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 I first went to Malawi in the spring of 1998. I was
immediately struck by the beauty of the country and
the friendliness of the people.
However, my visit also revealed to me the horror of
both acute poverty and the extent to which HIV/AIDS
was ravaging the younger elements of the population.
The next eighteen months brought home to me just how
dependent are Malawi’ s largely rural people on
subsistence agriculture and a single, unreliable rainy
season. In this part of the world, there is an almost
invisibly fine line between flood and famine.
In October 2000, I and a Malawian friend decided to
open a small business in Lilongwe. Our main objective
was to give employment to local youths, train them and
pay the sort of reasonable wage that would enable them
to live above the poverty line. Six years later, the
business is still managing, just, to stay afloat, but
it has had to adapt, to move out of unprofitable activities
and to seize new opportunities.
The creation of Malawi Tomorrow in 2002 was the logical
extension of my personal commitment to Malawi. At first,
the Trust was content to provide funds to educate vulnerable
children and to secure community based care for those
that had lost their parents, more often than not to
HIV/AIDS. Later, we raised our sights and decided to
help rehabilitate damaged infrastructure, including
bore-holes and bridges and a water powered maize mill
– all in remote rural areas.
More recently, through the provision of scholarships,
we have been focusing our efforts on the health and
tourism sectors, both crucial to Malawi’s future
in different ways. We are also playing a leading role
in the development of links between the private business
sectors of Scotland and Malawi, promoting the kind of
enterprise culture that reduces dependency, instils
self-confidence and offers young Malawians an opportunity
to make the most of their undoubted talent.
I invite you to join Malawi Tomorrow in this challenging,
but rewarding, undertaking.
Billy McAneney
Founding Trustee
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