Seibo Japan Staff Report: Seibo in Action
Seibo Malawi feed over 14,000 children daily with a full-time staff of 5 aided by a team of hundreds of local volunteers. By comparison Seibo Japan is small and while we share a love for Malawi & its people our job is is to fundraise in Japan. However one of our staff, Makoto Yamada, had the opportunity to visit Malawi early this year. What follows is a report on his first impressions!

Baobab Tree Outdoor Schools
Having arrived in Blantyre, Southern Malawi my first visits were to Seibo nursery schools located in what seemed like inaccessible mountainous territory. It dawned on me how simple things such as visiting schools to measure the growth & height of attending children are not at all that easy. What was obvious from the start was that school feeding is highly prized by communities in Malawi. The image below is that of a nursery- Makapwa nursery. Here lessons take place under a large Baobab tree. The Makapwa community do not have an actual nursery building per se but they have ambition. They want to work with Seibo to bring food to their children at this school. Doing so would mean more children could attend-school & less risk of malnutrition. After all the most vulnerable age group in Malawi are those under the age of 6.
The Seibo team travel to these locations and deliver workshops and exchange views with the intention of creating a viable feeding station and delivering regular food supplies to these remote locations.
There aren’t many other visitors besides.

Building a Love for Education
Travelling to the far north to Mzimba the landscape was different. There were no nursery schools as such. Instead communities had created their own Community-Based Children Centres (CBCC’s). Perhaps it was due to the lack of facilities but there seemed less of an urgency to provide an education for children. The Seibo Malawi staff impressed upon me that even before introducing school feeding it was necessary to communicate to communities the necessity for sending young children to school. That was an unexpected lesson- I always knew that Seibo’s reasoning for providing school feeding was to ensure the future of these children but somehow I hadn’t imagined the need for Seibo to evangelise communities as to the value of education. I had nothing but respect for my colleagues in Malawi having witnessed their efforts.
The below image taken at Davy Primary School shows the school principal giving a talk to local communities on the need for children to attend school. An education not only benefits the child but will eventually benefit the entire community also. By providing school feeding Seibo provide one more reason why their children should attend school. It’s grassroots work but ever so important.

Seeds of Change
There were many positive moments too. The Zakora CBCC (see below image) is a prime example. The parents of the children act as teachers. The men from the community help provide the school infrastructure. Even local farmers help where possible to provide food stuff during harvest periods. Everybody is involved with their children’s futures. Seibo will hopefully one day raise enough to assist these communities with a feeding station & a regular meal and enable the children of Malawi to develop to their full capacity.

We Must Nurture & Grow
This trip confirmed my conviction that Seibo must grow- we must expand and we must work with more local communities to provide support for fledgling & existing nursery projects. We simply must for the children.

The Northern Nursery Challenge
The path ahead is paved with obstacles. In southern Malawi where Seibo are based we have resources and access to communities. The north is a new challenge- it won’t be solved by a one-off campaign. Our mission may span generations but we must continue to provide sustainable support to those in need.
I for one will endeavour to continue to learn from the communities in Northern Malawi as to their needs. I will continue to tell their story. But it is my true hope that by doing so we can take action and expand school feeding to nurseries where they exist & to support communities with school feeding where they do not.

What Next?
We at Seibo need to involve more & more Japanese people in sharing the burden of those less fortunate than ourselves. If we can convince more people to share this burden- to know & love Malawi- we will for sure expand from our current base of 14,000 meals daily. It’s a challenge I have personally accepted.