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Our Current Cause: From July through September, 2007, we will be supporting Open Arms Malawi, a shelter and safe home for orphaned and abandoned infants and small children in Malawi. We will be providing funds for their general fund, so they can direct them to the area of greatest need. Please use WNF for searching and shopping, and spread the word so we can help the children at Open Arms Malawi. | ||||||
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Open Arms Malawi
In a country where the average daily wage is less than a dollar, infants' formula milk is far beyond the grasp of many orphaned infants' surviving relatives. In a culture where once the extended family might have stepped in, such is the scale of the AIDS/HIV problem in Malawi that this traditional safety net often cannot cope.
The forty babies in their care range in age from one day to two years old. They come from all over southern Malawi. At two years old, those who have survived are returned to their extended family in the village. Until recently, if they had no remaining family the children had been placed in a conventional orphanage. In 2004 Open Arms expanded their operations with the official opening of Harrogate House, which allows them to care for an additional 12 toddlers. Its aim is to provide a further home for the two to five-year olds that they've been unable to place with extended families.
Gift's mother died as did her two sisters and brother of HIV/AIDS. This left 11 grandchildren for his grand parents to raise. Gift's grandfather has been unemployed for six years and lived with his 
pregnant wife and three sons in a squalid township location. Abject
poverty made it impossible for the grandparents to cope, and Gift and his
two younger brothers were admitted to the nutrition unit of a local
hospital close to death. There he heard about Open Arms and brought Gift
to their care at 20 months old, weighing only 12 pounds.
The second picture is of Gift near the end of his stay at Open Arms and ready to join
his two brothers at Yamikani House, an orphanage nearby.
On August 1st, 2001, a frightened and dirty little boy whose age could only be guessed at was delivered to Open Arms by the police. Mphatso had been found abandoned in a ditch on the outskirts of Blantyre. Over the last year or two they have seen a rise in abandoned children due, they suspect, to the ever-worsening socio-economic situation in Malawi. 
From the ditch he was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital
and from there to Open Arms. He had a serious scabies problem and would
cry at the approach of even the friendliest face. Over the next six
months Mphatso was rehabilitated and became the firm favorite of many caretakers.
Because of his lack of any known family he was put up for adoption by the
Social Welfare department in Blantyre. Mr. and Mrs. Nkhope were a
childless Malawian couple living in Bangwe, one of Blantyre's suburbs.
He had been a manual worker at the Carlsberg factory for 30 years and had
saved hard for the day that he and Mrs. Nkhope would be able to adopt a
family of their own. Mphatso has been with them now since March 2002. He
is the apple of his dad's eye. Open Arms visits him once a month through
their outreach program, and are glad to report that he has forgotten
them.
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Officially designated one of the poorest
countries in the world, the Central African country of Malawi also
suffers from one of the highest recorded number of occurrences of
AIDS/HIV.
Accurate statistics are hard to obtain, but the number of orphans is
suspected to be between 800,000 and 1,000,000 children. Coping with this
number of helpless children is an overwhelming prospect for any society,
particularly a poor one. This need gave rise to 
World Neighborhood Fund's sponsored project for this quarter, Open Arms Malawi,
provides shelter, nourishment and care to orphaned and abandoned infants.
Typically mothers will have died during childbirth of AIDS related
illnesses. Statistically 40 percent of the infants could be carrying the
HIV virus due to maternal transmission at birth, hence their motto:
Love, one day at a time. Last year approximately thirty infants
did not make their second birthday.
At present Open Arms receives no regular
funding form large donor agencies, with the exception of a monthly
donation from the Christian Services Committee. The $50,000 a year
operational cost for the home is met mainly by numerous small private
donations. The home is entirely dependent on these donations and is
particularly proud of the fact that every penny, tambala or cent donated
directly contributes to the well-being of the infants in their
care.