The Community of Bemvu consists of approx. 8500 people living in 15 villages in the District of Ntcheu which is situated between Linlongwe and Blantyre ( only a hand full of which have regular paid work and rely on subsistence farming) .
SeedforLife.FeedforLife.SCIO charity no SCO48172 was incorporated in March 2018 all monies raised going directly to Bemvu who run the project locally through a Partnership Committee made up of 25-30 people. The project was initiated by the Partnership Committee because of a history of farmers not being in a financial position to purchase decent seed and fertiliser yields were decreasing year on year and as the community was reliant on producing their own crops food security and hunger was becoming a massive problem.
The Project
S4L provides funding in the UK to send to Bemvu to purchase seed/fertiliser for farmers to grow on land donated by the local chief . At harvest time for every 1kg of seed given to the farmers 500kg is returned to the Partnership Committee the balance of crop is kept by the farmers for their own use.
The returned 500kg is then kept in store to be used to feed Primary School Children and any balance is sold the proceeds of which are then used to re-purchase seed/fertiliser for the next growing season - hence the sustainability aspect of the project.
Achievements to Date
May - Oct 2017 Raised £16000.00 locally ( West Coast Scotland)
April 2018 - 65 tonne of Maize grown through the Project
July 2018 Started feeding Junior pupils in Primary School
Oct 2018 - Sent £8500 to Malawi to purchase seed/fertiliser for this years growing season
January 2019 - Feeding ALL Primary school children one meal per school day ( in the past these children may only have one meal in total per day.
January 2019 - Sold residual Maize proceeds £2500.00
We now need your help to keep this project moving foreward and to be able to meet its main goals of food security and sustainability in one of the poorest Countries in the World.