Listen First, Act Together
When invited into a new village, our approach starts with asking community leaders to identify their top priorities.
Next, we mobilize global support to provide resources and expertise. The entire village works with us to build solutions, and once a project is completed, villagers take ownership of it.
This collaborative effort helps secure the critical resources of clean water, food security, education, healthcare, infrastructure, and economic opportunity. Only by addressing all of these needs simultaneously can people break free from poverty’s grasp.
Scarcity to Sustainability
Moving to a more sustainable way of life - where there’s enough food to eat, where children can grow and attend school, and where there are economic opportunities - takes time. We monitor and evaluate our impact over time and strategically plan for the future.
Our Focus Areas
Access to clean water is almost always identified as a village’s first need. Typically, women and girls walk several miles each day to the nearest source of clean water for their families. Imagine having to choose between walking miles to a pump or relying on river water that has been used for washing and waste disposal further upstream.
Partnering to drill a well requires commitment and investment from the people of the village: they donate land for the well, collect river sand, crack quarry rock, and burn bricks to help build the wells. We hire local drillers and ensure sustainability by training area mechanics to maintain and repair the wells we drill.
Wells & water points implemented & locally maintained.
Of families in partner villages now walk 30 minutes or less to their nearest clean water source. (Most walk only 5 minutes or less.)
Help Provide Safe Water
The farmers of Malawi typically depended upon rainfall for the success of their harvests. Due to climate change’s impact, we have seen weather conditions become more unpredictable and the lives of subsistence farmers have become more precarious.
VIP helps farmers become more resilient by installing large-scale solar irrigation technology for dependable water for vital crops; teaching conservation agriculture best practices; supplying improved seed for increased crop yields; and distributing goats and chickens to provide eggs, meat, and much-needed income to vulnerable families. Relying on village leaders to determine which families receive livestock helps assure successful outcomes.
Farmers utilizing conservation agriculture techniques.
Goats distributed through our livestock pass-on program.
Contribute to Food Security
In the rural villages of Sakata, few Malawians have access to education – less than one in a thousand have ever attended university. VIP invests in education from preschool through university to help students in Malawi reach their potential.
We repair existing schools and build new ones, including the award-winning One Heart Secondary School; provide scholarships for secondary school and university students; and train caregivers and teachers to create engaging, hands-on learning experiences for their students.
Teachers trained.
High school scholarships awarded.
University scholarship recipients graduated
Help Educate Children
In Malawi, people have limited access to healthcare. There is just 1 physician for every 30,000 people, a rate almost 100 times lower than in the United States. HIV/AIDS is an epidemic in Malawi, with over 10 percent of the adult population infected. Malawians are also at high risk of malaria and other preventable illnesses, which lead to missed school days, reduced earning capacity, and tragic deaths.
VIP addresses this critical need for healthcare in a variety of ways:
- Through preventative training in proper sanitation and nutrition
- Weekly medical clinics in partnership with H-Parker Hospital and the Christian Health Association of Malawi
- Monthly dental clinics in partnership with the Ministry of Health dental staff
- Week-long medical mission trips pairing U.S. physicians, advanced practitioners, dentists, and nurses with Malawian practitioners
- Construction of a new health center in Khanda village
- Home visits for vulnerable villagers unable to make the journey to clinics
Help Provide Healthcare
So much progress in Malawi is held back by a lack of infrastructure – the structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, bridges, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society. For example, only 10 percent of the population has access to electricity. Based upon village leaders’ priorities, we have built bridges, childcare centers, a secondary school, a healthcare clinic, a mill, and grain banks, as well as provided solar-powered access to electricity for schools, healthcare clinics, farms, and the homes of teachers and medical practitioners. These projects have also benefitted the community by employing hundreds of local workers.
Infrastructure helps with access to every other Resource and has made a real difference in villagers’ quality of life, but there is still much work to do.
Bridges rebuilt between our villages.
Schools & classroom blocks built and now staffed and maintained by local communities.
Help Build Infrastructure
It is not enough for individuals to be healthy and educated; without economic opportunity, no one can escape poverty. VIP offers business training, lending clubs, and job-creation programs for families to take their financial future into their own hands.
In lending circles called Village Savings & Loan clubs (VSLs), participants pool their disposable income to make small loans to entrepreneurial members of the group. At the end of the year, these loans are repaid with interest, and all members of the group prosper. VIP also provides vocational training in fields ranging from beekeeping to welding. Trainees who show aptitude can establish their own businesses and operate independently from VIP. In this way, we empower entrepreneurs to lift themselves and their entire communities out of poverty.
Participants in beekeeping and agribusiness training.
Village Savings & Loan lending clubs established.
Help Create Opportunities
Contribute to Generational Transformation
Give Now
No one should live in extreme poverty. Everyone can do something about it. Give today to impact generations of Malawians.
Take A Trip
Experience the life-changing work taking place in Malawi. You will be impacted just as profoundly as the lives of our Malawian partners.
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