Dear friends,
Where did 2017 go? Only a year ago we started works on our land…
This past year we have achieved so much: it now seems like Cornelio and his family have lived in their new house forever. We have a storeroom to keep our building equipment safely, we have a borehole, a state of the art septic tank, a water tower, we have an electricity connection ( which is really handy in the rare event that there is no power cut). We have a fence around our property, our first guest chalet only needs some finishing touches and the foundations for our office building and sanitation area are ready.
Next up is to finish the office and sanitation building, get a new watertank (we had a watertank, but that one broke so we still have to replace it), buy a solar pump to bring water from our borehole to our watertank. We will construct a small building to protect the solar pump, our plumber-volunteer will connect all the plumbing. We will buy a waterfilter to have safe drinking water for everyone.
If the budget allows we will continue with an open air kitchen, an educational space, a second sanitation area, a place to do the laundry and a gate at the front and the back of the property.
Once we have achieved this, the building works are not yet finished but the project is ready to be operational and to receive young people for day care, as we are still only providing outreach care at the moment.
Ongoing works are the furniture in all areas, the development of the garden and our natural living fence.
Soon we will have our very own guinea pig to test the accommodation: Kudimba’s Judy will stay in the guest chalet in February and test it out for next visitors to come.
Our original optimistic goal was to open the doors of Kudimba in April 2018 and it looks like this is not going to be possible yet, due to all the delays we had at the start of our development, problems which were out of our control. If all goes well and we have the budget, the start of our daycare is not going to be too much longer though. Our new deadline is the end of 2018.
We find it important to emphasise in this newsletter again that every single pound, euro, dollar or Malawian kwacha donated to Kudimba is used directly to assist vulnerable young people in the Salima area. All overseas Kudimba members contribute their time, travels and efforts without any financial compensation. Kudimba pays their local coworkers in Malawi a modest but fair salary so that they can support their family. We also assist them in emergencies and try to encourage the education of their children.
We are very happy with our newest member of the Kudimba team: Mercy. She will be responsible for social care in Kudimba and for receiving visitors. At the moment Mercy is preparing for the job: she is doing computer lessons, a drivers license and after that we plan for Mercy to do a course in sexual health education.
It is our aim to create opportunities for education for Kudimba’s staff members. Cornelio has already done a training in permaculture and also William and Max are keen to do this once the building works have progressed more. Judy will assist the staff members with more computer training when she is in Lifuwu in February.
Our other students are doing well, Jimmy has completed his welding training, we hope he will find opportunities to bring his training in practice. Austin is on a Christmas break, he has finished his first year in ‘Public Health’, we are really excited to find out what his results are, fingers crossed.
From about April 2018 onwards we are looking forward to welcoming our newest member: Ulita, who will be the first Kunyumba kid to participate in Kudimba.
A big thank you to everyone who has contributed towards Kudimba this year: by encouraging and supporting us, by sharing our enthusiasm, donating your time and money, your practical support, ideas and suggestions, by baking cakes, printing calendars and flyers, making bicycle tyre jewellery, by fundraising for Kudimba, visiting us and sharing our news, we really appreciate it very much and all these shoulders carry Kudimba further….
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year,
The Kudimba team