Naturally Africa Volunteers is a community based non-profit located in rural Malawi; Nkope Village, Monkey Bay district. Nkope was identified by the organisation as having a genuine need for assistance in the fields of health, education and sport which is why it is the location for their current projects.
Tiwi Resource Centre
Nkope village has a population of 6,000 people. Tiwi Resource Centre was contracted by the organisation to provide a safe learning space for the people of the community, especially children and youth. Every week the centre is opened for the children and youth to have a safe space where they can play, learn and develop skills that their school education does not offer. Naturally Africa Volunteers spend time every day with the children. One of the rooms in the centre is a library which was necessary because most of the homes in the community do not have access to electricity and so the children and youth are not able to study or spent time reading during the night. In addition, the community does not have many leisure activities for the youth and it was believed that the library would help them develop new hobbies like reading to avoid indulging in deviant behaviour. At the moment, Naturally Africa Volunteers has installed electricity at the centre as well as solar panels to cover for power shortages so that people within the community have access to the room at any time of day, especially the students.
One of their biggest challenges has been finding books to stock up the library so that they can officially open it to the community. A volunteer reached out to Utawaleza for assistance and by seeking help from well-wishers, we managed to collect more than 50 books that the resource centre can now add to their library.
It is our sincere hope that more people will reach out and offer their assistance, with books or in kind, so that the library at the resource centre is fully stocked.
To learn more about Naturally Africa Volunteers, visit www.volunteerafrica.com
