A non-governmental organization called H20 is implementing a project in Nkhotakota that will see some community members escaping hunger.
H20 financed a group in Nkhandwe village in the district to grow maize on 4 hectares of land with the aim of selling and consuming the maize after harvesting it.
Andrew Malovu is one of the officials of H20 in the country and has told Malawi24 that the idea came in as a way of alleviating food shortages that hit the country due to bad weather in the past growing seasons.
According to Malovu, the organization last year was donating maize to people who were in acute shortage of food in the area.
“We thought that giving maize to them is not a solution but we have to come up with an alternative that will help the people for a long time. We cannot manage to be giving them maize daily but helping them with money to produce on their own is the best measure,” Malovu said.
He said that he asked the community to form a group that will cultivate maize with fiscal support from them.
“The community cultivated 4 hectares of maize with the aim of being food sustenance. After harvesting the crop the group will donate some of the maize to the people while the remaining maize will be shared among the group members before selling the surplus,” Malovu told Malawi24.
Group Village Headman Thandaza is the chairperson of the group and has hailed the organization for the initiative.
Chief Thandaza has said that the initiative will really help the community to at least alleviate food shortage after donating and selling the maize crop.
“We can’t take this initiative for granted. Choosing this area among several places in Nkhotakota and Malawi shows that we are lucky people and we have to make very good care of the initiative,” Chief Thandaza said.
The group is composed of ten people and the yield is expected to benefit more than 100 families in villages Nkhandwe, Kapanga, Chizili and Thandaza in Traditional Authority Malengachanzi in Nkhotakota district.
