1. Joshua & Fastina's Fish Farm in Malawi Manyamula Village is hours away from Lake Malawi, so the only fish that arrives there is dried. Joshua and Fastina saw the opportunity to sell fresh fish. They used a SIA Small Business Fund grant of $150 to stock their newly-dug fish pond in Manyamula, Malawi last year. The business has been so successful that they have expanded to three fish ponds, started beekeeping, and sent their daughter to a private school. They have Shared th

“If you live in a house like this, something good has happened,” McDonald Kajani told us, orienting us to the context of Manyamula Village in northern Malawi. Last June, he proudly showed us around his four-bedroom home, with new wood floors and glass windows. Whereas before he had a thatched roof, now he has corrugated tin sheets. McDonald and his wife in front of their new, fancy home Out front, McDonald has nine cows and four pigs. Each is an investment. The cows help plow

The Manyamula Community Savings and Investment Promotion Cooperative in rural Malawi is a vibrant force for local development. They provide low-interest loans, farming advice and assistance, and a maize mill for grinding the staple food, as well as a gathering place for community members. So who is it that keeps this organization running smoothly? Spirit in Action is proud to support the salaries for this amazing management team! (Read more about why we fund operations.) Wink

Everything about the Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative in Malawi embodies community spirit in action. They are at once a farmer cooperative, peer counselors, savings and loans providers, a social network, and a vehicle for local economic development and charity. “This cooperative puts people first and strives to meet members’ needs. It helps us do together what we cannot do on our own,” said chairperson Canaan Gondwe during SIA’s visit to Manyamula in June. Read more about the Sma

Business is booming in Manyamula Village. This village was small and struggling when I first visited eight years ago and it’s growing into a thriving center with lots of services. The SIA Small Business Fund is helping new entrepreneurs grow their businesses and support their families. Here are some pictures and stories from my visit in June. Fikani – Manyamula’s Uber Stanley is the rural Malawian version of Uber! Send him a text and he’ll transport you and your goods aroun

The 2019 Fall & Winter newsletter is here! You can view a PDF version here and hard copies are in the mail this week! These guys are part of the SIA team in Manyamula, Malawi! Winkly, Mbwenu, and Sylvester helped Kathleen King and I visit over 35 of the 200+ SIA supported businesses in the area! In this newsletter we feature: Meet “Notorious for Jesus” Small Business Fund leader, Ruth, in Eldoret, Kenya Read our new Mission Statement Photo collage from my five weeks in Africa

Last week was SIA Board Member Kathleen King’s first visit to a Malawian village. I appreciated her new-comer observations on what she saw in Manyamula. Here is her post: We spent the last five days in a rural village called Manyamula, Malawi. Our partners here help run a savings and loans cooperative (meaning community members can buy shares in this cooperative and then can receive loans at rates way lower than Malawian banks offer). They may use these loans to improve their

Spring is slow in coming to Toronto this year. The leaves are just starting to poke out on the trees and I’m still wearing layers of sweaters and scarfs. With only 10 days left before I leave for my big site visit trip to Uganda, Kenya, and Malawi, I’ll be in some warmer weather soon! But how much warmer? Wearing my down jacket in Nairobi in July, visiting with Small Business Fund local team Josephine (Left) and Wambui (Right). (2014) In spite of the stereotype of Africa (the

Members of the Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative first came together to fight against the exploitation of banks who were charging high interest rates with short repayment periods. Over the last nine years, they have supported each other in entrepreneurial activities and low-interest loan opportunities. (Read Sylvester’s story here). Now, the Cooperative is expanding its programs to combat another form of exploitation. Many of the members are farmers. And like farmers around the wo

You’ve probably seen the simple messaging. If you give $xx amount per month, a girl in another country will get the gift of education. But it’s not as easy as just money or desks or school buildings. The Malawian organization Hope for Relief, assisted by a Spirit in Action Community Grant, uses a holistic approach to girls’ education in their community. 1. Meetings with Parents Last year the team at Hope for Relief held two engagement meetings with parents, teachers, and comm

“Greetings from Malawi, and in particular Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative in Mzimba. We send our love and joy to you!” So began the exciting audio message from Canaan Gondwe updating me on the transformation in his community after receiving a grant to bring the internet to their village. The installation process, perhaps unsurprisingly, was a bit rocky. First, the tower grid near their rural area in northern Malawi had never been upgraded and so was using 2G! Then, of course, th

2018 was a fantastic year for SIA globally! We partnered with 10 grassroots community organizations, further developed our Small Business Fund program in Kenya, shared our message at churches in the US, and brought in many new supporters. Before the year ends I wanted to countdown the best moments of the year with you! Count them down… 5. We received monthly donations from 23 donors (+ many more annual donations), expanding the sustainability of our work. Thank you! 4 of the

Last month I wrote about the inspiring story of Denis Kasambala, 16 years old, who received the gift of a pig from his community in last year. His mother died when he was young and his father is often lost in his alcoholism. The Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative members have great hopes for Denis. They wanted him to know his great potential. When teachers sent Denis home from school in October for not having a school uniform, the community stepped up again. Through an act of Shari

This post is adapted and excerpted from my recent sermon at First United Methodist Church of Point Richmond in California. You’ve heard that Chinese proverb that says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” We tend to use the quote as a way to encourage people to focus on the first step rather than the whole huge length of the journey ahead of them. Just take this step and then this step, and then another step. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you

Guest post by Michael Hegeman Getting to travel to East Africa to meet with Spirit in Action partners gave me the opportunity to experience the power of hospitality. Everywhere I have traveled around the world, I have met with people who welcome me in ways I can only describe as mystical. The two key components I have discovered revolve around shelter and food. “You are welcome,” is a phrase I heard repeatedly in our visits with the people of Malawi, Kenya and Uganda.  Yes, w

Last week I wrote about Denis Kasambala, a sixteen year old boy who received the gift of a piglet from his community in Manyamula, Malawi in May 2017. (Read the story of the gift-giving here.) The members of the local Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative wanted to encourage and support Denis in making a better life for himself. His mother died when he was 9 years old and his father is often missing due to alcoholism. So Denis and his five siblings live with their uncle, who also has

The community has “taken a firm stand to root Denis into success,” says Canaan Gondwe. Denis received a piglet from the community May 2017. This story was originally published in our Fall 2017 Newsletter. I’ll be posting a very exciting update to the story next week on the blog. In May and June [2017] I spent three weeks visiting folks connected with Spirit in Action in Kenya and Malawi. With my team – Mike Hegeman, Dana Belmonte, and Boyd Cothran – we met with seven communit

Have you heard the saying, “money follows money”? It means that once you’ve received some grant funds or donations momentum builds and more people want to give to your project. It happens in crowdfunding campaigns, and it also happens in rural Malawi. When we attended the grand opening of the Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative in May 2017, one of the speakers was Paul Chunga of International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). ICRISAT had recently formed a

Five more Small Business Fund grants were distributed in Manyamula Village in northern Malawi last month. Local coordinator Canaan Gondwe hosted a business training, covering topics like record-keeping, assessing demand and profitability, and marketing your product. The groups also filled out business plans and then received their initial grant of $100. Meet the latest SBF entrepreneurs: Dafless Chisimba is starting a frozen juice business with her brother and sister. She is

When you think of the work of girls’ empowerment, you might not think of bathrooms. But a changing room and bathroom is exactly what Hope for Relief – a youth-led, grassroots organization in Malawi – knew would help keep girls in school. Before the changing room was built, it was common for girls to stay home when they were on their periods. There is a stigma attached to being at school while bleeding and also the practical challenge of not having good material for pads. “Whe