The Boys' Brigade (Church of Scotland) World Mission Fund is raising money for the Livingstonia Synod Youth Department in Malawi. They are helping young people with start-up funding and training.

The BB World Mission Fund is raising money this year for a project in Malawi which will help young people to Get A Life. These young people learn life skills and business skills, and the money raised by the BB will help with training and the start-up funding to allow these young people to start putting their skills into practice.

The Background
Malawi is a very densely populated country in southern Africa which is very poor. Many young people have to leave school early because they cannot afford to go any more. Often they can fall into despair, extreme poverty or crime.

That’s why the Boys' Brigade World Mission Fund wants you to help to raise money for an important project.

The Project
In Livingstonia Synod in Malawi the church needs funding for a project which will give these young people the skills to Get A Life.

• A Micro-finance scheme of small-scale funding and loans will fund business ideas...
• Training will be given on book-keeping and good financial skills...
• Young people will learn other skills, which will help them take responsibility for their own future...

Micro Finance

gives school leavers a chance to set up their own businesses. Some of these business ideas can be very simple – for example, they can buy shoes or soap from a supplier and then sell them in their village at the market for a small profit. The profit allows them to buy new goods to sell, and pay back the funding.

Other Business Opportunities

small scale vegetable farming ... carpentry and furniture making (like Alfred) ... recharging mobile phones from car batteries (this can be done without building your own windmill!) ... and tin-smithing (making buckets).

Alfred is 19 and a member of the Mirale Youth Group. Mirale is in the south of Malawi, near the city of Blantyre. Members of this group have grown up as orphans, due to the high rate of HIV and AIDS in Malawi, but have been supported financially to be able to have some secondary education.

These young people are now in the furniture business! The group makes basketchairs, coffee tables and stools which they sell both within and outside their community so that they will be able to support themselves and their families.

During their spare time, they help elderly people repairing run-down houses, visit sick people – and play a lot of football!

The aim of the project is for Alfred, and the other orphans in the group, to become self-reliant in the near future.

Skills Auction

• car washing
• shoe-shining
• garden clear-ups
• ...

Get people to employ you to use your skills and the money goes into the Get A Life fund

'Employing Others'

• house decorating
• garden design
• cake baking
• ...

Get other people to use their skills to do a job and then they donate the money to you to Get A Life

Recycling

• mobile phones
• ink cartridges
• ...

There are companies which buy old mobile phones and ink cartrifges (and other stuff) to recycle. The money they give you back goes to the fund

Excess Energy?

• sponsored 5-a-side footie
• ...

Does what it says on the tin!

You'll have lots of other fund-raising ideas of your own!
Remember YOUR energy and skills can help young people in Malawi to get a head start to build up their skills, start their own business and Get A Life