warrenphiri

The project aims to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Malawi by increasing their productivity and income through legumes production and value addition. The project will focus on promoting good agricultural practices, improving access to markets, and enhancing the quality and safety of legumes products.

Objectives
• Increase legumes production: Improve the productivity of smallholder farmers through the promotion of good agricultural practices, provision of quality seeds, and training on sustainable agriculture.
• Enhance value addition: Improve the quality and safety of legumes products through training on post-harvest handling, processing, and packaging.
• Improve market access: Enhance the access of smallholder farmers to local and regional markets through market research, market linkages, and trade facilitation.
• Increase income and livelihoods: Improve the income and livelihoods of smallholder farmers through increased productivity, improved market access, and enhanced value addition.

Methodology
• Baseline survey: Conduct a baseline survey to assess the current status of legumes production, processing, and marketing in the project area.
• Farmer training: Provide training to smallholder farmers on good agricultural practices, post-harvest handling, processing, and packaging.
• Input provision: Provide quality seeds, fertilizers, and other inputs to smallholder farmers.
• Market research: Conduct market research to identify potential markets for legumes products.
• Market linkages: Establish market linkages between smallholder farmers and buyers.
• Trade facilitation: Provide trade facilitation services to smallholder farmers, including transportation, storage, and logistics.
• Value addition: Establish value addition facilities, including processing, packaging, and labeling.
• Quality control: Establish quality control measures to ensure the quality and safety of legumes products.

WHO WE ARE

We are therefore delighted once again to inform you that BEYOND OUR HEARTS FOUNDATION (BOHF) is soliciting for your financial support to distribute pigs and goats to single needy mothers’ families with malnourished children in Neno and Mwanza districts. The major purpose for this project will be to provide start-up piglets and goats to single needy mothers and families with starving children to enable them to increase house hold income and improve their food security, livelihoods, way of living and become a sustainable platform for lifting people out of poverty.

ACHIEVEMENTS
BEYOND OUR HEARTS FOUNDATION has been active at empowering marginalized children at risk, youth boys and girls with their respective families; and supporting orphans through grass-root activities, entrepreneurship, mentorship, provision of education educational sponsorship and scholastic materials; health services and sports and games in order to make a contribution to the improvement of the socio-economic status and well-being of the rural poor people. BOHF has been able to make the following achievements in the following areas:

In Child Health and Nutrition, BOHF conducted a number one medical camp in collaboration with health providers where 250 children and 50 pregnant mothers benefited from free medical checkups, dental care, polio vaccination and other health promotion activities to increase their access to better health services and well-being.

In Family Strengthening and Livelihood, BOHF empowered 120 families especially the single needy mothers’ families with entrepreneurial skills trainings, financial literacy awareness and formed savings and credit groups to become financially independent as a means of fighting poverty to improve their livelihoods and provide basic needs for their children.

In Education Program: we were able to reach out to 7,000 indigent children and young people. We engage parents, care takers, local leaders, and other duty bearers to conduct three innovative strategies that included community awareness, go back to school, Pre-school initiative campaigns. The children received some scholastic materials, gained life skills, and were regained from many forms of child labor like sugar cutting, brick making, and rejoined the school system.

In leadership and empowerment for the girl child: BOHF works with schools and female football clubs in the eastern region of Uganda to empower girls to reduce the school dropout rate by providing and training them to make sanitary products, connecting interested young female talented footballers to schools that offer sports scholarship, teach girls about their values in Christ and reproductive health.

In My disability matters: BOHF identified 60 children with disabilities that need urgent support. They were found in four communities namely dambe, Mlauli,Thache and Kanduku. The types of disabilities include mental illness, physical leg and arm deformities, hearing impairments. The children are marginalized, most do not attend school, do not have access to proper medical services and their voices are not heard in society. The major reasons include lack of adequate policies and legislation.

In BOHF Children’s Home: BOHF takes care of 10 vulnerable children, they come from a variety of difficult backgrounds. Many were abandoned and rejected by their parents due to poverty and some lost their parents to diseases and/or during birth. The Home provides them with love and care, physical social, mental and spiritual needs; and live in a typical conducive family environment that allows them experience all that it requires for means to have a child friendly family. But, because of limited resources, we cannot take on more.

Most of the single mothers’ headed families in our community are in condition of extreme poverty and consequently they have no possibility to afford the costs of basic needs, such as shelter, food and clean water. The majority of these families have an average number of three children per household and they struggle to survive by doing odd jobs and try to practice agriculture but due to their lack of knowledge about modern practices of farming dictates their agricultural produce. Most of these face intersecting challenges like malnutrition, hunger, and increased food insecurity which has led to rampant spread malnourishment among the children and vulnerable single expectant mothers.

This has highly hindered human, social, and economic development in our community. More than one third of all young children – 159,241 – are stunted. The damage caused by stunting is irreversible. Half of children under five and one quarter of child-bearing-age women are Anaemic. 16% of children under 5 are underweight, 6% are wasted and 12% of women of child bearing Ade are malnourished. Under nutrition is responsible for four in 10 deaths of children under five

As part of our strategic plan in the next three years, BOHF plans to distribute piglet and goats to single needy mothers’ families with malnourished children in Neno and Mwanza districts. The project will be one of the biggest projects for single needy mothers’ with malnourished children and it will help them raise their status quo above the prevailing catastrophes thus enabling them to protect their children from poverty and its effects. We also intend to establish community model farm to train community members on modern agricultural practices to improve on livelihoods and productivity.

PROJECT OBJECTIVE
Ensure poverty alleviation among single needy mothers’ families through boosting and promoting modern and scientific approaches of farming to enable communities overcome challenges related to Malnutrition and Inadequate food security for sustainable development.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
1. Providing care and support to children with severe acute malnutrition
2. To foster socio-economic and spiritual development of the single needy mothers in the community to enable them raise successful families.
3. To set up a community demonstration farm where community come to train and seek information about modern agricultural practices.

Implementation Strategy
The under-mentioned strategies will be carried out to achieve the set objectives.
1. Beneficiary mobilization and sensitization for further understanding of the project.
Purchase and distribution of livestock (goat, pigs).
2. Protect the livestock (pigs, goats) from being sold.
3. Planting soya, beans, pigeon peas and groundnuts
4. Supervision, monitoring, reporting and Evaluation of project activities.

Justification
1. Challenge that single needy mothers’ families with malnourished children meet:
Most of the single needy mothers’ families with starving children are financially unstable and could not afford to meet the basic needs for their families. Lack of financial support has led to the rampant spread of malnourishment among the children in single needy mothers’ families since they could not afford to access proper health services and nutritive food for their children to live a healthier and happier life.
2. Solution:
• By providing piglets and goats, the single needy mothers and their starving children will be able to benefit financial gains and profits that will enable their households have proper food, clothing, and shelter and also have the capacity to access proper medication.
• The women will have farms that will help them harvest and sell the produce to big supplies, we are promoting legumes

Monitoring and Evaluation
The project will be monitored by Beyond Our Hearts Foundation trained executives and jointly with the beneficiaries under the Project. Every activities carried out will be monitored to ascertain whether it is done correctly, at the given time frame and whether the desired effect(s) is achieved. A monitoring questionnaire will be prepared by the organization and used daily by the monitors.

Evaluation would be done from to time at the middle period of implementation and end of each activity.

Project feasibility and Sustainability

The people in the operational communities are peasant farmers who have been involved in all their lives in livestock (cows, goats, sheep and pigs). The technology is not new, it part of the way of life of the people.

The people are familiar with the raising of goats and pigs and the breeds that would be selected and bought are suited to the areas.

Also goats and pigs are easy to raise involving little or no cost and use of locally available materials for food and housing which ensures continuity needs external support.

We also intend to use a revolving strategy where by the people given the piglet and goats would return one of its kind after birth to enable the organization to reach out to more other vulnerable people in the community.

Budget
8.1 BUDGET LINE ITEM DONOR AGENCY’S CONTRIBUTION
NO ITEMS QUANTITY UNIT COST USD TOTAL COST USD
1 Goats (female) 100 60,000 6,000,000
2 Goats (male) 100 60,000 6,000,000
3 Soars (female pig) 100 70,000 7,000,000
4 Boars (male pig) 100 70,000 7,000,000
5 Animal Feed 120 bags 110,000 13,200,000
6 Water Well Lump sum 150,000 150,000
7 Drugs & Vaccines Lump sum 800,000 8000,000
8 Transportation of goats, pigs and other items to project site. Lump sum 4,500,000 4,500,000
9 Farm attendants 5 500,000 2,500,000
10 Administration Cost 9 1,000,000 9,000,000
11 Monitoring 6 500,000 3,000,000
12 Soya and pigeon peas farming 20 bags of (50kgs) 300,000 6,000,000
13 Beans and ground nuts farming 20 bags (50kgs) 300,000 6,000,000
14 Operations costs Lump sum 10,000,000 10,000,000
Grand Total 88,350,000

Milele Agroprocessors Limited operates in the agriculture sector focusing on production of rice, bean and groundnut, all which is processed and exported to South Africa. The production is done through a network of over 8,000 farmers who are supplied certified seed and extension services to ensure quality production.

The business seeks to enhance commodity processing capability to enable increased exports

Happie Foods operates as an Agribusiness specializing in agro-processing. The company focuses on value addition to groundnuts, sunflower seeds, and soya, transforming them into products such as cooking oil, seed cake, laundry soap, and soya pieces. Additionally, Happie Foods collaborates with smallholder farmers through a formal out-grower scheme. The business is looking for funding to enhance by improving the capacity of its cooking oil processing ability.

Agribusiness in Poultry value chain and does business at Nsaru trading centre in Lilongwe. The business has constructed 10 farmhouses for the rearing of layers for egg production. The business works with 250 smallholder farmer who produce raw material for feed production of its poultry. Chipala Investment is looking for financing to increase its production capacity, storage and improve logistics.

JAT is focused on producing button mushrooms, a product largely imported into Malawi, to meet local demand. The farm currently operates three production blocks, each divided into four units with a potential output of 1,000 kg of harvested mushrooms per unit over four cycles. By investing in additional capital items and capacity building, the business aims scale production of button mushroom to industrial levels

The cooperative has planned to construct cooking oil factory, cooking oil refining machinery, procure motor and electricity connection. These investments will help to increase the production value of groundnuts grain by processing into cooking oil and animal feed, the products such as cooking oil and associated by products will be sold at a higher price than groundnuts which will increase income for participating farmers. The cooperative will also create market of groundnuts for both participating farmers and community around as source of raw materials for cooking oil.

Mwatu Investments seeks to modernize its farming operations at Linthipe 2,T/A Kaphuka in Dedza, Malawi, through solar-powered irrigation and modern storage facilities. The project aims to increase crop yields by 50%, reduce storage and transport costs by 20%, and expand market reach to Zambia, Mozambique, and Tanzania. This initiative will address unreliable rainfall and post-harvest losses, ensuring consistent production of soya, beans, rice, maize, and groundnuts. A grant of USD 25,000 will fund these improvements, enhancing food security and creating jobs while promoting sustainable farming practices

The Problem – Mtinkhe Investments intends to curtail the problem of clean and safe drinking water provision in relatively hot areas of Malawi, mostly: the Lower Shire Valley of Chikwawa and Nsanje districts) and surrounding areas (Mwanza and Neno districts) by manufacturing and supplying Mame Pure Sachet Water.

According to WaterAid, 1 in 3 people in Malawi do not have access to clean water & that is 5.6 million people. Again, against a background where more than 3,100 children under 5 die every year from diarrhea caused by dirty water and poor sanitation, any initiative aimed at helping the system in water services provision becomes imperative.

Research has shown that the demand for clean and safe sachet water is on the rise, particularly in areas that are generally hot such as low-lying areas of the Lower Shire Valley, surrounding areas, including lakeshore areas of Mangochi, Zomba, Salima, Nkhota Kota & Nkhata Bay, among others. Monjerezi et al’s Water Quality Exposure & Health contend that groundwater resources in some parts of the Lower Shire Valley are not potable for rural domestic water supply due to high salinity. The truth holds for most of the relatively hot areas that Mtinkhe Investments intends to target.

There are few suppliers of safe drinking water in sachet form in the targeted areas. Those that sell sachet are local vendors who pack water in sachets whose safety for human consumption is not guaranteed.

The solution being proposed to the problem – Mtinkhe Investments acquired a liquid sachet water filling and sealing machine and built a production unit for its business operations. The unit produces over 2000 sachets per hour thereby enabling the enterprise to meet customer demand. We operate from Nkolokoti Area, adjacent to Andes Hill in Machinjiri Township, Blantyre.

Who does it target? – The business venture as undertaken by Mtinkhe Investments targets people in urban, peri-urban and rural areas of Malawi who would benefit from drinking safe and clean drinking water in addition to holding distributorships in the enterprise. Overtly, the business venture endeavors to uplift the lives of middle-income earners and low bracket earners through provision of a Malawian water brand in the form of Mame Pure Water