Malawi

Malawi faces several social problems including poverty, where 50% of the population lives under the poverty line, and a high HIV/AIDS infection rate. Malawi is also prone to flooding from continuous and heavy rainfalls, which makes the most vulnerable of the population – those living in rural areas and whose livelihoods are based off of sustenance farming – all the more susceptible to extreme hunger.

Malawi is a country in southern Africa with an estimated population of 18.6 million people, bordered by Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania and Lake Malawi. Formerly known as Nyasaland and controlled by Britain, Malawi declared independence in 1964. Run by the dictator Hastings Banda until the 1990’s, Malawi has recently become much more democratic and its economy has been improving steadily.

Our Work In Malawi

In Africa, The Hunger Project works to build sustainable community-based programs using the Epicentre Strategy. An epicentre is a dynamic centre of community mobilisation and action, as well as an actual facility built by community members. Through the Epicentre Strategy 15,000-25,000 people are brought together as a cluster of rural villages — giving villages more clout with local government than a single village is likely to have and increasing a community’s ability to collective utilise resources. The epicentre building serves as a focal point where the motivation, energies and leadership of the people converge with the resources of local government and non-governmental organisations. Over an eight-year period, an epicentre addresses hunger and poverty and moves along a path toward sustainable self-reliance, at which point it is able to fund its own activities and no longer requires financial investment from The Hunger Project.

    Photo by Maria Thundu 

The Hunger Project has been working in Malawi since 1999 and is currently empowering community partners in 12 epicentre areas to end their own hunger and poverty. Cumulatively the epicentres serve a population of 183,559 in 304 villages with an average of 25 villages per epicentre.

Through its integrated approach to rural development, the Epicentre Strategy, The Hunger Project is working with community partners to successfully access the basic services needed to lead lives of self-reliance and achieve internationally agreed-upon markers of success, such as the Sustainable Development Goals.

Check out satellite views of our epicentre sites in Malawi. See them here: