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Ekari Foundation is a half Malawian, half American NGO that believes in education being key in breaking the circle of poverty. They support poor families from rural villages in Phalombe district, Malawi, by paying the school fees of the children.

In the never ending search for sustainability, Ekari Foundation is planning on launching a new project in 2014 to find new income generating activities for these families. The project is called “Sustainable livelihoods Program” and we are here to do the preliminary field research work for it.

By visiting the families, government institutions, the communities, the markets and other NGO’s that are active in our region, we are trying to get draw a picture of the possibilities, the obstacles and the opportunities in Phalombe district. Based on our research work and conclusions, Ekari Foundation will be able to run a more sustainable program with more chances of success.

Visit the Ekari Foundation website for all information.

Sustainable Livelihoods Program

Through our Sustainable Livelihoods Program we strive to provide empowering and self-sustaining businesses for our student’s families and their communities. It is our goal that our student’s families, after 2-3 years subsequent to starting a business, would be able to financially support their student alongside the EKARI Foundation, thus decreasing the family’s dependency on the EKARI Foundation. Our students’ families desire to provide an education for their children without support from the EKARI Foundation, but do not have the capital and resources to be able to do so. Our Sustainable Livelihoods Program will provide the needed capital, resources, as well as the skills and financial literacy training required to operate a business. Our first step though is to provide our student’s community members with the agricultural training to successfully start and maintain irrigation farming practices, with the goal of making each student’s community free from hunger.

We are currently researching applicable income generating activities for our students’ families and communities. We will support small community groups rather than merely a student’s family due to the fact that savings and loan strategies are proven to be more successful when implemented in groups. Rather then recreate the wheel, our goal is to partner with an organization that has experience with creating sustainable livelihoods in developing countries such as Malawi. In addition, our goal is to connect our communities to not only the local market, but also the global market. More to come…