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February Newsletter
Tree planting, quiz night and much more!
BAHASI Organisation
March 10, 2025
Table of Contents
BAHASI’s Plan of Action
Our main focuses at BAHASI for March are:
Fundraising to buy a bus for BAHASI.
One of our goals BAHASI has is for us to be a self sustaining charity so that we can thrive regardless of Malawi’s economic situation. This means making steps to buying our own bus instead of relying on local mini busses. During March we aim to apply for some grants for the bus.
Having a bus will significantly improve the lives of our children and increase our positive impact on the community, read more about this issue in our struggles section
Girls hostel progress
Our Girls hostel is one step closer to being completed! All the girls are looking forward to the grand opening which will hopefully be taking place in May. One of the last steps in the process is an outer fence, ensuring our children’s continual safety. Read More about this in the how you can support section.
Classrooms Renovation
One of our aims during march is start renovating our classrooms! We want to provide a safe place where the children we support in the community can come and learn.
Classroom Renovation Plan -
1. Site visit, measurements, and paint selection.
2. Budgeting & Quotation
3. Preparation: Surface cleaning, priming, and base coating.
4. Painting Process: Applying coats, drying time, and final finishing.
5. Quality Check & Handover: Inspection and touch-ups before completion.
6. Completion!
We have already completed steps 1&2 in this process and aim to finish steps 3, 4, 5 & 6 during March. This plan has been approved by all project members. After this project has been completed BAHASI will institute a regular maintenance programme to ensure the classroom are kept in good condition.
Updates
We are happy to share that our ECD programme continues to progress. This month our amazing teachers have been focusing on using the equipment provided by Gift of the Givers and implementing new styles of teaching. Gift of the Givers came to visit and are happy with the progress being made within the classrooms.
Hostel update- construction for the water tank platform is completed and the water tank has been collected! We are so thankful to Fiona Rockford, who funded this! We have also finished the construction of the outer wall, meaning the girls hostel is almost completed.
Shout-outs!
A big thanks to our Donors and Visitors this month:
Malawi Travel
Tol Family
Gift of the Givers
Madina Mukadam
Protofeeds
Harriet Woodward
Fiona Rockford
Stuart Presley
Reena Purshotam
This month we have celebrated the Birthdays of :
Everson Matebule - Everson turned 15 this February! Visit his profile on BAHASI’s website to learn more.
Hope Phinifolo - Hope turned 13 this February! Visit his profile on BAHASI’s website to learn more.
Swimming Programme
We had great time visiting Hillview International school to use their pool! This month some of the older children went to school on Saturday to prepare for exams so it was just the younger children at the pool. They had so much fun learning to swim, splashing around and practicing handstands.
3. Visitors
We are so thankful to have had Gift Of the Givers come visit us multiple times this month. Their constant support of our ECD programme and our feeding programme is such a blessing.
Highlights
Tree Planting on Michiru Mountain
At the end of February we went up Michiru mountain for a tree planting project. This project aims to restore certain areas of the mountain that have lost vegetation whilst bringing together different Child Care Institutions (CCIs) together for a morning of education, fun and community. First we watched a demonstration then all the children got to work planting as many trees as possible and learning to care for the environment. Then we had a great time listening to poems from other children’s homes, before returning back to BAHASI.
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Quiz Night!
We hosted a quiz night this month at BAHASI! This was highly anticipated activity where children living at BAHASI got to test their knowledge, have enormous fun and let out their competitive spirits. The teams were boys against girls so tension was high! The quiz consisted of 4 rounds - general knowledge, nature, geography and science. In the end the boys team - team ‘only the families’ - won and got to play on the iPad for the rest of the evening. If you want to find out more about BAHASI’s quiz night go check out our stories on Instagram!
Struggles
Our on-going struggle at BAHASI is having a reliable income to keep the charity running smoothly. Because of our lack of funds we struggle to sustain the programmes which are essential to the wellbeing of those in BAHASI’s care and those we support in the community.
Buying a bus - Currently our biggest issue is that we do not have a consistent and safe way for our children to get to school each day. Due to the fuel crisis in Malawi we no longer have sufficient funds to get the children to school. Per day, the hire of a mini bus, to the school, costs us between 40,000MKW-60,000MKW (depending on fuel pricing), which is around 1,000,000MKW ($575) per month. This expenditure is not feasible for BAHASI and we are really struggling to get the kids into school every day, especially with exams approaching as some of the older children need to go to school on Saturdays. Education is so important to us here at BAHASI and our OVC’s not being able to access the very thing we guarantee is heart-breaking.
Half of BAHASI piled into a tiny bus.
Feeding Programme - We are also struggling to maintain a healthy and balanced diet for our OVC’s. At BAHASI we believe a balanced and healthy diet is key to productive and proactive children. Currently we are succeeding in providing our OVC’s with three meals a day which consist of nsima and some source of protein, weather that is egg, soya pieces, goat, chicken, beans depending on what is available. This, however, is neither enough food for growing children or enough nutrients, we are in the process of trying to introduce more vegetables into their diet but we cannot do this without the proper funding.
How you can support us
A long term solution to our transport problem is to buy BAHASI our own bus so that we no longer need to rely on small minibuses to take our kids to and from activities. As mentioned in the BAHASI’s Plan of Action, a big goal of ours in 2025 is to really push fundraising for this bus. So, a great way to support us with this project would be to contact us if you: know of any capital grants that would fund transportation projects; are interested in supporting BAHASI in holding some kind of fundraiser event; are able to help us source a bus; want to donate towards a bus for BAHASI.
However; to ensure that our children continue to get an education we need short term support. If you are able to help please visit our donation page or contact us to set up a donation. Our OVC’s have a bright future so please consider helping us out monthly to get our kids to reach their full potential.
To help us pay our staff please contact us or visit our donation page. To pay the monthly wage for one teacher it costs us 98000MKW (£45).
The swimming programme costs around 40,000 MK per month with is around £20, if you would like to fund this programme, please donate here.
To support our feeding programme please get in contact with our staff if you’d like to donate produce (rice, beans, vegetables, meat, etc), or if you’d like to sponsor a child’s food for a week you can donate £2 here
If you are interested in checking out our other programmes that support the wider community and give our OVC’s new and exciting experiences please visit our linktree.