Welcome to ECRAD
Building a Future for children in Malawi
We are a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting orphaned children and the community in which they live at Zioya in Malawi.
Providing Essential Food Support And Education
The main focus of the ECRAD work is to provide a daily meal for orphaned children every day and to support the educational needs of the community at Zioya.
Over 400 children can be fed each day and for some this may be their main meal for the day.
The Zioya Primary School is a hive of activity with a role of over 700 students and 16 teachers it has a key role in building a future for the children.
Lunch Time
With over 400 children looking forward to their daily meal, it is an immense task to prepare the food each day.
Often the children will take their meal outside.
The meal provided is relatively simple affair made with core ingredients of maize, beans and vegetables.
The Zioya farm provides some of the maize and beans but the weather and ground conditions so far prevent it producing enough to sustain the meals throughout the year.
Maize and Beans are currently purchased from the local market to enable the daily meal to be produced.
School Lessons
The Primary School is important in providing free education to girls and boys and prepare them for a prosperous future.
With over 700 children on the school role, classrooms can be busy and ECRAD provides the essentials to gain this important start in life.
However the conditions are not ideal for children or teachers.
Most of the classrooms do not have desks, with children taking lessons on dusty floors. Weather regularly impacts the buildings and there is a need to upgrade the current buildings to support the learning experience.
The school provides health education and the children also take opportunities to participate in sport with activities such as football , volleyball and chess.