THE IRISH POST and London Irish rugby lock forward James Sandford are this week taking part in a week-long trip with Concern Worldwide to Malawi.
24-year-old Sandford from Co Armagh will be joined by The Irish Post’s Sarah Murphy.
They will be visiting a number of projects to see first-hand the work being done by the Irish charity in the southeast African county.
Concern has been providing aid in Malawi since 2002, which is one of the poorest countries in the world.
Its work there focuses primarily on improving livelihoods, healthcare and education.
The charity’s main health programme addresses the problem of acute malnutrition in children. And in 2008, Concern pioneered a new approach to dealing with this.
The Community Management of Acute Malnutrition initiative is now successfully run in conjunction with Malawi’s Ministry of Health.
Traditionally in countries like Malawi, treatment for malnutrition is carried out in large feeding centres where mothers had to travel long distances, mostly on foot, to get to.
This pioneering initiative now gives mothers enough food to treat their child’s malnutrition over a longer period in their own homes, meaning mothers are not missing for days, maybe weeks, from the family home.
Both James and Sarah will be blogging here on http://http://irishpost.co.uk from Africa during their trip, which is being documented by award-winning portrait photographer Matt Writtle.
You can follow them Sarah Murphy on Twitter @sarahmurphy1987 and James Sandford @JamesSandford4
