Today we have all lost a visionary man, a leader and a true hero in the effort to develop Malawi and provide opportunity for its people. Elijah Gondwe, the Director of Luzi Community Based Organization, died yesterday from malaria. His death serves as a reminder to me of how far we have come and how much further we need to go to improve life in Malawi. Elijah’s untimely death makes me think of the existing and future leaders we lose everyday from such preventable causes.

With Elijah’s passing comes a renewed persistence within myself, my organization and friends to continue nurturing and supporting Malawi’s current and future leaders. It is only through them, that our shared vision of opportunity and prosperity for all Malawian’s will be achieved.

Even though he is not longer with us, his contribution to Luzi, the community, the orphans and the whole of Malawi will endure forever. Zikomo Abambo.

-Melissa Kushner

Elijah Gondwe was the Director of Luzi Community Based Organization. A grass roots community center founded in 1999 to provide essential services such as home based care for the chronically ill, nursery school, after school programs for orphans, vocational training and many other programs. Since its founding, Luzi has grown to support over 6,724 people including hundreds of orphans, elderly, widowed and vulnerable people.

At the beginning of the school year, River Bend Elementary School’s 5th grade class decided to institute a school-wide fundraiser to support an under-resourced classroom in Malawi. They called it Change for Change and their goal was to collect funds to help support students in Malawi and to learn about Malawian culture and history.

The students passed out collection jars, created goal posters, and made weekly announcements to each classroom in their school to engage their fellow students in the initiative. Eight months later, Change for Change has raised over $1,000, which they’re donating to Goods for Good. That’s enough for G4G to deliver essential school supplies to an entire school in Malawi!

Many thanks to the all of the students and teachers at River Bend Elementary for all of your hard work.  Your motivation and generosity is inspiring and will truly make a meaningful difference in the lives of hundreds of students in Malawi.

Interested in hosting a fundraiser in honor of Goods for Good? Shoot us an email info@goods4good.org.

Students at Ramaz Upper School in NYC are donating their copies of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a story about the innovative William Kamkwamba, to Goods for Good, who will deliver them to Chankungu Secondary School in Malawi.  By donating their books, these students will share William’s inspirational story with students in Malawi who face similar hardships and give them hope for a brighter future.

This is such a wonderful opportunity for both schools. Many thanks to the students at Ramaz!

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

Go 4 Good volunteers Deena and Joanna recently returned to NYC from their 6 week stay in Malawi. The two women were working with Goods for Good partner Tiyambe Nawo community-based organization to help develop a sustainable nursery school program. Joanna was working to formalize daily routines at the nursery school children while Deena was starting a choir and organizing other after school activities.

We had to share this excerpt from Deena’s blog during her last week in Malawi:

“I don’t think I knew just what it meant to be a developing country, when I chose Malawi, from ideas, to people, to education, to technology. This place is shifting, it is a country in transit. I learned that even in the village, where a gentle shield of glass protects a very ancient, sacred and simple way of life, seemingly untouched, even the village wants to learn, to grow, to move forward.

I also saw just how hard it is, like reaching in a bowl of mixed marbles, deep and dense and then trying in that same bowl to arrange the tumbling marbles by color. It feels almost impossible. Along the way you must accept difference, alternate ways of living and figure out how to help without infringing. Never accept defeat.

That is Malawi, this country with difficult sense of time, lack of logical systems, now working credit card machines, unpaved streets, where school is not mandatory or even made a priority for some.

But there are beautiful people here in this country, joy, smiles, innovative ideas who desire more. Whose pride of their country is strong but who know there could be improvements. They are people like Blessings, Raphael, the school teachers and mostly the Benesi family who taught me the true sense of responsibility to community and to being open to new ideas while maintaining tradition, so rich and so vivid.

That is how you grow, one person at a time. I am so curious to see the future of the center, our heartfelt classroom, our children, the teachers, the Benesi family and this country as a whole.

I know that my time in Malawi is not over. It can’t be. We have hardly brushed the surface, and I would like to return. I hope to return. Knowing now what it means to work with a developing country such as this, that it is not molding a people, rather sharing ideas to inspire growth. Consistency is key. It is something I want to keep a part of my life, and plan to as I embark on future endeavors.”