Window of Hope

Today I spent my first morning with Window of Hope, a local organization that reaches out to maternal orphans. If you are unfamiliar with the term “maternal orphans,” join the crowd. Here’s the scoop…

When a mother dies while giving birth it is a shameful thing. The husband leaves surviving children behind with his wife’s brother and returns to his home village to remarry. However, since Malawi is largely a matrilineal society, the brother-in-law probably lives in his wife’s village anyway so the raising of the multiple maternal orphans passes to Agogo (grandmother) who has no way of supporting the children. Maternal orphans are even more likely to be uneducated than the general population, and the girls are generally married as soon as they have their first menses.

Window of Hope has a day care, a language center for women, and assists Agogos in keeping their grandchildren in school by helping with tuition, book fees, soap for cleaning uniforms, etc. The Charlotte, the kiddos and I spent the morning at the day care, which has two teachers for the 40 little ones. While we were there, they drilled the kiddos on their alphabet, sang songs and flew like airplanes through the yard.

I’m excited to help out with the day care and on drafting some public relations material while we’re here. Right now, the entirety of Window of Hope’s budget comes from the paying day care attendees.  If anyone has grant ideas, I’d love to hear from you!