Spirit Aid

Spirit Aid, is a humanitarian relief organisation dedicated to children with projects both at home in Central ,Scotland and abroad. Founded in 2001 by actor and humanitarian David Hayman, our prerogative is to improve ,childrens lives, either by bettering access to healthcare, education and opportunities, or by responding to ,humanitarian crisis as and when we can.,We currently run projects in 4 countries. At home, here in Central Scotland as well as abroad in Malawi, ,Afghanistan and Palestine. Our Malawi project is ran by a small group of indigenous volunteers and employees on ,the ground. We have been partnered with the community of 15,0 00 people in the district of Mulanje now for 8 ,years. With no electricity, hand pumps for water and very low life expectancy rates, we, working with the local ,chiefs, set up a number of projects.,Feeding Programme,We feed around 1500 children in this community every day. We provide a cooked lunch of maize, beans and ,vegetables with meat once a week resulting in the school roll of Milonde High School, nearly doubling, whilst pass ,marks went through the roof to 97 and many students (for the very first time), graduated to professional jobs.,Crches,We have set up 7 pre-school crches in different villages. Each one has around 150 children attending who are ,given a bowl of porridge, whilst receiving a fun filled preschool education, learning Chichewa, English and ,Arithmetic. This has proven very successful by ensuring these bush children assimilate well into the formal ,learning environment of school. ,Womens Training Workshops,At their request, we have trained 36 women to use manual sewing machines which they produce and sell knitted ,sweaters/jumpers and school uniforms on to the local community improving the local economy.,Solar For Mulanje,We installed the first of our solar panel units in 2012 in the High School and girls dorms. The electricity provided ,from these panels powers the teachers rooms, school rooms and staff dorms as well as a small ICT suite we are ,developing. We have secured 10 more solar units, so that each of the ten villages in the region may have ,electricity to power computers, educational aids, machinery, lights and fridges for medicine.,Rebuilding,We run a building repair programme for badly damaged, poor housing. After extending the high school and ,building the teachers dorms, we decided to focus on the villagers homes to ensure they are windproof and ,watertight. Very recently, we responded effectively to the flash floods, with assistance from the local football team, ,we set up an emergency feeding programme for the villagers, as well as a rebuilding programme for those whose ,homes were destroyed (around 80).,Re Boring Water Wells,In the last 8 years, we have opened up 10 hand water pumps. We aim to ensure everyone in the 15,000 strong ,community, has access to clean water within a short walking distance from home.,Community Works,We tend to take our lead from the villagers and