NI charity helps Malawi's poorest

One of Africa's poorest countries, with an average per capita income of about £80 a year, Malawi needs outside help to tackle HIV/Aids.

Northern Ireland's only independent development agency, War on Want NI (WOWNI), is doing what it can to help rebuild lives ravaged by the infection.

Near the southern city of Zomba, about 400 children are registered at the Songani orphan care centre.

They live at home with their carers, often elderly grandparents who have themselves few resources, but they come to the centre for food, clothes, and training.

WOWNI, along with Coleraine Borough Council and the public service union Nipsa, are funding this centre, which Kennedy Mpoya runs.

"We teach the children skills like tailoring or carpentry, so they'll have some chance to stand on their own feet as they grow up," he says.

WOWNI has an income of about £1m a year. It funds 15 Aids-related projects in Malawi, and chooses small scale partner projects which it can nourish through training as well as finance - the objective to make the projects eventually self-supporting.

Education forms another important part of WOWNI's work in raising awareness of HIV/Aids.

Mchenga is a remote northern mining village. The mines attract a transient community of workers and truckers.

Women who have already lost their men to Aids sell themselves to raise money for their families, completing the cycle of infection.

As part of a primary health scheme, WOWNI funds an outreach group which uses drama and music to bring home the message of avoiding HIV/Aids.

People are encouraged to take an HIV test, and reassured that even if they do carry the infection, it doesn't mean a death sentence.

One of the outreach workers, Irene Mhango, has been living with Aids for six years.

She has started a small grocery store with the help of WOWNI.

It provides her and half a dozen others, all PLWAs - people living with Aids - with a basic livelihood, and has also helped change local attitudes to the disease.

"This is what we do best," says WOWNI's director Linda McClelland, "giving the most disadvantaged groups a leg up, lifting them out of their poverty, and giving them a little power over their own lives."

Noel Thompson's reports will be screened on BBC Newsline on BBC1 on Wednesday and Friday at 1830 BST.