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Renewed hope for Mulanje orphans
By
Our Reporter - 02-07-2002 |
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Orphans under the care of Friends of Mulanje (Fomo) have been reassured of continued assistance after misappropria-tion of funds late last year brought the project to a halt.
An earlier committee had failed to account for between K400,000 and K500,000 to Fomo’s founders and fund raisers who are based in UK, hence leading to the freezing of its bank account.
However, the visit by Fomo’s founder Mary Woodsworth, has brought in some light for the orphanage which has a network of seven centres around Mulanje district where 1570 orphans are provided with lunch after school.
This has been boosted with the opening of a new centre at Mwamadi in TA Chikumbu’s area where Woodsworth also donated bicycles to all the centres to help in ferrying the children to hospitals when they fall sick.
“It was a bold decision for us to freeze the accounts but we could not do otherwise. But with the new committee that has been put in place, expect our continued support in the orphan care project,” pledged Woodsworth.
Prospects for Fomo have also been rejuvenated by the taking off of a construction project of a K2 million orphan centre at Kamwamba in TA Mabuka’s area, also under the auspices of Fomo friends in UK.
Speaking in an interview, the district welfare officer for Mulanje Yolamu Chiwanda said the money misappropriation incident was a direct result of different perceptions by individuals involved in the earlier committee as to their role in the orphan project, saying that others looked at it as a personal project.
Chiwanda advised overseers of Fomo’s centres that activities in the centres should not end at providing food but should go further to impart the cultural norms of their societies in the children.
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