Hi my name is Nina and my Africa home is the beautiful village of Chembe/Cape Maclear - Malawi. Surrounded by Lake Malawi National Park and home to a warm hearted community and my beautiful Malawian family.

My husband Hendrick and I are starting a project called "Mizu Yozama" meaning Deep Roots in Chichewa to support empowerment through hands on, locally run, regenerative farming/permaculture education.

We are working in collaboration with Mkandwe Permaculture Eco-Village and Sustainable Cape Maclear to deliver Permaculture Training to as many locals in the village as possible, starting with a 5-day training of 10 - 15 people at Mkandwe Permaculture Eco Village in Monkey Bay and with plans to follow it up with more training and workshops in the village at our garden plot and other locals who feel moved to get further involved.

In an environment that only gets rain for a few months of the year and then dry and with the added challenges associated with climate change people are struggling more and more to produce yield, the farming methods that I see as a legacy of colonisation are not working and their is an absolute food shortage crisis, with every year becoming more and more difficult.

Supporting education in self sufficiency, sustainable and regenerative farming practices are crucial and obviously much more effective and empowering than hand outs or aid. These trainings and workshops will be hands on and offer an opportunity for local people to transform their own garden plots as it is my hope that they will be ongoing over a long period and be held on various people's land.

The initial 5-day training will be held at a vibrant, abundant local permaculture farm. Sam Baluti and his family have dedicated their lives to learning, practicing and teaching permaculture. They are locals and Mkandwe is only in a neighbouring town to Chembe. I believe it will a truly transformative and inspiring experience for the men and women that will be involved. They will be provided with food throughout the training (80% of which has been grown at the farm), transport and simple accommodation, single mothers and people who need it will also be supported with food packages for their families while they spend 5 days at the training. The ripples of impact this could have on the community are countless.

This fundraising project will be ongoing to continue to support education and hands on trainings. In future we also dream of establishing water/irrigation access to more garden plots, but that is quite a big and complex idea and a lot more consultation and research needs to go into it.

We deeply appreciate your support,

With Love and Gratitude, Nina and Hendrick