When added to infants’ diets, it helps them grow up healthy and strong.
Sadly, one in three children in Malawi are chronically malnourished, and many don’t live to see their fifth birthday.
But there is a solution to malnutrition — and it all starts with the humble peanut
and a little help from you!
Your donation can provide training and equipment, so Malawian mothers can make nutritious peanut butter to eat and sell.
Mothers join community peanut butter groups and work together to plant their own peanut crops. When it’s harvest time, they pick and prepare the peanuts.
Mums also complete training in peanut butter processing, mastering how to operate the processing equipment. In a single day, they can make 50 jars of peanut butter.
Next, they sell their peanut butter to other members of their community, earning a steady income that they use to pay for healthy foods, like vegetables, and for their children’s school fees.
To tackle malnutrition, mums feed the protein-packed spread to their children.
Mkulila says, “Apart from selling the peanut butter to others, we also buy it for use at home like adding it into porridge that we give to our children."
Before Mkulila learnt how to make and sell peanut butter, life was difficult. Her daughter was malnourished and would often get sick.
But now — thanks to a healthy dose of peanut power — Mkulila makes enough money to buy vegetables and peanut butter, so her precious daughter gets the vital nutrients that all growing kids need.
“Seeing the health of our children improve makes us happy, because I am not happy as a mother when I know the child is malnourished.”
The peanut butter solution is helping Mkulila break the cycle of poverty and malnutrition — one jar at a time. But many mums in Malawi still need your urgent support.
Your tax-deductible donation can empower more women, like Mkulila, with the training and equipment they need to make and sell peanut butter. With your support, they can protect their children from malnutrition and lift their families out of poverty.
Photos: Aurelie Marrier d'Unienville/Oxfam
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Donations of $2 or more to Oxfam are tax deductible in Australia. Oxfam Australia is a member of the Oxfam International confederation.