Dear Friend
Hello! I am Esnart William. I live in Chinsapo slum settlement, about two kilometres from Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. I have been asked by Ngabaghila Chatata from ActionAid to tell you how your support of The Next Step has given my family hope for a secure future.
First, let me tell you a bit about my family and how we came to live in Chinsapo. I am married to Joseph William and we have four • sons and five daughters aged between four and twenty-seven.Joseph and I originally lived in Makanjira-Mangochi, a village in the south of Malawi. We were small-scale farmers growing cassava and maize. But we could barely grow enough to feed ourselves, let alone any surplus to sell to buy groceries and clothes. Life was hard and getting harder. In 1981 we decided to move to Lilongwe as we had heard there were better opportunities to earn a living there.
We bought some land in Chinsapo from a traditional chief, built a small house and settled there. My husband trained in tailoring and now earns a living mending torn and worn out clothes for 189 kwachas [£0.66] a day. We thought we were on our way to a better life, but this was not to be.
Everyday, families arrive from the countryside to find a better life in the city. There are 120 households crammed into the small area where we live. We share an open-pit latrine with five other households, even passers-by, exposing my family to diseases.There is one water point for 120 families that is only open between 6am and 9am. A bucket of water costs 43 kwachas [£0.15] and I can only afford to buy enough water to drink. For cooking and washing, I walk three kilometres to collect water from the Lilongwe River.
Because so many people try to collect fresh water from the water point every morning, there are often fights and confrontations. One day, two women started fighting each other. They broke one of the water taps and hurt one of my children.
The water department called a meeting to settle the water disputes. This is when I learned that we did not legally own our land. The official from the water department told us that the government had introduced a new land policy. They had plans to redevelop the area around Chinsapo and had taken over ownership of the land from the chief we had bought the land from. We had not been given a title deed from the chief and we did not know we needed one. Without it, I had no legal claim to the land my home sits on and faced eviction by the government.
I was very fearful when I heard this news. Although our living conditions are far from ideal - overcrowding, poor sanitation, dilapidated housing that leaks when it rains - it has been our home for 26 years and we had nowhere else to go.
The threat of eviction brought our community together. We decided to fight this forced eviction, but we did not know how. This was when I first came into contact with ActionAid. With their support, we met with staff from the local government, who explained their plans to upgrade Chinsapo from a slum to a legal settlement and improve the services, such as water, sanitation and electricity. This would involve pulling down our houses to build more permanent structures - They told us if we re-built the houses ourselves and paid a fee of 9,750 kwachas [£34] , we would receive our title deeds and avoid eviction. We are poor and struggle to survive on daily wages. How could we afford this expense?
ActionAid, in partnership with the Centre for Community Organisation and Development (CCODE) and the Malawi Homeless People's Federation (MHPF) came to our rescue. They offered us low interest loans to rebuild our houses. I never thought I would ever be able to access credit to make improvements to our living conditions. But with ActionAid's help, I could afford a loan of 9,750 kwachas [£34]. The construction will start in January and once completed I will receive my title deeds.
I am excited and relieved that my family no longer faces eviction. We can look forward to a secure future in a legal settlement, with proper services provided by the government. This is all thanks to your support of ActionAid and The Next Step. Bless you for your kindness -
Yours sincerely
PS: I have sent you some photographs to show where we live
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