Information about Malawi Africa

People often times ask… “Why Malawi?”  Honestly, I was not sure myself why the Lord called me there at first.  But then when I arrived, I began to understand.  Here are some of the cold facts about Malawi and the conditions that are there.

Malawi is a small landlocked country on the South Eastern side of Africa.  According to the CIA's World Factbook, Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world.

For starters, Malawi is a small landlocked country on the South Eastern side of Africa.  According to the CIA's World Factbook, Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world.  It is about the same geographic size as Pennsylvania with a similar population of nearly 12 million people.  Much of the country is swallowed up by Lake Malawi.  Now for some of the unbelievable statistics about the country.  Notice the following:

• Total Population - 11,906,855

• Child Population - 5,571,226 (almost 47%) (Age 0 - 14)

• Orphan Population - 937,000 (Age 0 - 14)  To put this into perspective, there are more orphans in Malawi than there are residents in the state of Montana.  Nearly 18% off all children are orphans.

•  Death Rate - 23.01  source  This measures the death rate per 1,000 people in the country.  Of 225 countries listed on the CIA's list, Malawi is the 6th worst in the world.

•  Infant Mortality Rate - 104.23 deaths/1,000 live births source  This places Malawi 12th worst in the world on the CIA's list of countries.

•  Life Expectancy at Birth - Less than 38 years.  This means that as a baby born in Malawi, you can expect to live less than 38 years.  Compare to nearly 80 in the US.

•  Population with AIDS - 14.2% of the adult population in Malawi has AIDS.  This works out to be nearly 1 in every 6 people.  Malawi ranks 8th worst in the world in this category. 

• Aids Deaths - 2003 estimates were 84,000 and this ranked Malawi at 11th worst in the world.  This works out to 230 Aids deaths every day in this small country.

Please consider the following:

2001 Estimates for world populations living with AIDS include 900,000 for the USA and 850,000 for Malawi.  Yet the US suffered 15,000 AIDS deaths in 2001 compared to 80,000 in Malawi.  I mention this not to downplay the deaths in the US but rather to explain something about the situation in Malawi.  Most of the people that I encountered there that were sick with AIDS, Cancer, Malaria, etc., just gave up and were simply waiting to die.  They have no hope.  That is what makes the message of Jesus that much more important and more powerful.

The large majority of the orphans in Malawi have no food or nowhere to stay.  Many are molested and taken advantage of by men and many are even given aids by their molesters.  

"Malaria is alive and well and killing more than 3,000 African children every day"

Most of the malaria deaths in Malawi and in the rest of Africa, are from children under age 5.  As you can see, the map shows that the southern half of Malawi, where our efforts are concentrated, is one of the worst in the world.  The tragedy is that these child deaths could be prevented for around 6¢.