Last year, Helen Cullen and Sheila Bott from the UK travelled to Malawi to support the local Hands at Work teams in conducting health assessments for children in the communities we serve. These assessments are a crucial tool for Care Workers and Service Centre teams, helping them gather essential health data on each child. With this information, they can provide more tailored support and care.
Carrying out these assessments is a huge undertaking. Each one involves visiting a child at home with their Primary Caregiver, completing a detailed questionnaire about their health history and personal circumstances, and recording their height and weight. Helen, a nurse, and Sheila, a retired nurse, came alongside the local teams, offering their time and expertise to support this vital work.
While Helen and Sheila were in Malawi, the country was experiencing severe drought. Helen recalls, “We arrived in Malawi last year just after the first rain of the season and people were busy hoeing and planting maize in every available patch of ground, praying for more rain to come. No rain came during our visit, meanwhile we experienced daily the lack of running water. Sheila and I agreed how humbling it was for us to have 2 weeks using water as sparingly as we could. We were very aware that this is how so many live every day where climate change is felt most by the poorest of the poor.”
Since then, the rains have finally arrived in Malawi and in other sub-Saharan African countries, bringing relief after a long season of drought. Gideon, from the Regional Support Team in Malawi, shares more in the video below:
Helen reflects, “What a joy to hear the rains came in abundance!”
We give thanks to God for the rains and pray they continue, bringing healthy harvests and food security for the most vulnerable families.