Malita Nyamwera was born on the 15th October 2003. When we first met her, back in 2010, she was a lovely 7 years old girl. At the age of 5, because of complications of meningitis, she became deaf. Around 2010, after some medical checks, we found out she is HIV positive as well. She is currently being treated for that and luckily she is responding very well to the treatment. At the time of our first encounter she lived in Nkhata Bay together with two other girls (one of them is her blood sister) her mother and her partner. They all shared a very small terra-cotta house with no water nor electricity. Unfortunately, they did not have any source of income and they had to completely rely on others even for their daily food. Today her mum has no partner (but 2 more daughters) and their living conditions are even worse (if possible) since they now live in a completely dilapidated house on the outskirts of Nkhata Bay.
Thanks to your donations and through Marajowi, Malita was registered already in 2011 at the Bandawe School for the Hearing Impaired. She does have development issues and is currently repeating Standard 6. Bandawe is a well organized boarding school run by very motivated teachers with very little financial support, only from the government. Malita feels at home here more than in Nkhata Bay and both her living conditions and her education have greatly improved since she is there. She has friends she can communicate with (through the sign language) and she is visibly happy. If only she had better means she might probably benefit from a hearing aid and better medications. Life is tough for most of malawians, living in one of the poorest countries in the world, but making ends meet is even more challenging for disabled people, as Malita. Today her school performance is rather basic and the side effects of her medications sometimes rather heavy on her. The teachers decided to have her put more efforts in ‘vocational skills’: she enjoys knitting and sewing and is apparently good at these activities too.
