History

History of Life Child Malawi

Life Child Malawi was officially registered in Malawi in 2014, but started its operation much earlier, in 2011, in an area called Federation, in Blantyre district. Jarvis Msonda, who had been a Bible School student at Life Church, Cape Town (where Life Child was born), then returned home to Malawi to plant a Life Church there. Initially, children just came to the centre to have some porridge and then go home; this was made possible through the help of people who volunteered with cooking the porridge and serving the kids on a daily basis. Jarvis then continued to put into practice what he saw was happening in Cape Town.

Later in 2014, the work of Life Child was moved to the village of Baluti, an impoverished community in the semi-urban and rural area of Blantyre District, which is 10km outside of Blantyre town centre. It is here that Life Child Malawi has had its operations up to now, as it offered us a suitable location for our children’s work and for reaching out to the community. We started renting a building and later bought an unfinished house which we started working on to use as our permanent Life Child Centre. It was here that we started caring for 60 children by offering education, spiritual development and a meal of porridge on a daily basis. Later on, after acquiring some additional funding we have been able to include the provision of one healthy meal per day, recreational opportunities and social intervention programs for the children.

Within our education program we started using the local Malawi syllabus, but through our Life Child funding we were able to have 5 teachers sponsored to complete their Montessori training. Since 2014, we have had 70+ children graduate from preschool into local primary schools with very good grades.

Currently we have 9 members of staff, including a director, 5 teachers, a cook, a cleaner and a gardener, who manage this invaluable work with dedication, hard work, love for the kids, enthusiasm and a great team spirit.