Thank you for your support during 2020.

It’s time to get a cup of tea, sit back and discover the extent of your impact through Hope for a Child projects over the last 12 months.

Approx 5 minute read .

Strength in the storm

A message from Tom Herring, CEO.

What a year! 2020 showed us like never before how interconnected our world is. It was a surreal feeling to see families in rural villages of Malawi grappling with challenges brought on by the same health crisis that continues to impact us at home.

Even though we have been unable to travel, we felt in some ways linked to our friends in Africa like never before. We are brothers and sisters on a journey together; this world is our shared home, and our success is theirs, and theirs ours.

An impression has been building in my mind over the last few months of the extraordinary role that Guernsey has to play in our world. It is easy to feel small, perhaps insignificant and even victim to events over the waters.

But the truth is, we are uniquely positioned to bring comfort and strength to a hurting world, through genuine and honest partnership. I believe we exist for such a time as this; when waters rise and torrents fall, we get the privilege of making a powerful decision to look out, to extend friendship, to build bridges.

Each year I consider the most important success or lesson learned over the previous 12 months. And every time, it comes back to one thing—friendship.

We only have a positive influence in Malawi to the extent that we are willing to have real, open and equal friendships with our staff and partners. In any relationship the use of such tools as fear, manipulation and control crush creativity and transparency. For this reason we work hard to empower, and bring out the best in one another through every interaction.

This hard work has paid off, and over 2020 we had the privilege of working with our partners to come alongside 24,700 people in rural Malawi, helping them to meet their own needs and build safe, secure lives.

This is having a further life-changing impact on 10,500 children, who are, among other things, experiencing the benefits of better meals, cleaner water and safer housing.

We worked with our partners in the following ways:

Project Overview

Hope for a Child impact in numbers

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

18,535 people (nearly 4,000 households) have been enabled to access a source of safe water from covered wells, within 1km of their home.

On average each household is now spending 1 hour less per day collecting water, meaning a total of 154 years of time collecting water is being saved by these households combined every single year!

Can you get you head around that?

These communities have been empowered to manage and maintain their own water supply, reducing the need for further help from outside.

We have also enabled 1,747 people to access improved sanitation facilities, in their homes, at schools and in health clinics.

Livelihoods

We have worked alongside 2,702 people to help them on their journey to becoming financially self-sufficient, able to meet their family's daily needs, like food and medicines, shelter and school fees.

We achieve this by helping men and women to run their own profitable small businesses and manage their money effectively.

Through our partners, we provide lots of training, particularly in agriculture, as in Malawi over 86% of the rural population (where 80% of people live) are directly dependent on farming. We help people to not only grow nutritious food for their families, but also to farm as a business, generating income by producing valuable crops for market.

It is extraordinary how new knowledge can transform lives.

Nutrition

690 people benefitted from being trained in nutrition, learning about the foundations of a balanced diet and how to prepare good meals using readily available, affordable ingredients.

Those trained learned about the importance of diet for childrens' development, and are now feeling more empowered to provide the best possible care for their little ones.

We have also been distributing fruit trees, like oranges, mango and papaya, with training on how to nurture them so that people have vitamin-rich fruit growing close to their homes.

Primary Education

We have been working with 4 primary schools and 1 pre-school to create a better learning environment and increase school attendance by constructing and renovating toilets, classroom blocks and teachers houses, providing learning materials and training parents in the importance of a childs' education.

During 2020 this benefited 1,142 children.

Safe water after 15 years

- Mrs. Ntoso’s Story

"The water used to stink”

In Makanga village's entire history, its residents have never had their own source of safe water to drink from. Mrs Ntoso has lived in the village for 15 years, and this is her story…

'We used to drink from a well which was not covered, and the water was not good to drink.

We had diarrhoea cases regularly, and spent a lot of money traveling to the hospital, so we found an alternative water source — the river 20 minute's walk down the hill.

This was safer than the well, but still kids would throw all sorts of things in there that would rot. The water used to stink, and our problems did not get any better.

Travelling to the river took up a huge amount of time, so we had less to spend on other things. In the dry season when the water table was low we would have to queue to collect the water, so that collecting one container could take an hour.

Women began fighting, to the extent that we had to divide families into groups; some were to draw water early in the morning, some in the afternoon and some in the evening. This is how bad the situation was.

Today we are so grateful; we have clean and safe water within our village! We are spending 5 minutes to get to the new borehole to get clean water. We are no longer fighting for water because everyone draws it the moment they get here without having to queue.'

22 ladies start their own village bank

"150% interest on their savings in a year!”

This group of 22 ladies started their own village bank, and this is their extraordinary story.

'In 2013 they began their training, learning how to save money together, loan it to one another and how to invest in profitable small businesses.

Once a year the savings are distributed back to the members after 12 months of saving and investing. In November 2020, after jointly contributing £4,000 to the pooled savings fund over the preceding year, this group shared out between them a total of £10,000 — they had managed to earn 150% interest on their savings in a year!

And this was not all. Each bank has a separate welfare fund, to meet emergencies faced by the members. In November there was so much left in the welfare fund that the members decided to buy themselves a range of cooking utensils, and the blue uniforms you can see in the photo.

In a setting where even accessing the most basic daily essentially is incredibly difficult for most households, this is just one example of how a little training and support can enable people to meet all of their own needs through their own hard work and ingenuity.'

Because of your support, thousands of other men and women are experiencing the benefits of the same training and support.

Fundraising

The £5 Lottery Club

Over the 12 months, our top supporters club - The £5 Lottery Club grew to over 2,000 members.

We sent out a total of £33,640 to our members accross the Bailiwick of Guernsey in cash prizes.

These champions together raised a total of £101,000 for Hope for a Child projects and these great local children's causes: Friends of Frossard children's Ward, Action for Children and Every Child Our Future.

The draw takes place monthly on the 23rd and 100 winning numbers are drawn, including a top prize of £1,000 - except in May and November when the top prize is boosted to £3,000!

(The doors are currently closed to new members, however you can click here to join the waiting list and be among the first to know when new spaces open up.)

The Big Summer Lottery

Each year our biggest annual fund raising event gathers more and more momentum, with 2020 being no exception.

All 12,000 tickets were snapped up, and prizes worth a total of £178,000 were distributed to the 50 happy winners, including a top prize of £130,000 (winner below).

This event raised a record £380,000 for Hope for a child projects.

We also donated a total of £20,000 to charities supporting children in Guernsey: Autism Guernsey, Priaulx Premature Baby Foundation, Guernsey Arts Commision & Action for Children.

The waiting list for The Big Summer Lottery 2021 is already building fast - you can join here.

The Real Heroes

There are two groups of people who have made all of this possible. Firstly, most of the work on the ground is achieved by our 3 extraordinary Malawian partners—Rhema, SPRODETA and FOCCAD—who work tirelessly to ensure that funds raised in Guernsey are well managed, to create maximum impact on those who need the help. Without them, we would stand no chance of achieving our aims. Thank you partners!

The second group is the people of Guernsey who so generously support our fundraising initiatives—without you none of what we achieve in Malawi would be possible. You are looking beyond yourselves and your borders, and we are so thankful for that.

Looking Forward

In 2021 we will continue to serve thousands of families in rural Malawi, enabling parents and carers to provide a nurturing environment for children.

One big shiny new project we will be working on is our first ever piped water scheme. We are already about half way through the development of a mini solar powered piped water network that will supply crystal clear water to 500 households in Dowa district. We will see this completed over the next few months.

What excites us most about this project is the level of sustainability. We are using prepaid water meter technology from the Netherlands, which allows a small fee to be seamlessly collected from each user at the tap. A constant revenue stream will allow for easy maintenance and upgrading of the supply network, solving one of the greatest problems in rural water supply in Africa - fee collection.

How does it work? Water users will have a small tag, which they can top up with water credits at the shop. When they tap their tag on a sensor at one of the public taps, water will be released into their container, and credits deducted from the account balance. Pretty great right?!

Don't miss out on upcoming events and success stories:

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Questions, comments or suggestions? We would love to hear from you. Email: tom@hope.gg

Hope For a Child is a charity registered in Guernsey No: 291

www.hope.gg