Malawi Flood Update

2015 saw a horrific start to the year with disastrous floods in a large part of the country including Mulanje. The region where our office is situated. Torrential rain brought unprecedented floods to Malawi in January.

Reports said that the floods in Malawi had 276 people killed or missing, while 645 people injured. The number of people displaced stood at 230,000 with about 64,000 hectares (158,147 acres) of land damaged, highlighting the vulnerability of a country in which 85% of the population are farmers, most living below the poverty line.
 

Malawi Flood Appeal

We were thrilled to receive a total of $7313 from our appeal and our thanks go to everybody who Gives. Our sponsor then provided a further $7400 giving a gross revenue of $14,713 – a brilliant outcome. Accordingly last month we transferred $24,000 to Malawi which comprised the appeal monies and other accumulated Gifts.
 

The next step in the rebuilding process

People are slowly rebuilding their lives but there’s a long way to go.

Peter Ryan, Founder of MicroLoan Foundation and CEO of MLF UK has just returned from a two-week tour of the country and made this comment “I think the key point is that the harvests are going to be poor this year due either to too much or not enough rain. Projected shortfalls of maize are going to be a minimum of 30% and perhaps as high as 50%. This will inevitably mean famine later in the year unless extra relief stocks are given. Famine will put a lot of pressure on businesses and repayments.”

This highlights the fact we will need more resources in order to extend loan periods as a way of supporting our borrowers and their families as they struggle to get their life back into order. In many cases they will have lost homes or suffered severe damage to their dwellings and encode major disruption to their business activities.

Our commitment is to continue to extend our loan book in order to help more and more women start their own businesses and lift themselves from poverty so more funding is essential. With this in mind we will be launching a couple more initiatives in May and June to help us raise funds.
 

We’re now a tax deductible charity in our own right!

The good news is that after several years of perseverance we now have received our Designated Gift Recipient (DGR) status. This means that we can provide tax deductibility in our own as opposed to using the facilities of Rotary who have generously helped as in the past. The two major implications major implication either all Donate are now automatically tax-deductible, and importantly we now meet one of the main criterion of recognised corporate and philanthropist donors.
 

Help us ‘Start Something’

Increasing the impact we can have on the ground in Malawi can only be done with more funding and more human resources here in Australia. This means raising our profile and broadening our database hence we are announcing our new initiative “Start Something’ It’s very simple and there’s something to suit everyone!
 

Corporate & Philanthropist Funding Appeal

We are extremely fortunate that the anonymous donor who matched our Malawi Flood Appeal Donate has offered to do the same in the corporate sector also. As a result we will shortly be launching an appeal into that space. This means any of our readers who are representing corporate entities will be able to take advantage of this if they wish.
 

Corporate Supporters Feature

The Shoe Garden, Brisbane
 

We were thrilled last year when we were approached by Carol Haffke, proprietor of The Shoe Garden in Brisbane, wishing to make monthly payments as a proportion of her sales turnover.

Carol is an enthusiastic supporter and launched her program to 100 of her customers and their families on April 19 when over $1700 was raised on the day. An extraordinary effort Carol and thank you so much.

As a prelude to confirming our status as her nominated charity Carol actually visited our Mulanje office in Malawi on 30 December to see our work for herself

This is an extract from what Carol had to say:

“On 30 December I had the privilege of spending the day with Regional Manager Agnes Kasuma and we visited members of the Dodo group in Mulanje. The visit was largely organised by Agnes and Joyce in Malawi and Brian here in Australia.

I just wanted to share with you how amazing the team are and how proud I am to support your charity from April onward with proceeds from every sale being forwarded as Gifts to Microloan Foundation Australia each month. I am committed to assisting in the long-term and want to embed a spirit of giving back within my business.”