Health Projects

From the beginning of Circle of Hope International, we have focused on the health of the communities where we serve. We believe that when people experience physical health, they are better able to take steps to begin meeting their own needs. We are moving through a phased plan of development to meet the health needs in the communities where we serve.

Phase One:  Children’s Nutrition Program  Hot lunch is served four days a week for the 250 children enrolled in the Grace Center and Chipoka programs. With vegetables from the garden, beans or fish and the local staple food nsima, these four meals provide a foundation of good nutrition for the children. We recently noticed how much an impact these four meals are making when we were visiting in the local villages. Circle of Hope children are healthy and have an overall better appearance than the local children.  It made us excited for our kids, but even more concerned that development must come to the entire community.

Phase Two: Home Based Health Care Homebased health care began as a grassroots movement among members of our partner church, The Grace Alliance Church. The church has partnered with the local hospital to provide basic health care and prayer for the sick and elderly within their homes. Ten home based care givers travel by foot through the local villages visiting the sick, providing simple medications and praying for their patients.

In January, a man from a nearby village visited the Grace Center Campus. He was very ill and was in search of medicine. At that time the campus did not have medication on hand, so COH leaders prayed for him. The man gave his heart to Jesus, and later COH staff was able to connect him with basic medical care. Presently, home health care givers visit with him regularly to administer basic health care and prayer. The man is doing much better, and his family has been greatly impacted by the care and kindness he has received.

Phase Three: Community Health Education Our third phase of development focuses on community health lessons. This educational phase focuses on the need for good nutrition including meat in the diet to fight iron deficiencies, the use of toilets and the necessity of mosquito netting. Three major diseases that kill children in Malawi are malaria, dysentery and iron deficiency. Through our classes on caring for children under 5 combined with the courses offered in agriculture and the stimulation of the local economy through business, we anticipate a distinct change in the overall health of the community in the near future.

Our first building phase for the Grace Community Health Center will be a Community Health Education Building which will provide classrooms as well as a small dispensary where our staff will be about to provide much needed medicines and care for patients suffering from dysentery, pneumonia and malaria.

More than 500 people gathered at the Grace Center campus on May 9^thfor a seminar on Children’s Rights and Stopping Abuse. Lessons were presented by local police officers and representatives from a local organization for Women’s and Children’s Rights.

Phase Four: Grace Community Health Center Aswe move forward, the Grace Community Health Center will expand to include a full-service health clinic and maternity center.

Health Program Needs:

• You can provide hot lunch for all our children for $25 per day. Visit the Give page to purchase lunch for the children.

• It takes several very large pots to cook for this many children. Large cooking pots costs about $50 each and can be purchased here in the USA or in Malawi. Contact Karen@cohcommunity.org if you are interested in sending a cooking pot to Malawi.

• Home-based Care givers volunteer their time to visit the sick. If you would like to make a donation of clothing as a gift to thank our volunteers please let us know.

• Phase One Development of the Grace Community Health Center

  • Training for our Home based caregivers is $5000. This will provide 2 weeks of intensive training to enable our staff to treat more complicated diseases and distribute appropriate medications.

  • The Dispensary Building: This building will house 2 classrooms and an office. The facility will be used for community health education and a base for our home based care program -- $20,000.

  • Outdoor Assembly Area: This area includes space for large meetings, prayer for the sick and for counseling -- $6,000.

  • Other needs include administration and registration, furnishings for the rooms and further training for health care workers -- $30,000.