Education enhances life. It can end generational circles of poverty and diseases and provide a foundation for sustainable development. Many girls in Kasungu are denied the chance to get an education which condemns them to a life of missed opportunities.Some parents force the girls into early marriages just to run away from their parental responsibility. They think when she is married whether to an old man or a polygamist then all the responsibility is transferred to the husband.Employment in labor field of Tobacco production is...
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What a great year we had here at Join My Village!  Thanks to your support and engagement, we were able to unlock $900,000 for CARE programs in Malawi four weeks early.  What a great testament to the power of online actions to help us enact change!We made great strides in 2011.  We welcomed Merck as a new partner which helped us release even more funds.  We saw the number of secondary school scholarships nearly double – increasing from 161 in Year 1 to 241 in...
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Join My Village is changing lives in the villages we work with in so many ways, and sometimes in ways that even surprise us. Tisungane Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) is one example of some exciting changes in JMV communities that we didn’t plan for. Tisungane is an unusual VSLA because it is comprised of 25 men, when most VSLAs are exclusively women, and it represents some fundamental shifts in attitudes amongst men in the communities and improved relationships between women and men.    ...
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During this month of December, money is not easy to find here in Kasungu. Most people would rather invest the little they have in farming rather than spending it on frivolous gifts for Christmas with many families in Kasungu earning less than $2 a day you can see they do not have much to spare.     This is not the case with our Village Saving and Loan Association groups as they have joined forces to increase their personal savings. Mrs. Tryness Phiri, a 63 year...
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Chiyanjano is a Village Savings and Loans Association which, like Join My Village, is on a mission supporting both boys and girls in their community.This group has gone beyond their mandate of personal savings and loans to use their improved financial skills to save additional money to support needy children in their community. Last month the Chiyanjano Association gave personal basic needs to 23 students at Chalowa primary school. An indicator of what a significant effort this is can be seen by the fact that...
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