Organisational Development in ELDS

ELDS participates in the ICCO Capacity Building Programme for the Alliance of Food Security Members (with CARD, CSC, POBS and SOLDEV). It also hosts the ICCO Capacity Building Advisor (CBA), Jouwert van Geene. In June the, had a mid-term review of the progamme for the Alliance Members in Food Security. The review revealed that considerable progress was made but more work has to be done but the two-year programme would need extension if all objectives were to be achieved. ELDS has requested the back donor ICCO to extend the posting of the CBA and the programme with one year until June 2008, which has been approved. The capacity building programme focuses on Programme Development, Organisational Development, Learning & Sharing and Networking and Coordination.
Currently a training workshop is going on in lilongwe. The training is part of the ICCO capacity bulding programme on organisational Development of ELDS. This workshop is looking at some aspects of management that the senior officers are dealing with in their daily work such as leadership styles, work planning, delegation and coordination, coaching and job perfomance appraisal, team roles and team work.

ELDS Micro finance Projects in Malawi

In 1999 Lutheran World Federation / Department for World Service (LWF/ DWS) developed guidelines for implementation of microfinance activities in all the LWF country programs in the Southern Africa. This was followed by a workshop organized in Bangladesh in 2001 where Evangelical Lutheran Development Program (ELDP) then was represented. At this time Lutheran Development Service (LDS) in Zimbabwe was already implementing micro-finance projects using the Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) approach. Another exposure workshop was then organized in Bulawayo where some staff from various LWF country programs ware invited to get exposed in order to initiate similar projects in their various country programs.
This was also followed by a SALDAN consultation workshop in Lilongwe Malawi in March 2003 where a decision was made to initiate one pilot SACCO or microfinance project in each country program in the Region. In September 2003 a regional microfinance workshop was organized in Lusaka Zambia and ELDP was also represented. After this workshop ELDP submitted a budget to Church of Sweden and ELDP was supported with USD 30,000 which was used to initiate the microfinance project. Needs assessment, sensitization and mobilization meetings then started in Karonga and a pilot project was initiated.
Other Regional workshops were also conducted in 2004, 2005 and 2006 in Maputo Mozambique, Mbabane Swaziland and Lilongwe here in Malawi respectively. In such workshops participants update each other of progress of microfinance projects in their respective country programs and also share experiences. Church of Sweden provides financial support to such workshops and also hires consultants to facilitate trainings during the course of the workshops on specific areas of interest to the participants.
During the regional workshop in Malawi participants made a recommendation to have another workshop where consultants would train participants in microfinance strategic planning for the programs and for the SACCOs.

Welcome to ELDS Weblog

Introduction

The republic of Malawi is located in the southern African Region of the continent covering an area of 45,745square Km. the country has a number of rivers and lakes the biggest being lake Malawi.
During civil war in Mozambique, Malawi offered refugees a safe haven. A cease-fire was reached in 1992. From the 1980’s Malawi hosted 1.3 million people up to when they were repatriated in 1996.
Approximately half of them were housed in refugee camps; the other half lived in the villages and integrated with the local population. In 1989, the Lutheran world federation (LWF based in Geneva) was invited to come to Malawi to primarily provide relief assistance to the Mozambican refugees.
The Evangelical Lutheran Development service (ELDS) a service arm of the Evangelical lutheran Church in Malawi formerly evangelical Lutheran development programme (ELDP) was established in 1989 to provide relief assistance to the Mozambican refugees hosted by some Malawian communities then
In the course of assisting the refugees, it was realized that the Malawians who were hosting the refugees were as deserving of assistance as the refugees.
After the repatriation of the refugees, ELDP started working with Malawian communities.
The organization works with six districts namely Karonga, Nkhatabay, Dowa, Dedza, Phalombe and Chikwawa with an addition of two districts in the central region namely Kasungu and Lilongwe. The projects that are implemented under this development service are food security, environmental protection, water and sanitation, HIV/AIDS, Gender, human rights and advocacy, adult literacy, micro finance and emergency and rehabilitation.
ELDS has along time experience in implementing projects under these sectors and is mandated by its strategic plan to continue implementing projects covered within these sectors under approaches that ensure sustainability of the projects.