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Alena Phiri sits in her tiny hut wondering where she will find the next meal for her two children and the orphan she looks after.
Pedal power: Alena Phirl set up a bicycle repair workshop with money from MicroLoan. She now has a vision of how she wants to expand the businessWhen the rains come, probably next week, water will pour through the grass thatch roof. She struggles to feed her family, and the water they drink is filthy.
Ten miles away, Chiwanjira Stambuli has 13 young mouths to feed – four of her own and nine orphans passed to her following the deaths of her brother and sister. It is a hopeless task and her rice-growing business does not bring in enough. Too often, she says, the children go without meals.
Malawi, a former British colony, is the ninth poorest country in the world. The effects of Aids and extreme poverty mean that the average Malawian is unlikely to live beyond 40. Fifteen per cent will contract HIV and die from Aids.
TB and malaria kill regularly as treatment remains just out of reach. Rural hospitals regularly run out of drugs and, for the dying, the local witch doctors still do a roaring, if hopeless, trade.
Malawi has little export business, an unpredictable climate and none of the big game or tourist attractions that benefit neighbouring countries. In the cities, locals talk about buying a car in the same terms we would use about buying a house.
In the countryside, the endless lines of people trudging up and down the roadside stop to gape at anything with four wheels.
Children swarm around our car looking for plastic water bottles – not for the clean water but for the pittance they can collect by selling them.
Yet, in the midst of all this, there are signs that life can improve. Following a period of political instability, the country has its first real democratic government since the long rule of the dictator Hastings Banda; and, thanks in large part to charities such as the MicroLoan Foundation, families have the chance to put tin roofs on their houses, send a child to school, or have access to clean water.
MicroLoan directs itself predominantly at women in Malawi, who bear the weight of responsibility for their families and communities. The charity lends small amounts of money to those who are keen to start their own businesses and some 10,000 have so far joined the scheme.
In the sprawling, bustling town of Nkhotakota, on the shores of Lake Malawi, where the foundation has a field office, many of the women say that their men take little interest in family life, often flitting between two or more wives and disappearing for days on end.
Women have to clothe and feed their children, look after the house and, increasingly, take the initiative to find the money to survive. And among them, there is a strong entrepreneurial spirit to improve.
MicroLoan's ethos is that it is better to give a hand up than a handout. "It's no good just giving money away," says the charity's founder, Peter Ryan. "It's about giving people dignity, empowering them.
"The people we lend to are full of ideas, yet a bank would not touch them and a loan shark, the only other way of getting money, would charge 100 or 200 per cent interest."
The charity lends to co-operatives – which then split the money between members for their projects – rather than directly to individuals. This promotes a sense of community and, more pragmatically, ensures that if one business fails, the others cover its losses to make the twice-monthly repayments.
Its next aim is to reach 20,000 loans and increase the number of regional offices from six to 15.
Initial loans are of between £15 and £180, the average being £40, and are repaid over four months with a 24 per cent interest rate. If successful, members can apply for a second, larger loan until they complete four cycles, when they are introduced to a bank for further loans at reduced rates.
The money comes hand in hand with business training and support from experienced business people, who often fly in from Britain at their own expense to help.
Alena Phiri, 25, owns 10 hectares of land on which she and her husband, Frackson, grow nuts and maize. They also earn a meagre wage tin-smithing. They have two children, aged 11 and nine, and took in the 11-year-old son of Alena's sister when she died from malaria.
Alena approached the MicroLoan office, a four-hour walk away, when she realised that starvation for her and her family was a definite possibility.
"I had little money and wanted to improve our lives," she says. "I used a loan to set up a stall repairing bicycles. So many people carry firewood on the backs of their bicycles but there was no one in the community to repair them."
She set up a small workshop and the bikes, as well as the money, have started rolling in.
"Business is good and it is easier to feed the children. My vision is to set up a hardware shop selling bicycle parts to go with the workshop."
Close by, Valetina Brighton, 20, who has set up a successful business selling fish and sugar, now wants to bring a maize mill into the community.
"We have a group of women who work well as a team and our lives have been transformed," she says. "Men could never do that. They would take the money or argue about it."
Last week, the MicroLoan Foundation opened a new head office in the town of Kasungo.
Richard Wildash, the British High Commissioner, said the charity's work was "very much in line" with the aim of the British and Malawi governments to empower women: "We believe in it and want to support it. It is very moving and encouraging to hear the testimonies of people involved in the MicroLoan Foundation.
"We are quite aware that money alone cannot change lives; it is people who change lives and the people involved in the MLF are committed to doing that."
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