Malawi
In Malawi, Oxfam's focus is on sustainable livelihoods, HIV and AIDS, health, and humanitarian aid.
Wanted: more doctors and nurses!
Malawi's health service has only 40 per cent of the nurses it needs. Poor wages and working conditions mean that many are leaving the country to work overseas.
How Oxfam is helping
UK aid money is being used to help train more nurses and increase salaries so that more health staff can be persuaded to stay. But funding from other rich countries is desperately needed. Oxfam is campaigning for better support for the healthcare system.
A tale of two city hospitals
Mary Ntata, a Malawian nurse working in the UK, travelled to Malawi with Oxfam to see how the nursing crisis is affecting the country.
Tackling HIV and AIDS
- 900,000 Malawians are living with HIV and AIDS
- At 14 per cent of its population, Malawi has one of the highest infection rates of HIV and AIDS in the world
Most people who die from HIV-related illness are cut down in the prime of their lives. They leave behind orphans and single-parent households facing an uphill struggle to survive.
How Oxfam is helping
Oxfam trains and supports home based carers – local volunteers who support sick, elderly, and orphaned people in their communities. Carers also offer counselling and help with household chores.
Home-based carers like me are available 24 hours a day, if needed. Oxfam has given us kits containing calamine lotion, paracetamol, cotton wool, bandages, antiseptic, soap, disposable aprons and gloves, to help us in our work.
Esther Peter, Home Based Carer, Malenga village
Other development work
- Training farmers in agricultural techniques that are sustainable and environmentally friendly
- Providing crop seeds, livestock and clean water supplies for rural communities
- Working with civil society to lobby the government for better health care and education
Southern Africa Food Crises
Both in 2001-3 and in 2005-6, millions of people across Southern Africa faced acute food shortages.
How Oxfam responded
In both instances we expanded our work in the region – covering Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe – to reach more people affected by the crisis.
A recurrent problem
Food crises in Southern Africa are not unpredictable – drought comes in cycles. However, even in a year of good rains millions of poor farmers simply cannot produce a decent harvest because they can't afford seeds and fertilisers.
Without long-term investment in people's livelihoods, millions of people will continue to be vulnerable to drought. Oxfam works to help improve the food security of communities across the region to bring an end to this cyclical crisis.
