Our infant milk formula program didn’t start because of a great idea we had. It actually started when a grandmother brought her newly orphaned grand-daughter to Bright Vision, asking for help for the days-old baby in her arms. The girl’s mother had just died and there was no way to feed the little girl, named Brenda. We scraped together some funds and started purchasing formula. As word spread about the help offered to Brenda, more requests started to come in. Sadly the need was bigger than we thought, and we started to enroll infants. Over the years, the number was limited to 20, then 30, and is now 40.

But Brenda was our first, and now she’s a teenager (left in the picture below). The three other children pictured below were some of our infants enrolled over 10 years ago, pictured with our Director, Stanley.

Nursery School feeding program

For over 15 years we’ve been feeding children ages 2-5 with a high nutrition porridge called “Likhuni Pala".” It’s made from Soy beans and maize flour, with added sugar and salt for taste. For many years we received this free of charge from a large organization called Feed the Children. Several years ago they decided to stop serving organizations in our area and moved elsewhere. For about two years we picked up the extra cost (about $10,000 per year) to continue this program.

Two years ago Stanley and the staff proposed making it ourselves. We would grow and purchase maize and soy beans, mill them, mix the flour, and add sugar and salt for taste. This has been a huge blessing to our budget! We’re spending less than half of what it cost to purchase, to produce the same amount of porridge. Last year, they proposed that we grow our own “yellow maize,” a variation that provides more nutrients and a bit more flavor to the porridge. We cultivate that on some of our land in order to supply the nursery program. We’re very proud of our staff for being resourceful and creative with the limited resources we have.

Al in all, it’s enough to feed about 500 kids each weekday for 9 months of the year.

Our first fruit trees

Over the last 10 years, we’re planted tens of thousands of trees on our various agricultural plots. Most of those trees have been a type of Eucalyptus as well as Acacia (which is indigenous to Malawi). Our hope was to fight the deforestation that is rampant in Malawi, as almost everyone in rural areas uses firewood for cooking. Last year we planted about 100 fruit trees- banana, mango, papaya, and orange. So far they are doing well. We’ll hope that this provides some healthy nutrition to the area.

Agriculture Program Expansion

We’ve been so grateful to The Grove Community Church in Riverside for their support of Bright Vision over the last few years. Every year they have a Love Offering, in which the church gives towards projects around the world (and in Riverside) that are proposed by their global and local ministry partners. For 2022, The Grove has financed the expansion of our Agriculture Program. The plan was generally to restart irrigation farming, raise animals, invest in permaculture, and be able to more effectively reach out to the community through all of it. Here’s what’s happened and is happening:

1) Preparation

In July we were able to hire a tractor to clear our land and also turn the soil of the five acres we have near the dam in the village. Our agriculture team and people looking for temporary work worked to break up the large clumps of hard soil in preparation for planting. We engaged a local company to come and survey our land for the prospect of doing irrigation farming with a solar pump. We also worked on refurbishing/expanding the small storage house we have on the agriculture land, so that it could accommodate the new pump and keep equipment secure.

2) Training

The company who sells the solar pumps provides training for both the use of their pump but also the planning of the actual farming. They came over three days and helped the staff understand how to set up and use the pump and how to do simple maintenance. They also helped plan the layout of how the land would be used and irrigated. They drew out a plan for where the water should be pumped to, and then using gravity to move the water throughout the field. The second part of this was getting some refreshers on creating good compost using the materials cleared from the land and animal manure throughout the village.

3) Delays

You can always expect some delays in any plan. Ours came in the form of forex (foreign currency) shortages here in Malawi. We paid the company for our solar pump, but they could not exchange that money into US dollars in order to make the purchase of the pump in South Africa. They eventually found a company in neighboring Zambia who they could purchase from. But the forex shortage has also resulted in a fuel shortage, so getting the pump to Malawi was a challenge as well. In the meantime we were preparing seed-beds for cabbage, tomatoes, and onions that we could transplant into the prepared land when the pump arrived. We thank God that the pump has arrived, even if a few weeks late!

4) Planting and watering

When the pump arrived it was time to transplant hundreds of cabbage and tomato seedlings into their respective places (onions are slow-growing and will be moved soon). It was pretty exciting to finally get the vegetables into the ground and use the solar-pump to water them. I was a bit skeptical of the amount of water that could be moved, and if there would be enough power to pump uphill. But it is moving a lot of water with no issues. I was out at Bright Vision this weekend and was so impressed by the system that the staff has set up to get water throughout all parts of the field.

We can’t say “THANK YOU” enough to The Grove Community Church for their continued partnership. The staff at Bright Vision have done a tremendous job of implementing the new plans and they are excited about the ongoing opportunities that irrigation farming presents. (More updates on the animal side coming soon)

September 2022

In early September I (Kellen) was able to take a quick trip out to Bright Vision to meet with a few groups of people. It’s nice to take the occasional trip without a big bus load of people, which inevitably draws a lot of people and a lot of attention. We met with all of the guardians of the infants that we support with milk-formula. We had been sponsoring 20 children, but that morning there were 22 children. Twins had been born a few days prior, but tragically, their mother passed away in childbirth. They’ve joined the program. Each of the (mostly) women shared the story of each infant- a handful were mothers who were not able to produce breastmilk. The remainder were relatives caring for an infant whose mother had died. As I looked around the room, I was thinking about the painful situations of each of these babies and their relatives. It was a good reminder of why this relatively new program is so necessary. Without it, these children would be under threat of acute malnutrition. I had the privilege of sharing the gospel with the group that day, and also sharing that The Grove Community Church in Riverside, CA will be sponsoring the formula program for 2023. We’re very grateful.

I was also able to meet a new women’s group formed by our ABC Interns last year. There are about 40 women who meet regularly to encourage each other and talk about issues in their lives. They’ve also taken some initiative in raising funds to help each other with small investments. In order to raise money they have been helping prepare our fields for the upcoming irrigation project. They recently purchased matching chitenjis and wear them to meetings.

Feeding Program- January 2022

Here are some pictures from our feeding program in January. We’re having around 700 kids come, which is a big number. The next two months are when food is most scarce, just before harvest for this year.

Supporting infants

A sad reality is that the maternal mortality rate (and infant mortality rate) are very high in Malawi. In the USA, about 20 women out of 100,000 pass away as a result of childbirth. In Malawi, that number is 349. This leaves the baby without the normal source of breastfeeding and baby formula is essential. Another situation may be that the mother is not able to breastfeed because of a medical condition. Though a tin would cost less than $10, most people in rural areas cannot afford this added expense. We know exactly what this looks like for our family. That is how our three kids (all adopted from Malawi) ended up at an orphanage.

A few years ago we had a grandmother bring two babies to Bright Vision asking for help. We started providing monthly support, and more requests came. As of this month we have 20 babies that we are supporting with formula on a monthly basis. We’ve just increased the amount of support we devote to this need in order to help these babies survive and thrive.

Another new home- October 2021

In July, our interns from ABC met these children as they went around to visit villages in the area. They did not have parents and were truly a child-headed-household. The interns appealed to us that these children needed a new home. Stanley and I went out to see it for ourselves and we agreed- their home was in terrible shape.

The Bright Vision Golf Tournament was a couple weeks later, and we decided to designate a portion of what was raised to building this home. By the middle of September we were building the home. It took a few weeks and was finished by the end of October. Our ABC students were on hand when it was handed over to the kids.

Interns and Blankets

We currently have three students from African Bible College staying out at Bright Vision. They are Community Development majors, and during the holiday between their junior and senior year they are required to complete a six-week internship with an organization working in their field of study. Christina, Juliet, and Patience have been staying at Bright Vision for the past month, getting hands-on experience of what they have been studying. We were with them this weekend, and it is a joy to see how engaged they are with the staff and kids. They’ve held meetings for women in the village on different health topics and keep themselves busy visiting homes throughout the surrounding area. They just coordinated the distribution of 100 blankets to the community- a welcome relief for children who may not have one or share one with their whole family.

Meet some of our staff

When Bright Vision started in 2005 it was a pretty small operation. Stanley, the founder and Director, got some people together to feed children whenever they could collect enough food. As more resources became available, those feeding programs became more frequent and much bigger. As other programs started operating, we realized that the volunteers were now giving much more of their time. So little by little we started giving them stipends to say THANK YOU for their work and to help them support their families. With this came an annual loan in order to help them purchase farming inputs (seed and fertilizer) to ensure a good harvest in their own fields. We quickly found out that one of the most effective ways for us to serve the community of Chamadenga was to have people doing meaningful work to serve the children/families of the village and being able to support them so they could support their families.

Currently, Bright Vision has 40 regular volunteers who run nursery school, cook meals, care for poultry, farm, plant trees, and provide security. Without them, our various programs couldn’t run. With the small stipend they receive, they are able to help support their own families, care for their gardens, and take care of things around the home. Equally as important to the financial provision their work provides is the purpose and joy they have in serving the children and families in their own village.

Kachipapa is our the leader of our security guards and has been with Bright Vision for 14 years. He has six children, and through his work at Bright Vision has been able to support his family by farming, purchasing animals, and building a home.

Lugesi has been at Bright Vision for 7 years, and heads the feeding program while teaching nursery school. She has been able to support her family by paying school fees and maintaining her family’s fields. She also noted that the various trainings she has gone through at Bright Vision have benefited her greatly.

Judith went through our Secondary School sponsorship program, and after finishing school joined the staff in 2016. Her parents passed away some years ago, and she has been able to not only help care for her family (she has two kids), but also for her younger sister who is finishing up secondary school (also a part of the sponsorship program).

Nadziona was also a sponsorship student and joined Bright Vision’s staff seven years ago. She teaches nursery school, coordinates formula milk for infants in need, and also helps take care of funds coming in and out in Chamadenga. She’s been able to farm, purchase animals, and maintain her family’s field with her work at BVOC.

Bikausi joined Bright Vision 7 years ago. He started by just coming around to help, but we quickly realized that his hard work and reliability merited having him help as staff. He takes care of whatever needs to be done: chopping wood, taking maize to the mill to be turned into flour, and whatever else people need to make things run. Bikausi was born with a mental handicap, but being a part of Bright Vision’s staff has helped him grow tremendously as part of a community. We’re grateful for his lively presence and hard work.

I would add one important note: Our family (the Hirotos in Malawi) and the members of the board volunteer our time to work with Bright Vision (thank you to Chuck, Denise, Shirley, Cory, and Greg). None of the “Staff” or “Admin” portions of our budget goes to anyone outside of these 40 staff members who live and serve in Chamadenga. It is a joy for us to partner with our fantastic staff members who desire to serve the children and families at Bright Vision.