Grannies’ Programs & Community Outreach
Presently, Chem'balira Hall is open all day, Tuesday through Saturday. All local seniors can participate in presentations by outside speakers and others with special tastes and interests in the arts literature and, a movement succeeding in many African countries with such grandmother projects, self-determination. It is open after school every day for homework help and skill sharing.
We have started by having the grannies agree on a unified message regarding counseling on AIDS, early marriage and early pregnancy. They have found that having a safe location for such communication has greatly improved the number and meaningfulness of such conversations. Helping with schoolwork has also seen a large increase in their activities. We have plans for formal classes in computer skills, cooking and sewing.
Chem’balirA Hall Programming
All seniors can participate in programs that cover various areas of interest. They will be grouped in two activities per week, and one for all of them to meet once a week as applicable.
Tuesdays - Cultural Awareness
Wednesdays - Reading/Homework assistance, skill sharing/networking
Thursdays - Arts and crafts
Fridays - Speakers on a topic of choice
Saturdays - Open for hire
Sunday-Monday - Closed
Rug project
Women and girls were trained in the skill of making rugs to be sold at a profit. The profits will be used to train more women and girls in the future. Our goal is to train as many in our community to be self-sustaining so that they can take care of their grannies and children whilst they are still strong and can contribute to their personal and financial wellbeing rather than sitting idle.
The completed rugs are on sale at $50 (regular) and $120 (coffee table size) in the designs provided. More details to come on how to order coming soon.
Feminine Product Project
Youth were trained on how to make sanitary pads at the hall.
Host sight for The Spotlight Initiative
In April 2021, Chem'balira Hall was one of three local host sites for The Spotlight Initiative. The Spotlight Initiative is a global, multi-year partnership between the European Union and United Nations to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls. The main goals of the program held at Chem’balira Hall included:
1. Stressing the importance of education
2. Teaching young women how to protect themselves from gender-based violence and how to report abuse cases
3. Prevention of early marriage
4. Spreading awareness and information on the COVID-19 vaccines
The audience of the program included girls from the Blantyre Girls Primary School, Namalimwe Day Secondary School, and Namalimwe Primary School. It was attended by over 150 women and girls, and a radio campaign targeted audiences of over 30,000. In addition to the women and girls in attendance, members of the community involved in the above efforts attended the programming, including child protection officers, health surveillance assistants, medical professionals, female headteachers, women journalists, etc.
Our Response to Covid-19
In response to the economic hardships and quarantine restrictions related to COVID-19, GranCommunity has visited more that 125 elderly locals and supplied them with packages of basic needs - sugar, salt, soap, fish, cooking oil, maize flour, etc.
Association with the local nursing school with nurses visiting GranCommunity will catalyze interest in nursing and allow some services such as immunizations and testing.
Christmas Project
We are raised funds to provide grannies or the most needy in our community Christmas packages. They were distributed throughout the community over the holidays.
A $25 donation would include a package with the following:
Sugar - two 500g packets
Salt - one 250g packets
Soap - two tablets
Cooking oil - two liters
Rice - one 5kg bag
Chicken - 1 whole or a tray of 30 eggs
Flour - one 5kg maize
Small Events
We have held a few small events in our community centre, and after construction is complete and when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, we look forward to hosting more events and will work towards this being a revenue generating offering.
