Plan Malawi is working at creating a violence free learning environment.

Plan’s strategy in Malawi works to improve the living conditions of children and create an environment that supports their right to survival, development and protection.

The main issues affecting children in Malawi are weak law enforcement structures in monitoring child rights violations; weak state apparatus to provide basic services  - such as education and health care, and poor accountability to citizens.

Many children and their families suffer from food insecurity. The prevalence of HIV and AIDS contributes to large numbers of orphans, which leads to the breakdown of social safety nets.

 Key goals

 To address these issues, Plan Malawi works to:

• improve the capacity of families to increase food production, productivity and household incomes
• improve access and quality of learning opportunities for children
• reduce the negative impact of HIV and AIDS on children and their families
• improve the health status of mothers, children and adolescents and ensure that families have access to safe drinking water and sanitation
• improve the capacity of communities to realise child rights.

Plan Malawi helps deprived communities to build relationships and work together to address the root causes of child poverty.

We work to enable children, their families and communities, government and civil society to sustain development processes that address the needs and rights of disadvantaged children and achieve lasting improvements in their quality of life.

We also collaborate with national efforts to develop social protection mechanisms to assist the most vulnerable children and families.

Progress

Plan Malawi’s programmes are helping to achieve our goals. Working with partners, the community based integrated management of childhood illnesses programme has made good progress in training community members to manage and prevent most of the common illnesses that affect children, including kwashiokor.

Our HIV and AIDs programme has increased the number of voluntary counselling and testing centres and implemented behavioural change initiatives. Orphans have also been supported with school fees at secondary level.

Being committed to long-term solutions to food security, Plan Malawi has partnered with research institutions to help households improve their food production and boost income by selling surplus produce. Village, savings and loans projects have also helped families to accumulate savings, allowing them greater flexibility in managing their resources.

In partnership with CONGOMA and Action Aid, we are coordinating the implementation of a community based monitoring project which uses scorecards on government service delivery and the budget process.