Dear John,

As we enter the festive period in many countries around the world, we wanted to share a little about the amazing work our partners at Find Your Feet Malawi are doing to improve women's lives.

We are very proud of our ongoing partnership with Find Your Feet Malawi, an independent organisation led by people from the communities they serve.

Hear from Melina 

Melina Mtonga is the Executive Director for Find Your Feet Malawi. Below, she tells us about the work they are doing, alongside our sister organisation Find Your Feet, to support women’s social and economic empowerment. 

The situation in Malawi

Melina explains: “In Malawi, one of the main causes of poverty is gender inequality. Women do not have the same access to productive resources as men. This is largely due to social norms which dictate that men are to be regarded as superior to women."

"Men generally own land and assets, they can prevent their spouses from gaining professional employment and tend to be favoured by parents in education. Women often cannot access formal credit markets as they do not have the resources to offer as collateral. Consequently, women tend to support their families through subsistence farming.” 

What is Find Your Feet Malawi doing? 

Find Your Feet Malawi is working with women to challenge gender inequality and to support women’s financial independence. Melina outlines some of the ways they do this below: 

• “We hold community awareness meetings on gender equality, human rights, and advocacy against harmful social norms.” 

• “We help Village Saving and Loans Associations, whose members are primarily women...with better access to credit, women have more opportunities to empower themselves economically.” 

• “We analyse gender relations in the areas where we work, so we can understand their impact on our projects and the impact of our projects on gender relations.” 

• “Many of the women involved in our projects take up leadership positions and are actively involved in decision making at community level.” 

• “Some women involved in our projects now run their own businesses. Some have managed to build their own houses and buy vehicles. Meanwhile, families report that they are becoming more prosperous as women play a greater role in household decision making.” 

With your continued support for Health Poverty Action, we can continue working with Melina and her team to deliver impactful change for women in Malawi and across the globe.  

Season’s Greetings,

Siaffa Bunduka
Supporter Engagement Manager

P.S. You can find out more about our Women’s Empowerment Appeal here.