Indianapolis, Indiana … In recent weeks the U.S. has been alarmingly awakened with race relations problems caused by the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As marches for justice sprung up around the country, another problem appeared at the same time. This problem is greed. Linked with the marches taking place in city after city came the opportunity for thieves to work their way into the crowds unrecognizable from the peaceful protesters. They marched along with everyone else, and when the chance presented itself, they left the march and broke into businesses to not only steal as much as they could carry but destroy what they could not. Stealing is nothing new. Temptation can be very hard to overcome, and especially when someone has left the door open and there is a pile of money sitting on the table in plain sight. Or a television. Or a laptop. Or a cellphone.
Last September the Malawi Project and Action for Progress, our sister organization in Malawi, celebrated the opening of a major distribution site west of the capital city of Lilongwe. The building is so big and impressive that it can be seen a long way down the road in either direction. News outlets in Malawi picked up the story, and the neighborhood was pleased to see its completion.
Raising the needed funds for the land and building was a major challenge and drew heavily on the resources of the Project and its contributors. With the completion of the building came the immediate need for funds to ship trailer loads of food, medical supplies, mobility units, and schoolbooks that had been on hold. Contributors who had just given heavily to buy the land and build the building stepped up again to send six 40-foot trailer loads of supplies in the past five months. Like the impressive distribution center, the arrival of these containers will be heralded on television, read about in the newspapers, and observed by the neighborhood.
A great deal of concern has been expressed, and is quite valid, that millions of dollars of donated supplies and aid assistance is vulnerable to thieves. Although these supplies sit in a structurally sound concrete, block and steel building, it definitely stands out from the nearby landscape of clay packed roads and thatched hut villages. The temptation this places on some of the world’s poorest people is extraordinary. With the temptation is the opportunity, as enough funds have not been raised to build a protective fence around the distribution center. A protective fence is badly needed as quickly as possible, so it is of genuine necessity that we ask our supporters to step forward once more and assist in getting this protective barrier in place. Our goal is to have this project completed by the end of October.
Like the stores along the routes of the recent marches in America, the storage building in Malawi full of medical supplies, food, and assistance for Malawi schools, stands as a temptation to those who would walk by and scout the property during the day and return at night to break in and steal.
Your help is needed, no matter how little. Every dollar will put us closer to shielding the medical, agricultural, and educational supplies at the warehouse while awaiting nationwide delivery. And every three dollars is enough to purchase one block in this protective fence. How many blocks to protect the life-changing and lifesaving supplies will you provide?
Go to: malawiproject.org/donate