What We Do


The Tongole Foundation is a UK registered charity aiding families in Malawi. We work specifically with local communities surrounding the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve. Many people in the region, just like the rest of the country, live in extreme poverty – on less than a dollar a day.

We focus our work on the areas of Education & Wildlife Conservation in an effort to improve the standards of living for as many people as possible.

Despite being a young charity we have witnessed some remarkable outcomes in the communities we support.  Our work demonstrates that the communities’ involvement is essential and what is considered small in the UK, in terms of financial support, goes a very long way in making a positive change and difference to the lives of children and local communities in Malawi. 

Childrens Education

We have been working in partnership with four primary schools: namely Wozi, Chankhokwe, Mwalawatongole and Chilimani Primary Schools.

Over 2,000 primary school students provided with learning materials, including crayons, colouring books, rulers, balls and sports uniforms.

In partnership with OneBillion we are trialing the use of ‘onetab’ technology. A robust, dedicated tablet designed to deliver reading, writing and numeracy.

Building Projects

We have built Chilimani Primary School from scratch. A primary school which already benefits over 200 children between 5-15 years of age.

We have built a new bore holes supplying clean water to villages around our schools.

We have constructed new toilet blocks at our schools. These reduce the risk of illness and enabled pupils to attend school without interruption.

Community Gardens

We provided £2,000 worth of seed & fertilizer to three schools which feeds up to 2,500 children for 6 months or more!

Our feeding programme was designed to improve school attendance and improve childhood nutrition.

Despite late rains and challenging growing conditions Chilimani School produced 28 bags of maize, 28 bags of maize, 17 bags of groundnuts and 10 kg of soya beans.

We have worked with Mary’s Meals assisting them in the implementation of their school feeding programme at Mwalawatongle Primary School.

The Chicken Project

Our chicken project has supporter over 76 families (36 orphan caring families and 40 women group members) providing 228 chickens in the arrangement of 3 chickens per family.

How it works:

  • Our colleague Maluza, pays a visit to the community and explains what we intend to do.
  • The head teacher advises Maluza of which families are most deserving when it comes to distribution.
  • This is then discussed with the chief and the elders, and a candidate family is chosen.
  • By the time the family receives their chickens, they will have been briefed on what the long-term plan is and have to agree.
  • The family are expected to look after their chickens with a view to produce eggs for their consumption with surplus eggs sold to help the family live initially.
  • Eggs that hatch are done so to allow sales of chickens and these sales are for the purpose of saving for their children’s education.
  • Maluza will do “spot checks” on each family chosen and any issues will be dealt with through the usual channels.

One of our many success stories


Enelesi Malala, 41, is a member of the Women’s Group from
Chikwawe village.

Her husband died and she was left with the responsibility of
taking care of her 3 children. Having been in that situation for a long time,
life was hard as she could not manage to raise her children properly. She made
several attempts to earn a living but to no avail. Fortunately, the Tongole
Foundation came to her rescue when she was provided with 3 chickens (1 cockerel
and 2 hens).

“I sell the eggs or chickens whenever my children are in need of school
materials. I recently bought them pens and notebooks in readiness for the third
term which has just started.” Enelesi says.

Enelesi emphasized the need for the chicken pass on to
continue. “The chicken pass on provides instant solution to our problems.
You can sell an egg and buy a pen! You can sell many chickens and leave a small
number to multiply once again” she concludes.

This project is dependent on the chickens not getting
diseases. Fortunately, the chickens are local and not usually susceptible to
diseases but can’t be ruled out completely.

If we can give our chosen families an opportunity to save and
educate themselves, then once again we are helping them, through education, to
earn and relieve their families from extreme poverty.

Wildlife Conservation

The Tongole Foundation has agreed to work closely with African Parks for the benefit of the local communities.

Natural Resource Committees at village level have been formed to create awareness of the benefits of conservation.

We have helped facilitate some School visits to the Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve. These visits may provide some children with their first experience of wildlife.