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About Malawi
Rural Malawian farmers grow corn on small plots of land surrounding their local villages, comprising mud huts with grass roofs. A staple of the family diet is nsima, a simple corn dough with little nutritional value. Maize corn contains only 7% fat and few micronutrients, yet constitutes approximately 70% of daily diet. The effects of such an energy- poor diet have most drastic effects on Malawian children, especially those between the critical growth period from 6 to 18 months of age. Malnutrition affects 70% of all children in Malawi, with an estimated 13% of children dying before the age of five from severe malnutrition. This is down from 23% in the year 2000, the date of our program's inception.
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Located in Southeast Africa, Malawi is bordered by the nations of Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania and covers approximately 118,500 square kilometers, making it roughly the size of the state of Pennsylvania. Of its population of 12 million people, 90% subsist as rural farmers with a median per capita income of just $44 per year, one of the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. As one of the world's least developed nations, Malawi's citizens are often faced with challenges of establishing a market economy, fighting infectious disease, and most significantly for this project, struggling with issues of malnutrition. 