Love Builds Community targets to raise K6.9m though Big Walk towards assisting 22 needy university students
Love Builds Community, a social enterprise introduced under the Yohane Banda Foundation in 2023 assist needy students who are struggling with academic and accommodation fees, has organised a Big Walk on Saturday, December 30 targeting to raise K6.9 million for needs of 22 students.
Yohane Banda Foundation’s Trustee, Yohane Banda said the 18km Big Walk will start from the Samaritan Trust close to Green Corner along Chikwawa Road all the way to Kamuzu View.
It is open to anyone who wants to take part and 40 have confirmed their participation. This route is usually used by fitness enthusiasts especially from after Milare police checkpoint to Kamuzu View — the rest stopover lay bay on the meandering escarpment of the Chikwawa Road.
Yohane said they are currently engaging corporate companies and other wellwishers to sponsor them and in return the students to work for the companies when they are on holiday.
“This year alone, the initiative has assisted 11 students from Malawi University of Business & Applied Sciences (MUBAS) and 5 of them have finished their studies,” Yohane said.
“We got assisted by well wishers and 5 of the students were connected with sponsors who contributed monthly towards their accommodation fees.
“The students — five male and six female — were identified as needy through MUBAS Dean of students and also the class reps and some confirmation from the community.
“This is the only fundraising activity we have organized so far and on this day, we will sell Big Walk day T-shirts at K15,000 each.”
Yohane Banda Foundation is associated with Blantyre street-connected children in imparting them with vocational skills with an objective that aims at encouraging underprivileged kids off street-begging by offering a social transformation package that should economically empower them and their families by engaging them in income generating activities.
Based in Malawi’s commercial city Blantyre, Yohane Banda Foundation takes a different perception of the plight of these supposedly destitute members of society that they possess a great potential of being taken off the streets only if they are offered an alternative means of survival.
Founded in 2015 with the positive purpose of engaging with the street kids in an effort to extricate them from the misery they face on daily basis, the Foundation discovered that most of these youths — ranging from about 8 to 18 years old — are not orphans per se but are used by their jobless ‘parents and guardians’ to raise money for their families’ upkeep.
Two years ago, the Foundation organised a fundraiser — a 57.5km charity Big Walk from Blantyre’s trading town of Limbe to Zomba City — that also acted as an awareness campaign to the general public to stop giving alms to the kids because that is what keeps them coming back to the streets even after been flushed out.
The Big Walk was graced by former Minister of Gender, Community Development & Social Welfare, Patricia Kaliati as well as His Worship the Mayor of City of Blantyre, Councillor Wild Ndipo and other dignitaries that included members of the Asian Business Community (ABC).
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