Changoima Parish

Greetings from Fr Michael, St Anthony Parish

23rd March 2024

  • They’ve been busy during the Lenten Season, finishing door-to-door visits of Catholic families and individuals who had stopped going to Church or receiving the Sacraments. They’ve done this in all the Small Christian Communities of the Parish.
  • From Monday to Friday, they’ve been meeting those whose issues needed more attention and counseling. They find Easter a joyful season after seeing some of the people they visited during Lent reconciling with God and living a good Christian life again.
  • Holy Week will be full of Liturgical and Faith deepening activities. On Palm Sunday, there will be Solemn Masses and Procession with the palms in two different Churches.
  • They will travel to the Cathedral on Monday 25th for Chrism Mass. This year, they have 45 Catechumens in Year 3, who will be baptized at Easter.

They’re having rains almost every two or three days, but the month of February was dry, causing severe damage to the maize crop. The rains they are having now are no good for the maize, but other crops like bananas, Sorghum, millet, potatoes, cassava and pigeon peas will at least do well .

Here are some pictures of the failed and wilting maize crops in some of the places they visited in the Small Christian Communities

20th February 2024

8th February 2024

I have very good news to share with you. The Inspectors from the Government offices of the Ministry of Education came yesterday afternoon, Monday the 5th, for the Inspection so that they could give their final recommendations. They failed to come the past weeks because of the rains, the roads to here were impassable. They went straight to the New School project site without me or Fr Peter ( the other priest I stay with) knowing. They met us late in the afternoon on their way back after they had done their work. They were four, three men and one lady. Please find below their Recommendations according to priority;

  1. The School Block is well built and solid. The two classrooms are the right size, big enough and spacious to accommodate more than one hundred pupils. Very good ventilation and enough light conducive for good learning environment.
  2. The surroundings are clean and quiet, away from the road and houses, creating a noise free environment, conducive for learning.
  3. However the following immediate needs have been noted:

    a) A two roomed Office for the Headteacher and the other teachers. They need space where they can prepare and work from.

    b) Two more toilets and bathrooms for boys and girls. We have just managed to build 4. Two for the Staff ( male and female) and two for pupils ( boys and girls).

    c) A borehole for clean, safe and drinking water. This should be drilled within the School Premises.

    d) One more School Block for classes 3 and 4. It is Liston Catholic Junior Primary School, a Junior Primary School has 4 Classes, standards 1-4. We have only built one block for Standards 1-2.

    e) Desks especially for classes 3 and 4. For classes 1 and 2 the Pupils can sit on the floor as they do in all primary schools in the country whose teachers are paid by government.

    f) Teachers’ houses within the School Campus. This is the way Primary Schools are built. Teachers’ houses are within. But for us this is a long term plan. They will continue renting in the villages.

They have assured us that once they get back to the office they will facilitate the whole process of registering the school and opening classes 1 and 2. We thank God, this is very good news for us. Thank you so much all of you at Corpus Christi for your prayers and financial support, helping us reach this far. So the School will open while we find ways and means of fixing what they have recommended.

Today I had a meeting with the chiefs and development committee members, to discuss on the recommendations and map way forward. We still have a huge task, but we are very glad the first School Block will be used soon. Please continue praying for us and supporting us. God bless you.

18th December 2023

The new school development has been completed much more quickly than expect and they now have room for more pupils. This is a new school. Previously, the nearest infant / primary school was 14 km from the new school.

26th November 2023

  1. NEW CATHOLIC SCHOOL AT LISTON.

In my last report sent to you on 27th I indicated that we will have another meeting on Wednesday 1st November. We had this meeting and finalized on the contributions from he communities to purchase items for the first phase of roofing; here are the items as shown in the budget; item 9(timber 6by2), item 10(timber 3by2), 12(Solignum),16(nails 4inch), 17(nails 5inch) totaling to K2,376,000.

Putting together the money that we had collected from the contributions, we had K1,855,000. We had given each other until Friday 10th November to collect the remaining amount so that come Monday the 13th we would go to town to purchase the items.

On 9th November when Government announced the devaluation of the Kwacha by 44%, things changed. We made inquiries about the items only to be told that prices were being adjusted upwards and by week beginning Monday the 13th many things will be worse. We sold 9 of our pigs, took the money that had come from the Communities and on Saturday the 11th bought the timber, nails and Solignum. Totaling to K3,593,000 we added K1,217,000 to the old budget.

So the roofing work is now in progress. See photos. We have been very lucky the rains are not yet in, we still have blue skies and very hot weather. We don’t know how far our luck will go. We need items,1, 3 and 18; iron sheets, ridges and roofing nails. Before devaluation the cost was K3,033,000. But now prices have gone up to K4,372,000. These items we have to get as soon as possible. Unfortunately we can’t ask for more contributions from the people, the devaluation and the time of the year have hit us hard. But we surely want and wish that come 2nd term , in January this school block should be ready for Classes 1 and 2.

2.THE CONTAINER

Our sincere and heartfelt thanks and gratitude to you and the whole team and all those who sacrificed and made donations and worked so tirelessly hard to send the items in the container, and even worked and sacrificed more to clear the issues with MRA. We can not thank you enough. We have joyfully received the items though we had challenges in transportation but we have managed to bring all the items home. My car brokedown, but its now back on the road. I managed to bring the items meant for Fr Francis and Mostein to them. Once again thank you so much.

For the chairs and some other assorted school items, we are bringing them to the new school once the school block is ready.

The Mass vestments are so good, we shall use them in church. Thank you.

We are still sorting out the clothes, shoes and other items, we want them to be Christmas gifts, together with the solar lights( if we shall have them this year) . We feel it will be more meaningful giving them out as Christmas gifts to the people and schools here. The coming months life will be generally harder and tougher to all of us here. The devaluation and when people now have to purchase expensive farm inputs like seed , fertilizer and pesticides. We are praying harder the rain this year will be good, no cyclones like the past two years.

  1. EDUCATION

We thank God we still have all our students in school. On Sunday we are meeting some of them as Young Christian Students (YCS) members, we shall be welcoming the new members who have started Form 1. We are eagerly waiting on how school fees will be adjusted in the second term in January. We keep our fingers crossed.

We wish you a nice meeting. God bless you all for your goodness, kindness and love.

Fr Michael Useni.
Parish Priest.

29th October 2023

October, being Mission Month and also Holy Rosary Month has been a very busy Month, we priests visit every Small Christian Community for Marian Mass and praying the Holy Rosary. Instilling in the Faithful the Catholic Teachings on the Church’s Mission and the Blessed Blessed Virgin Mary. ( Missiology and Mariology).


The weather has started getting very hot and people are busy working in the fields preparing the land for planting the crops and we expect the rains by Mid November.


The School project has been going on very well. We have made very good progress. As of Wednesday this week, we are now at roofing level .

Monday of last week, the 15th I had a meeting with all the chiefs of the area. We had two topics, the visit of the government officials and way forward on the roofing level .


The government officials came on Monday the 23rd and have been very pleased with the work  and progress so far, the have recommended the building so far. And they have once again confirmed that once this school block is finished, classes 1 and 2 will use it as we make efforts to start building the second school block which will have classes 3 and 4.

On the roofing level, we need Timber, nails and Iron Sheets. We had a long and serious discussion on this one. Knowing that by all means before the rains begin roofing should be done. Unfortunately these materials have to be bought at once and roofing can’t be done in stages, once the timber is put place, the iron sheets and ridges have to come immediately. This is the big challenge that we have now. In our discussions, we realistically understood that the people in the villages who have been very supportive, now  have very limited resources as their attention is now on the coming planting and growing season and making it through to the next harvest. So the challenge now is how to raise the money both for timber, the nails and Iron Sheets all at once before the rains begin. So we agreed to start collections again from every household to get the money for the timber, and 31st October, coming Tuesday is the deadline. I have received reports that so far some villages have made very good progress. We hope and pray that by Tuesday we shall have everything ready. We are meeting again on 1st November.

The challenge we have now is that we can not afford to buy all the Iron sheets nails at once. But we can’t risk putting the timber up on top before the Iron Sheets are available, because the rains can destroy and compromise the quality of the timber, and thus putting the whole roof in danger. But if we don’t do the roofing now, and the rains find the building as it is, the walls will be affected.

Listoni Junior Catholic Primary School – 10th October 2023

The school is rising! By weekend (14/10/23) we should reach Ring beam level.

Listoni Junior Catholic Primary School – 22nd September 2023

The project is steadily progressing. We have purchased all the 350 bags of cement and the quarry stone. Contributions from the villages have allowed us to buy the metal bars for ring beam, the timber for ring beam shutter and the transportation of all these materials to the site. The foundation is done and plastered. By tomorrow leveling should be finished, so that on Monday we start raising the walls.

We need to purchase the rest of the remaining building materials like Iron sheets, timber for roofing, wire nails , paint etc.

Our present project is to provide two school blocks of two class rooms.
Started in August 2023

Malawi-Twin has contributed just over 25% of the total cost.

APPEAL FOR LISTONI JUNIOR CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL

INTRODUCTION

Primary School Education is free in Malawi. Government provides teachers and the Church or communities or NGOs provide the school blocks and teacher’s houses. Pupils cover long distances to walk to school in the morning and back home in the late afternoon. In short schools are far apart. As you are aware, St Anthony (Changoima) Parish is in the borders of Chikwawa and Mwanza districts. One of the most rural and isolated parishes in the diocese. Challengingly, being a new Parish, we have so many things to establish. The older parishes who had missionaries as first priests had an advantage. Many things established through their assistance.

BACKGROUND

St Anthony (Changoima) Parish has Four Full Catholic Primary Schools established by Montfort Missionaries (from Holland) and St Patrick’s Missionaries (from Island) in the 60s and 70s respectively. Over the years the population of Malawi has highly increased raising more need of schools. One of our primary school, Chitungwani Catholic Full Primary School covers huge area. Children from group village headmen Listoni, Mtseka, Tanasi, Tafatatha, William and other surrounding villages walk long distances to go to this school in the range of 8 to 12 kilometers .They travel through bush and cross two rivers, which is very dangerous. Not many children from this area go to school and even those who start school never finish up to standard 8 because they start school when they are already advanced in age and end up getting married or dropping school along the way.

Last year together with the Parish Council, the Church Council of that area and Traditional Chiefs, we notified the Diocesan Education Commission and the District Education Office our desire and the need to open a Junior Primary School in the area (Standard one to four). Our aim is to shorten the distances the children have to cover to go to Chitungwani Primary School. The distance will be reduced from between 8 to 12 kilometers to 1 to 6 kilometers. Giving a chance to much more children to attend school and at an earlier age. The chiefs donated land to the Church, large enough for a Full Primary School.

On 21st March, 2023, The Diocesan Education Commission, the District Commissioner and  the District Education Office sent their officers for an interface meeting with the chiefs and  communities surrounding this area together with the priests, I, Fr Michael Useni and Fr Peter Tembo.

We are very glad to report that Government has given us a go ahead. They have promised to send us a plan by Mid-August. This plan has Government Standards which will guide us as we construct the School Blocks. We now have the permission to open a Catholic Primary School in the area of Group Village Headmen Listoni,Mtseka, Tanasi, Tafatatha, William. Government says can provide the teachers and the school can open in the coming academic year of 2023-2024. It just depends on how soon we can finish building the classrooms.

OUR APPEAL

We are glad to report that we already have moulded and burnt bricks, we have started gathering stones and sand (see pictures). These are the efforts we can do, our appeal is for financial assistance to buy iron sheets, timber for roofing, quarry stone, cement, nails and wires, paint and other necessary building materials. Our wish is to build two school blocks, each block will have two classes. It is a desperate race against time. 2022-2023 academic year closed on Friday, 21st July 2023. 2023-2024 academic year begins in October. We have two months. With what we already have, and funds permitting, we can make it. Once we have the plan we shall be able to produce the budget.

CONCLUSION

Education is one of the greatest tools of transformation. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to have proper education in the rural and remote areas in Malawi .It is therefore, our hope and prayer that this project will have a long lasting transformative impact on the Church and the Communities. Firstly, we are sure that the number of pupils going to school in this area covered by these chiefs will increase. Secondly, they will start school at an earlier age, thus increasing the chances of them finishing primary school and later secondary school. Thus reducing early marriages and child labor.  Thirdly, the Communities will be more dedicated and will work harder to make it a Full Catholic Primary School in the coming two to four years. Fourthly, Diocesan authorities and Government Officials will realize how serious our plea was. Therefore, increasing chances of their future interventions.

This has been a long standing issue for more than 20 years, people in this area have been begging for a school. Politicians, NGOs have been promising to help, but no positive step was taken. We thank God at last we have received the favorable response from Government. It is for this purpose that we submit this proposal to you and humbly ask for your assistance.

May the Good Lord bless you always.

Yours faithfully,

Fr. Michael Useni.

Fr Micahel sends us thanks and appreciation and a report from on projects – August 2023

Fr. Michael Useni
  1. Introduction

We, the Catholic Family of St Anthony (Changoima) Parish wish to thank you the Malawi-Twin team and all the parishioners of Corpus Christi for making us part of the Malawi-Twin group and for all your assistance to us since we became a Parish in 2017. We have received a lot of support from you as we are still struggling and striving to build up as a Parish. Being situated in a very remote and rural set up, it has been an immense challenge to reach this level. The COVID-19 pandemic and the two cyclones of Anna and Freddy in the past three years have been a major setback. We thank God you have always been there, encouraging us to move on and helping us.

  • Administration Block for Changoima Catholic Primary School

We are very grateful for helping us in the construction of Changoima Catholic Primary School Administration Block; it has the Head Teacher’s Office, the deputy Head Teacher’s Office, Staffroom and two storerooms. The block is now in full use. The two classrooms that were used for the same purpose have now been released and pupils are using them.

  • School Fees for Needy Students

We are also very grateful for the support you render to the Secondary School Students. 7 students have written National Examinations. Doreen Jasi, Clara Zeno and Elia Paul are the students who have written the Form 4 Exams (Malawi School Certificate Examinations -MSCE). Brenda Standy, Constance Mhango, Eliza Magoli and Ndaziona Manyowa have written the Form 2 Exams (Junior Certificate Examinations-JCE). This means that Brenda Standy, Constance Mhango , Eliza Magoli and Ndaziona Manyowa are going to Form 3. Ruth Simon, Ndaona Genti, Caroline Tchale, Yohane Mathews, Paul Yonasi, Moses Mikolasi and Maltison Amalndo are going to Form 2. Mary Lufeyo, Elube Nelson, Catherine Lufeyo are going to Form 4. However, we are aware of the following two challenges:  firstly, those who have written Form 4 will need more support when they pass and are taken to college. Secondly, soon we shall have needy students selected to start secondary school Form one.

  • Pigs

The pigs we bought and were under quarantine were brought to the Parish Kraal. We are pleased to inform you that we now have the pigs in the Kraal. Now totaling six (see the pictures).

Locally Funded Projects

  • Being a new Parish, Changoima has a number of Out Churches to construct. This we had indicated in our application of 2022 projects. We are glad to report that we have managed to locally raise funds and construct one Church that is Kabwatika Church (see pictures). We shall officially open and bless this church on 16th September 2023. 

  • We have purchased at a very low price 7 hectares of land from Senior Group Village Headman Bisimoni. A larger part of this land is forest.  We plan to have a farm for the Parish in future, for both animals and crops.
  • In March this year cyclone Freddy destroyed the roofing of a Block at one of our Schools

 (Kunyondo Catholic Full Primary School). We are glad to report that we worked on the building, the roof was restored and the School Block is once again under use.

Conclusion

We are very grateful for being a very important partner of our journey in spreading the Good News and for helping Changoima to get established as a Parish with different projects. As a Parish we are very grateful for assisting us with the items you send in the containers. As we continue with our journey, we ask for your continued Prayers and financial assistance and we have sent you our present project.

May the Good Lord bless you always.

Yours faithfully,

Fr. Michael Useni.

New Office Block handover … April 2023

Last Saturday , 22nd April. Changoima Parish officially handed over the new office block to the Headteacher and Staff of Changoima Catholic Primary School. In attendance were 4 Senior Group Village Headmen, Some Chiefs, PTA( Parent Teacher Association) leaders, Head and Staff of the school. After prayers and blessing we have handed over the keys.
Construction was finished end of February before Cyclone Freddy hit us. We had to put curtains and the school was hoping to get some new furniture for the offices amd staff room but this has not worked. Today they are putting the old furniture from the classrooms they have been occupying as offices. Thank you and all the Catholic Family of Corpus Christi for this help. We shall release a full report once we have power. We used slightly more than the budget because we had challenges with labour. Being the planting and season many were busy in the fields taking care of their crops. Voluntary work was not easy, we had to employ two permanent builders to help. This made the construction work move.faster.

Pig project April 2023

Last time I shared with you that we had not yet bought the pigs. But today I bring you good news. Just before Easter we managed to buy two pigs, and last week we have again bought two pigs making it to four. After seeking advice from the veterinary officers we have been advised not to bring them here immediately until they have received swine fever vaccine but also have been given other treatments, fearing they may bring infections to the pigs we already have here, and we may end up losing them all. He is going to do that this week. So probably after a month we shall bring them here. We have sought space at one of our Faithful’s place and they are being taken care of.

After the sad and painful interruptions by Cyclone Freddy, third and last term for the school has began, they are now in the second week. We happily inform you that all our students are back at school and we have paid their school and boarding fees.

The work has begun… January 2023

Greetings, prayers and best wishes from Changoima.

Work on the construction of the Headmaster’s office and Staff room has began last week. Being rainy season here, and people are busy in the fields taking care of their crops, we had to strategise to begin even though it is raining. The cost of building materials and infact the cost of living in Malawi is rising every single day Am glad to report that atleast we have managed to buy all the needed building materials. We might have to add some bricks at the very end, but we shall hear from the builders.

The house you see in the background is the Rectory. Where Fr Michael and Fr Peter stay.

This is Fr. Michael the day he went to buy the iron sheets, ridges, window frames and nails in Blantyre

Solar lights have arrived!

Fr Michael of Changoima parish distributing solar lights for Christmas 2022

Fr Michael blessing the completed teachers house – December 2022

Report from Fr Michael – December 2022

In the first place we would like to extend our word of gratitude to you our friends of Corpus Christi for the support you are rendering to us at Changoima Parish. We have made strides and many people’s lives have been touched and changed. We pray and always work and make necessary steps so that this continues. Many thanks for the recent support we have received for construction of head teacher’s office and staffroom; purchasing of pigs; support for fees of needy students and solar lights for Christmas.

Teacher’s House

We wish to happily report that we are almost through with the finishing of the teacher’s house. Painting, putting glasses on the windows and fixing doors should be done next week. In the past two weeks we were dealing with something we had an oversight on and had not included in our budgeting but very necessary; outside toilet (pit latrine); outdoor bathroom and kitchen. With our set up here we cannot have these within the house. We are almost done with these. We have sent photos. In two weeks’ time, by 19th December 2022 we should have the teacher in.

  • School Fees for Needy Students

We are pleased to inform you that we still have all the students in school, we are saying this because sometimes some students mostly girls drop-out from school along the way due to unwanted pregnancies which are common especially in the villages, but we are happy to report that none of our students has dropped so far. We have sent photos of the students.  We have managed to pay Examination Fees for the students in forms two and four (7) who will be writing government exams this academic year. This is a local contribution. When they close school we shall give you some background of their families.

  • Items from the Container

We are very thankful for the items we have received from this year’s container. We have sorted out most of the items. Two desktop computers have been given to Chang’ambika community day secondary school where most of our students are learning. In fact this is the only government sponsored secondary school within our Parish; one computer for the staff and the other one for the Headmaster (we have sent some pictures). On 8th December, 2022, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary we shall have the annual general meeting for Catholic Women Organization in the Parish. We shall have a chance to give out some of the items. For children and boys clothes, these will go together with the solar lights as Christmas gifts to families. We shall share more as the distribution takes place.

Conclusion

Now that we have two priests and full time catechist, there are more pastoral activities now than when there was only one priest. That is, visits to out-churches and small Christian communities for mass. Visits to the sick and the elderly. Weekend catechetical programs with the youth, catechumens and first communion candidates.

We shall continue sharing with you, once we undertake the projects you have just funded us. Once again thank you so much for your prayers, sacrifice, love, generosity and donations. We shall continue praying for you and doing what we can on our side. We are one Family in Faith.



Fr Michael Useni, Parish Priest.

Report from Fr Michael – Teachers’ House, Changoima

Construction work on the teacher’s house started on 12th September 2022 as we had planned. After purchasing all the necessary materials, we got some right here and some in Blantyre. But the speed of construction has not been as we had planned. When the school was opening on 10th October we had not yet finished. Two weeks down the line, we are almost starting roofing. On Monday, the 31st October we shall start roofing (see the pictures attached).Fortunately, we have all the materials ready.
Challenges
The builders who are volunteers took their own pace, absenteeism due to funerals, sickness and other
excuses have slowed down the whole process.
We had challenges with getting the right quality of bricks when the first consigrment of bricks had finished.
This made us wait for a week searching for proper bricks in size and quality. But now we are on track. We
will give you full report once the house is finished. Thank you.

Now we are two priests here, the new priest who got ordained this year on 13th August has been assigned to Changoima. He is Fr Peter Tembo. It is really a big relief and a cause for joy and gratitude.
While we are happy and overwhelmed with joy that rve have Fr Peter here and for the first time Changoima has two priests, the availability of necessary resources for Pastoral Work and day to day living will be more challenging now.

The people we are serving are very good people and generous, they give us food and support us in all possible ways. But there are some and very critical needs we struggle with. So for the Low Cost you have spoken of, we could buy more pigs, to add up to the ones we have now. We can buy 5 or 6 she pigs,
knowing that in six months time we could be selling on a monthly basis to add up to the costs of running the Parish.

April 2022 update

Damage caused by storm ‘Anna’ which devastated the southern half of Malawi

Fr Michael with his parishioners in Changoima

June 2021 update

Fr Francis’ report June 2021:

Fr Francis Mpatsa

I am still busy with the work at Changoima, we are going to finish slowly because of lack of proper funding of the project. At the moment we cannot say the exact time we are going to finish, some people promised to help but they haven’t turned up. What is remaining is the perimeter fence, glass, painting and some other small things. When I get to Chikwawa I will be working with the sisters helping them on spiritual matters and helping the elders who are vulnerable in the community and also looking after the vulnerable children within the surrounding villages. At the seminary I will give spiritual direction to the students and I have also been asked if I can help to facilitate the establishment of a tuckshop for the students to keep them around the school campus to prevent them from contracting Corona virus. These are the main duties and I will learn more when I get there. Here are some pictures of the project so far.

February 2021

Emergency Covid 19 Appeal- February 2021

Fr Francis writes: We are very grateful, extend our vote of thanks to the parishioners and our Malawi Twin Team. We are planning to use the money in this way;

  1. we are having our Covid-19 awareness meeting Saturday 13th February and the second meeting will be on 20th February at the parish with parish leaders and there after we will have eight meetings one in each out station since the parish is composed of nine small churches we call out stations.
  2. We have also planned to buy and distribute 3,000 washable face masks so that everyone should have a mask.
  3. We are going to buy disinfectants to spray in all our Churches.
  4. we are going to buy bars of soap to enhance hand washing with soap.

We will continue praying for you, God bless, Fr. Francis.

January 2021 update

The school block project is now complete at Changoima. What a difference it will make!

December 2020

Fr. Francis writes the following:I just wanted to give you a small progress report on the projects:

  • The school project is going on very well and I hope by the end of January, or even before, we will finish the work.
  • I bought 280 solar lights and so far I have distributed to 210 households.
  • I have also managed to buy a very good P/A system we have started using it today during the evening Mass, thank you so much.

The first three photos (above) show work in progress on the completion of the School block.

The next two photos (below) show the distribution of Solar Lights

The photo on the left shows the P/A system for the village church (this was used for the first time on (Christmas vigil mass )






November 2020

The pigs look very happy
The Pigs look very happy

October 2020

Fr Francis has written to let us know that the remaining toilet in the new toilet block is now 100% completed.  This have been a wonderful year for our parish you have helped us so much. People here are very grateful and happy.  Extend our thanks to Malawi Twin team.  11th October 2020

The toilet block completed October 2020

In a few days time we are going to demolish the old toilets you see in front of the new block.

Work in progress on the new toilet block

June 2020 update

I am very happy to report on the projects today, the house for the pigs is now is 100% done. We completed yesterday Monday 15th June. Attached are the photos. Now we are busy with the building of the toilets, I hope we will be through by the 20th of July.         Fr Francis Changoima Parish

The Pig Project completed June 2020