By George Bulombola

Mzuzu, December 13, Mana: World Vision Malawi Director of Programmes, Charles Chimombo, Tuesday said stakeholder partnerships are critical in spearheading the organization’s interventions in promoting children’s well-being.

Chimombo was speaking in Mzuzu when he opened a stakeholder engagement meeting between the organization and World Vision clusters.

He said that about 40 years the organization has been operating in Malawi, its been working in partnership with other organizations and government sectors because they believe that the work of supporting children cannot be accomplished by the organization alone.

“There are expertise and experiences that are required from other stakeholders so that we achieve the objectives better,” said Chimombo.

Commenting on child marriages, Chimombo said ending child marriages is a very complicated device especially in Malawi because there a lot of reasons behind the vice in the country

“We have made some strides in collaboration with government and other players and managed to get children out of child marriages and supported those who would have risked into getting into early marriage, linked them and a lot of adolescents with Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Authority for vocation skills for their economic empowerment.

However, to say that we won the war, might be an over estimation. The problem is still there” he said.

He added that the organization has also embarked on a new campaign ‘Enough Campaign’ which aims at ensuring that children have enough food, that the Ending Child Marriages Campaign will not be abandoned as all the interventions will run concurrently.

On water and sanitation, Chimombo said the organization has provided access to potable water to over 1 million people within the organization’s   impact areas.

“We have a major water project in Chiradzulu that aims at providing access to potable water in the whole district in the next five years. We have also graduated from drilling boreholes to provision of piped water,” said Chimombo.

Director of Administration for Salima District Council, Yohane Bilesi said the council works with World Vision Malawi as a friend in need and a friend indeed.

“There are many times that we face calamities and World Vision Malawi comes in first. They work in the areas of water and sanitation and they also have a project that target the youth and vulnerable children besides promoting education, vocation training and nutrition,”

Bilesi commended the organization for indoor spreading to fight Malaria a disease which he said remain a major killer in the country.