African Vision Malawi – our change of name

In 2005, the Landirani Trust was born out of a visit to Malawi by Heather and two friends. In those early days the charity hoped to be able to provide some basic necessities such as clothing and blankets. It wasn’t long before we recognised the desperate need to put in clean water and build schools. These became two of our major activities in recent years, which in turn led to health and our building a maternity unit in 2013/14.

The word ‘Landirani’ means ‘please receive’ in the local language Chichewa and over time the charity has achieved significant awareness in Malawi and is recognised by major agencies such as UNICEF as well as the Government of Malawi. For the time being, we continue to be called the Landirani Trust in Malawi.

In the UK however, not surprisingly Landirani has proved more of a challenge for people to remember! Since the generous donation of a 10-acre site by grateful chiefs where we work, we embarked on an ambitious programme to build ‘Sam’s Village’. We want to move away from hand-outs and instead create self-sufficient training programmes that can support thousands of local people and show them how to improve their lives. Sam’s Village will be self-supporting and will become a best-practice example for Malawi (and in time other parts of Africa) of how to encourage and develop sustainable, forward looking and skilled communities.

Most of our fundraising takes place in the UK and we recognise the need for a more memorable name which people can identify with .. one which will express our vision for the people of Malawi. And with that, the name change of African Vision Malawi came into effect on 1st April 2013.