What we do

About Malawi Orphan Fund

Malawi Orphan Fund was set up in 2005 by Rosemary and Martin Lowdon to enable people the UK to support the Home of Hope orphanage, Malawi. Since then, we have grown to be one of the two largest donor organisations to Home of Hope, with an annual income of around £50,000.

Our charitable objectives are:

  • The relief of poverty, sickness and distress of children in the care of Home of Hope and other Christian-based orphan care projects in Malawi; and
  • The advancement of the education and vocational training of orphans in Malawi.

We primarily support Home of Hope.

How we work towards our objectives

General financial support of Home of Hope

We regularly send funds to Home of Hope to support the activities of the Orphanage as a whole, to be used to meet regular expenses and current priorities.

Sponsorship

Our most stable source of income is our sponsorship program, which you can find out more about here.

Containers

We have previously sent three containers to the Home of Hope, with furniture, computers and science equipment, as well as lots of clothes. Most recently, from 2015-2017 trustees and supporters of Malawi Orphan Fund collected items and donated money for our Container Project, “Hope in a Box”. In December 2016, a small group of people in Bedford and Northamptonshire worked hard to pull everything together, including opening their homes, garages and offices as temporary storage depots! Items that were donated and have been put to good use included uniforms from schools such as Bedford Modern School and Etonbury Academy, office furniture, shoes, clothes, school desks. On all of our recent visits, by trustees and friends, it has been noted how well these have been put to use and we are so grateful for all who supported this project.

Visits

In 2015 a group of trustees made the first formal visit on behalf of Malawi Orphan Fund, developing our relationship with Home of Hope, and enabling us to work alongside Home of Hope to best support their incredible work. We were able to pass on a large number of generously donated items, install an internet router to improve communications, discuss our long term objectives and better administer our sponsorship scheme.

Our expenditure

As a charity run entirely by volunteers, we have minimal expenses in order to maximise the impact of your donation. The pie chart below outlines how we allocated expenditure in 2018-19:

More details can be found in our accounts which are available on the Charity Commission website.