Dear friends,
Here is our second Kudimba newsletter and we are so pleased to start our spring update with some very good news.
Finally the land issue we had has been cleared. Six months of red tape and unnecessary paper shuffling later – it seems to be the way things work in Malawi- we can now continue with our Kudimba building works, full steam ahead!.
Cornelio and William were very eager to restart the work where they had left it. At present they are building a house and a store room. The house will be the new home for Cornelio and his family, our on-site Kudimba manager. He can then overview the next phase of the building works. The store room will keep all our building equipment safe whilst the works are going on. The next steps are an electricity connection, a bore hole, a septic tank, a water storage facility and a fence around the property. After that we will continue with the larger infrastructure.
Whilst all of this is going on, Cornelio and William will also start planting the garden.
So what have we been upto the last few months:
Kudimba was invited in the International School in Brussels to talk about Malawi and the Kudimba plans. Zikomo used the opportunity to present their work with a workshop using recycled bicycle tires.
The Guldensporen college in Kortrijk have organised a special event for Kudimba. All students had an ‘honest’ breakfast, with only fair trade products, and were given a presentation about Kudimba, in return they fundraised for our project.
More good news, we finally have a Belgian Kudimba bank account. Until now we only had an account in the UK and in France, but now our Belgian friends can contribute directly on this account:
KUDIMBA
BE 54 3770 8346 4897
ING Lion Account
Eendenstraat 44
8450 Bredene
Belgium
Our other account details, for UK and France are still the same and can be found here.
More news from Malawi
We were very sad to have to say goodbye to our little friend Mtima. This 17 year old boy was the very first Kunyumba child ( the original project) and Kudimba was being developed very much with him in mind, he had a learning disability. Mtima had a severe epileptic fit at home and didn’t survive. We miss him very much and will always think back with fond memories. Hopefully Kudimba can be a little oasis for many young kids like Mtima.
Austin has very enthusiastically started his course in Lilongwe, in March he is writing his first mid term exams and we are very keen to find out how he is doing.
Jimmy in the meanwhile is very occupied with his welding course, and if all goes well we are hoping to employ him in a further stage of our building works to assist us with all that needs welding for our infrastructure.
Thoko is looking for a sponsor, this young girl has just passed her secondary education with very good results and her dream is to study irrigation technology at the university of Malawi, a much needed specialisation in Malawi’s climate. Unfortunately higher education is unaffordable for most parents in Malawi. If anyone is interested to sponsor Thoko or any other young person via our education fund, for which we rely on monthly donations, please get in touch with us via email: contact@kudimba.org
One off donations help us to further develop out project and are of course also very welcome.
Our Trustee Judy will now stay in Malawi for a while to follow up on the building works, the garden development and some other practical issues. All the very best Judy, have a lovely time!
You can still find more updates and pictures on Kudimba on our Facebook page.
Enjoy the spring!
The Kudimba Team