Consol Homes Orphan Care
January 1, 2009
Lilongwe, Malawi
Consol Homes Orphan Care of Malawi is out of control — and that’s great news for this impoverished country. New orphan support groups are forming and grandmothers are spontaneously organizing and actually building new centres with their own hands, despite Consol’s intention to slow down its explosive growth.
The unstoppable energy is breathtaking proof of how one grassroots group
, starting small and aided by the SLF, has sparked a country-wide turn-around. Consol Homes began with one married couple, Alfred and Yasinta Chapomba, going door-to door in a village to get support for a pre-school centre, where 63 tiny orphans could gather for story-telling, emotional support and health-monitoring. Soon, Consol Homes grew to offer feeding and school fee support for schoIn just eight intense years, Consol Homes has grown to 107 child care centres serving more than 30,000 children, with more than 500 community volunteers covering 1,200 villages.ol-age orphans as well. Even more radically, it offered participation in the dynamic Orphan Affairs Unit (OAU) run by the youth themselves. It’s an astonishing and transformative experiment: youth gain tremendously in confidence, skill and optimism through OAU activism. Each Community-Based Child Care Centre elects one “member of parliament”, aged 10 to 18, boys and girls equally, to identify problems and bring them to the attention of the larger orphan-run meetings. The self-actualization is extraordinary. The youngsters are so proud of their autonomy that they push themselves to one achievement after another, raising money for school fees and uniforms, helping to build homes and tend gardens for grannies, identifying cases of sexual abuse, and promoting skills training.
In just eight intense years, Consol Homes has grown to 107 child care centres serving more than 30,000 children, with more than 500 community vol
unteers covering 1,200 villages. Hundreds of grandmothers are harvesting more ample crops since Consol Homes began distributing fertilizer; 500 students have their high school fees paid; 9,780 vulnerable children are regularly given food to take home; home-based care workers tend to the sick; committees of widows help the newly bereaved; village self-help groups are participating in microcredit initiatives and opening bank accounts.
It can truly be said that Consol Homes re-ignited the spark of resiliency in a devastated country. The projects now draw national and internation
al attention; the government is extending a hand to the grandmothers and Consol Homes was awarded the 2008 Red Ribbon Award by UNAIDS.
We can all take heart from this stirring example of how courageous initiatives that start very small – after all, Consol Homes started with just 38 extended relatives caring for orphans - can significantly alter the course of history. In Malawi, we can actually see the turning of the tide.