With Temwa’s 20th anniversary coming up at the end of this year, we are very excited to announce major restoration work has been completed at Usisya Community Hall.  These are the first significant works to be done to the building since it was constructed – when Temwa was founded back in 2003. 

One of the first major achievements of Temwa, the hall has helped us deliver support across a range of programmes and uses. It is therefore, an important centre for Usisya. It has served as an office and for hire space, as well as a community meeting hall where Temwa activities and training have led to huge progress and successes in the communities where we work. 

Usisya Community Library is also next door with an IT center attached – the use for which continues to grow. This shows the progress being made in our education and community literacy projects. As well as this, the Usisya Demo garden is used to educate and highlight sustainable farming practices for our livelihood and farming projects. 

Following consensus across the community in Usisya, the renovation works have seen major improvements to the structure of the building. Two walls have been completely rebuilt with a committee supervising the progress of the structural renovations. 

“The whole centre had cracks on all sides of the walls”, says Temwa Communications Officer Sera Mtambo. “The building was on the edge of falling down if it were left without maintenance, so we brought down two sides of the hall that had extreme damages and started rebuilding.”

Clearly, these works were crucial to ensure the building is safe. With support from some of Temwa’s very generous donors, we have been able to send £7,500 to Malawi to fund the renovations.

However, more work needs to be done, with restorations to the electricity, doors and window frames to finish. 

Now the renovations have been completed and are ready to progress to the next stage. Both the community and Temwa Malawi team are excited to get back to using this important centre for Usisya again. 

If you would like to support the works to this building, head over to our donate page or get involved in a fundraiser. Your generosity will help communities in Nkhata Bay North to become self-reliant and can transform their own futures.