Malawi
Land-locked Malawi is home to over 12 million people
45% of whom live below the poverty line. Of these, 22% aren’t able to meet their minimum daily food needs, average per capita income is around $160, and life expectancy is 37 years
Blantyre
Although Blantyre remains Malawi's largest city, producing tea, coffee, rubber, tobacco, and textiles, and boasting an estimated 732, 518 inhabitants, the communities just a few miles from the city centre are subject to abject poverty, and are often without electricity, clean piped water supplies, and even life-saving mosquito nets.
Many of the villages in which Joshua work around Blantyre, there is no basic health care provision or sanitation whatsoever and, since most people draw water from streams and unprotected wells, they put their health at risk from diseases such as cholera and scabies on a daily basis.
Unemployment in and around Blantyre is also rife, with very little chance of uneducated rural people finding work in the city, and hardly any opportunities to earn their own incomes except for selling local produce and vegetables by the roadside.
Place and People
Economy
With average per capita income at only $100 to $200, around 45% of Malawians live below the poverty line and, of these, 22% are unable to meet their minimum daily food needs. Indeed, since 85% of the population live in rural areas, most Malawians rely on subsistence farming, but the food supply situation is precarious and the country is prone to natural disasters - from drought to heavy rainfalls - putting it in constant need of thousands of tonnes of food aid every year. The county’s main exports, tobacco (70%), sugar and tea, are also at great risk of failing every year due to extreme weather conditions and external shocks such as declining terms of trade and and high transport costs. Lack of skilled labor; difficulty in obtaining expatriate employment permits; bureaucratic red tape; corruption; and inadequate and deteriorating road, electricity, water, and telecommunications infrastructure further hinder economic development in Malawi.
Health
Malawi is one of the world's poorest nations and has among the worst health indicators (164th out of 175, according to UNDP's Human Development Index). Life expectancy is declining, the maternal mortality rate has almost doubled in the last decade, the rate of HIV-Aids infection is high, and the infant mortality rate has improved only marginally in the last 10 years. In fact, it is estimated that one in three of the population are HIV positive or have full-blown AIDS, with tens of thousands of Malawians dying due to the disease every year, and 700,000 children now orphans because their parents have died of AIDS-related illnesses.
Malaria is another of Malawi's most serious heath problems, and causes huge economic losses, which contribute to keeping the country one of the world's poorest, since families may spend more than a quarter of their meager yearly income to treat malaria, and the disease keeps adults from working an average of 25 days a year.
EDUCATION
Education statistics in Malawi are grim. In 1994, the Government of Malawi (GOM) abolished school fees for primary education, resulting in an increase in primary school enrollment from 1.9 million pupils to 3.2 million and an average pupil-teacher ratio of 72. However, high repetition and dropout rates (17% and 22%, respectively), low completion rates (60% of primary students drop out before completing grade 8) and poor overall school quality (80% cannot meet reading and math minimal standards) illustrate the severity of the educational crisis. 22% of primary school teachers have little or no formal training, and HIV/AIDS has significantly contributed to a 6% annual teacher attrition rate, exacerbating the shortage of trained teachers. The literacy rate is just 63%.
GEOGRAPHY
Known as Warm Heart of Africa, land-locked Malawi is home to over 12 million people and is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the north and Mozambique, which surrounds it on the east, south and west. The Great Rift Valley runs through the country from north to south, and in this deep trough lies Lake Malawi (also called Lake Nyasa), the third-largest lake in Africa, and the 10th largest in the world, making about 20% of Malawi's area. The Shire River flows from the south end of the lake and joins the Zambezi River 400 km (250 mi) farther south in Mozambique. The climate in Malawi is subtropical, with a rainy season running from November through to April, and hot and humid weather, with little to no rainfall throughout most of the country, prevailing from May to October.