaron Lewani, that it was clear the G4G provided pens have improved and maintained student enrollment at the local schools.
“The pens program has assisted us a lot,” she said. ”Children who could have been at home are now coming to school. The program is allowing every child to write when we give them work.”
The Goods for Good team is always so glad to hear about such positive feedback. We’d like to extend a thank you to everyone who participated in today’s distribution- you make our work possible!
Goods for Good matches excess goods from the U.S. with the needs of vulnerable children in the developing world.
