Our Mission

Since 2006, Raising Malawi has been dedicated to bringing an end to the extreme poverty and hardship endured by Malawi’s one million orphans. Co-founded by Madonna and Michael Berg, Raising Malawi uses a community-based approach to provide immediate direct physical assistance, create long-term sustainability, support education and psycho-social programs, and build public awareness through multimedia and worldwide volunteer efforts.

As a part of its activities, Raising Malawi works to distribute financial support that will help community-based organizations provide vulnerable children with nutritious food, proper clothing, secure shelter, formal education, targeted medical care, and emotional support. We do not create or manage our own programs in Malawi; rather we support dedicated people on the ground and in the villages, the ones closest to the realities that exist. We believe in empowering the smartest and most caring of those people, the ones who understand the challenges and the solutions.

By choosing to work at a community-based level, rather than trying to impose Western beliefs and methodologies on a different culture, real and lasting change is occurring in the lives of hundreds of thousands of impoverished children in Malawi.

Our Background

In the impoverished nation of Malawi it is thought that 15% percent of the population is HIV positive. It could be even higher, but very often, in many of these villages not a single person has been tested for the virus. A lack of proper medical care and nutritious food leaves sick Malawians unable to care for themselves or for their families.

The stigma and superstition surrounding wasting disease perpetuates a misunderstanding of how illness is contracted. And with an entire generation of parents dead or dying, twelve year old children suddenly find themselves the heads of their desperate households. Without the tools for transforming their fragile lives, these children will grow up to perpetuate the tragedy into which they were born. If they grow up at all.

This is a cycle that must be broken.
Raising Malawi is an organization that has become synonymous with reclaiming human dignity for children whose lives have been devastated by disease, starvation, abuse and neglect. Bearing witness to the brutalities of the developing world, Raising Malawi works tirelessly to save lives, and strives also to bring the plight of suffering children to the forefront of the global community.

There was a moment, forty-five years ago, of great expectation for Malawi and her people. After decades of colonialism and dictatorship, the former Nyasaland became independent as Malawi in 1964. Peace Corps volunteers, who had just been granted permission to work there, were optimistic about the future of this fertile new country. The political and social climates were changing, and the people of Malawi were prepared to rebuild their nation.
But then, as in so many other nations in Africa, a humanitarian disaster began to unfold in Malawi that would be unrivaled in modern times. Political corruption and violence would soon take hold of the country. A scourge of diseases ravaged its people and crippled their infrastructure. Famine and droughts left the lush landscape barren. Extreme poverty would eventually render this nation of thirteen million utterly without hope.

Moved by compassion and a desire for increased understanding of the global emergency of AIDS and extreme poverty, Madonna and Michael Berg began a journey that would bring them to this impoverished and often overlooked country. A country that had become home to one million orphaned children. What began as a modest effort to increase humanitarian aid for impoverished kids soon began to transcend the limits of what many thought possible in the developing world. By choosing to work at a community-based level rather than trying to impose Western methodologies on a uniquely African culture, Raising Malawi is empowering those who best understand Malawi’s challenges to implement lasting solutions there.

An intermediary between the planet’s most vulnerable children and those who possess the greatest resources in the world, Raising Malawi holds fast to the belief that we can never truly be happy in life until we care for other people at least as much as we care for ourselves. In reaching out to Malawi, Madonna, Michael, and dedicated volunteers all over the world are heeding that call. Many have shared their wealth with those who need it the most. Others have worked to create worldwide awareness of the realities of extreme poverty. Some have traveled to Malawi to provide direct medical care to dying children. All remain hopeful that a generation of children who once suffered so needlessly will now do more than just survive – they will play an active role in the rebirth of their nation, and go on to create a better world.

To date, hundreds of thousands of children have received nutritious food, proper clothing, secure shelter, formal education, targeted medical care and emotional support through Raising Malawi. Tens of thousands more will be reached this year. Join Raising Malawi in bringing sustainable change to the lives of children who need it most.