Temwa

Vision, Mission & Values

Temwa is a small, focused NGO aiming to act as a catalyst for sustainable development in rural poor communities where there isn’t the basic capacity to tackle social and environmental needs. The Temwa mission is to help create hope for the future among the people of Malawi by: • Providing an infrastructure to support Malawian families facing financial and humanitarian hardship, irrespective of religious orientation. • Creating partnerships and programmes to equip the local population of Usisya with the skills and resources to ensure ongoing health, education, and financial stability for families and the wider community. Temwa consists of a series of programmes that are aimed at providing sustainable community-driven development in four key areas: Health education, Skills development, Agriculture and irrigation, Schools support and Food and Nutrition Security. Current projects include ongoing HIV & AIDS education, support and testing services; community agroforestry & tree planting to address malnutrition and deforestation; sustainable farming initiatives to promote organic growing and environmentally friendly farming techniques; school building & bursary schemes; and the running of a community centre and library. At Temwa we believe that whilst the knowledge and resources exist for all areas of sustainable development the issue for many rural communities is the lack of basic social capacity to enable change. As such our approach is twofold: to build the capacity for change and to stimulate the necessary initial action to create the belief that change is possible. Although the ultimate measure of success is when we are no longer needed, we also recognise that change takes time and will only be sustainable if the community is given that time to build capacity both to engage and ultimately to learn to lead and manage its own destiny. As such we have a long-term commitment to the communities in which we work as well as a commitment to work in partnership with community and regional government organisations and, wherever possible, local providers of skills, knowledge and additional capacity.

Media Strategy...

Temwa's use of film so far has mainly been through its ongoing HIV & AIDS education work. Up until 2008 we had been running video shows using Nigerian health education films but since then we have been using our own documentary that we produced in conjunction with Purple Field Productions (PFP). Temwa have a running relationship with PFP, an organisation that makes films and videos for educational and humanitarian purposes. Our first film 'Banthu Ngati Ise' was a huge success and was the first ever HIV & AIDS education film produced ChiTumbuka, the the local language to where we work in Northern Malawi. Along with PFP, we are currently producing our second film which is going to be a nationally distributed HIV & AIDS education film aimed at 5-12 year olds. Post production has begun and we are currently raising the funds to allow us to distribute the film.

External URL

http://www.temwa.org