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Chitipa District is the northernmost district in the Northern Region of Malawi and boarders Tanzania and Zambia. The district has far fewer resources and support from NGOs than the rest of Malawi due to its location. So it’s pretty exciting to be ICS volunteers here and exciting too for FOCUS and TDI to receive some support to expand their outreach.The volunteers based in Chitipa are split between both FOCUS and TDI.

FOCUS (Foundation of Community Support Services) works on several projects across the district of Chitipa. As ICS volunteers we will be involved in the Farm Enterprise for Food and Economic Security (FEDFES) project, promoting self-reliance and empowerment of target farmers using participatory methods.

In Malawi agricultural activities are a main source of livelihood, especially in rural areas where just over 80% of the active population is classified as substance farmers. FOCUS works alongside these farmers aiming to contribute towards increased wealth and food security by increasing production and return from farm enterprises. They do this in varied and creative ways from increasing skills and knowledge of production and distribution to aiding market access for commercially orientated farmers. So you’ll see us FOCUS volunteers spread widely across the field, one day we will be facilitating farmers skills workshops and the next day you’ll find us making manure!

TDI stands for Tubepoka Development Initiative, it is an NGO that focuses on community development. TDI works with many churches in the Chitipa district to gain access to these communities, our work will be focusing on the youth, helping them become active citizens in their society. As well as facilitating events such as quizzes and sports days, we will also be putting on workshops raising awareness about health issues such as HIV & AIDS.

Throughout this week we have been planning social events to keep the team motivated. Thanks to Ana’s host mum we have managed to secure a big field by Chitipa police station for sports every Tuesday and Friday after work. We arrived on Tuesday expecting to play netball and rounders but instead were joined by potentially all of the children of Chitipa!- we ended up teaching them Duck Duck Goose and the Hokey Cokey, we found that the language barrier did not deter us from having a great time!

On Wednesday a big annual Agricultural festival started in Chitipa, this was especially important for the FOCUS volunteers as this is one of the most important events for the colander year for them! The aim is for farmers to come and show their newly certified seed, but there was lots of traditional singing and dancing too! It was even attended by a famous local politician.

This week at FOCUS we attended a large meeting with stakeholders and important agricultural representatives where as volunteers we had a chance to introduce ourselves and learn more about FOCUS and Self Help Africa (SHA). Thursday was another particularly exciting day as FOCUS volunteers went on a field visit to Lufita. We learnt a little more about our role here as the first ICS volunteers and also how to conduct interviews with farmers which we will begin next week.

The work with TDI started slow this week, with lots of planning! We have got a calendar completed for all the activities we are planning for the next 12 weeks. We also had a great day on Thursday, visiting Ishalikira church. The welcome we received was amazing, it was so nice to know that our work here is appreciated.

Every Friday is ICS learning day, where we all gather at Chitipa Inn to focus on our personal development and our journey as active citizens. This weeks theme was ‘Diversity and working together’ and was lead by our team leaders Thumbiko, Charlotte and Annette. Each weeks sessions will be run by different counterpart pairs. This first week was really great as we establish ourselves as a diverse team- we studied Tuckman’s ‘Team Forming’ and came to the conclusion that we are currently in the “storming” stage. The afternoon was spent working in our committee teams: Finance, Media, Social and M&E (monitoring and evaluation). The social team finalized the plans for Saturday’s Braii (barbecue in the UK). A huge thank you to our wonderful team leaders for the great day!

We arranged to meet at 12 – using Malawian time this means 1.30, something the UKV’s are still adjusting to! Each counterpart pair brought a dish to accompany the meat that that bought earlier that day at the market (the chickens were alive!). We all piled into a mini bus and headed to Fwasa, a nice ‘bar’ tucked away just out of town. We all had a fantastic day catching up about our placements while enjoying lots of great food and pineapple fanta!

Sunday’s are the relaxing day of the week, filled with church and spending quality time with our host families.