“We had lost everything” Isabel Joao’s family lost everything after Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique on March 15. “We were all at home when the cyclone struck,” she says. “It was very frightening. We were inside our house and huddled together. The two youngest children were screaming and crying.” “The next day we saw our house ...
Address: Catholic Secretariat, Area 11, Chimutu Road, Lilongwe 3, Malawi
Postal Address: Episcopal Conference of Malawi, Catholic Secretariat, P.O. Box 30384, Lilongwe 3, Malawi.
Telephone: +265 111 772204
Email: [email protected]/[email protected] / [email protected] / [email protected]
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Caritas Malawi was established in 1984. During 1999, it was renamed CADECOM (Catholic Development Commission in Malawi) to change its image from a relief organisation to a development organisation.
CADECOM is under the Social Development Directorate which works in accordance with the Catholic Social Teaching, especially targeting the marginalised, excluded and poor households and communities of Malawi. The Social Development Directorate was then officially established at the Catholic Secretariat on 1st September 2015. Although the Social Development Directorate is an arm of the Catholic Church in Malawi, it works with people of all religions; its work and targeting procedure is determined by levels of vulnerability.
CADECOM is currently active in all the 28 administration districts through its 6 diocesan offices in the country namely Dedza, Chikwawa, Karonga, Mangochi, Mzuzu, Zomba and Archdioceses of Blantyre and Lilongwe. Each diocese has a minimum of 30 staff members working on different donor funded projects and for every community, each project has a minimum of 20 volunteers.
CADECOM implements programmes in the following thematic areas:
- Political, Economic and Corporate Governance: Promotion of active citizen participation; Peace Building; Conflict Management Resolution and transformation; Eco-justice and extractive governance.
- Livelihood Improvement and Empowerment: Disaster Risk Reduction and Entrepreneurship (over 30 years), Agriculture, nutrition and food security, Enhancement of community resilience to climate change.
- Environmental and Natural Resources Management: Climate change mitigation and adaptation; Soil and water conservation; Promotion of renewable energy
- Gender and Women Empowerment: Gender equality; Women Leadership; Reduction of Gender Based Violence.
- Health: Communicable diseases; HIV and AIDS; General advocacy on health issues.
- Education: Early childhood development; youth formation; inclusive education (special needs education).
The CADECOM relief and emergence and recovery program has been supported by several Caritas members, such as Trocaire, Cordaid, Caritas Australia, CRS, Caritas Sweden, SCIAF and CAFOD.
Malawi is one of the poorest countries worldwide and faces immense challenges such as extreme poverty, disease, and a lack of critical resources. A variety of other social and environmental impacts such as hunger, orphaned children, scarce education opportunities (especially for girls), air pollution, prolonged dry spells, flooding and HIV/AIDS are also barriers to improved livelihoods.
Updates from Malawi
