GOGO GRANDMOTHERS GROUP LEADER’S MANUAL©

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Welcome!

Dear Sister Gogo Grandmothers

Welcome to this exciting opportunity we have to

serve our gogo sisters in Africa! Thank you for your

concern and partnership in this life-saving and life-

changing ministry. I’m sure you will be blessed as I

have been as we reach our arms around the world to

African orphans and their grandmothers.

As Scripture tells us, “Pure religion is caring

for orphans and widows.” —James 1:27

In Malawi, where I have lived for the past 17

years, I train, encourage, sing, dance, and help the grandmothers who are bearing

the burden of care for orphaned children. The parents and many of the grandfa-

thers have died from AIDS and other opportunistic diseases like tuberculosis. Their

plight has offered us a challenge and an opportunity to obey God’s command to

care for orphans and widows. As we link with them, we will be helping the “least of

these” and the “poorest of the poor.”

Traditionally, the African grandmothers would be cared for in their old age by

their adult children. However, the AIDS pandemic has changed the social structure.

It is a “family disease” and is killing the most productive segment of society between

the ages of 20 and 40 years. As it does, millions of children are orphaned. In Africa,

community-based care is much more culturally appropriate and cost effective than

institutional care. Helping care for orphans in their community is our challenge.

The physical needs of the orphans and grandmothers include basic necessities

such as blankets, mosquito netting, school uniforms and fees, emergency food, and

fertilizer to enable them to produce a crop so they can care for themselves. Farming

is the gogos’ livelihood and it provides for the children.

I encourage you, as a group, to plan projects to fund some of these very basic

needs and to pray earnestly for the grandmothers and children. Be creative and

enjoy being together as you pursue a purpose that will bear visible results in the lives

of many orphans and their grandmother caregivers.

Your interest in this mission is providing care, love and necessities of life to

children, and hope and encouragement to grandmothers who are raising Africa’s

next generation.

May God bless you and give you joy as you serve your African sister

grandmothers, and remember their grandchildren as you love and enjoy your

own grandchildren who are truly “a gift from God.”

Blessings,

Charlotte Day Founder and Director Gogo Grandmothers

Charlotte & Dick Day

GOGO GRANDMOTHERS GROUP LEADER’S MANUAL©

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From My Heart to YoursBackground

Dear Leader:I am trying to imagine the journey that has brought your eyes

to this page.

• Maybe you are looking for something meaningful to do with

extra time you have been given because of an empty nest,

retirement, or other life change.

• You may be troubled by the statistics—estimated 20,000,000

orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2010—and you understand that

this is the greatest human crisis of this century.

• Perhaps you have been to Africa and know first-hand the opportunities the AIDS

pandemic presents for expressing the love of Christ.

• Some of us have simply seen an orphan child’s face on television and we cannot

forget it.

Please ask yourself, “Is God calling me to join Him in the work He is doing in Africa

through Gogo Grandmothers--a ministry of prayer and providing?” Mother Theresa said,

“When God calls a woman, she knows.” Of course this is equally true for a man.

For me, the call came and I knew it. I didn’t know what it would all mean…only

that I was to begin. You may be feeling the same.

Dick and Charlotte Day (the founders of Gogo Grandmothers) have shown me what

can happen when a person says “yes” to God at any age. Nearly 17 years ago, Charlotte

left for Africa when she was a 60-year-old grandmother—never imagining God would

use her to birth a ministry to the gogos…one that would be a culturally appropriate

way to meet the needs of millions of children left orphaned by AIDS.

The Gogo Grandmothers group at Mariners Church in Irvine, Calif. went through the

labor pains to birth this ministry to the gogos in the Makungula village of Malawi. What

they learned and developed is now displayed in this manual for you.

I can only imagine what the Lord will do as thousands and thousands of grand-

mothers and others in First World countries now say “yes” to helping the AIDS orphans

of Africa by assisting the grandmothers who care for them.

Blessings on you,

Leslie Lewis U.S. Coordinator

Gogo Grandmothers

GOGO GRANDMOTHERS GROUP LEADER’S MANUAL©

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Malawi, often called the “warm heart of Africa” because of the friendliness of the people, is a landlocked country of 13 million people on the eastern side of Sub-Saharan Africa. It is the sixth poorest nation in the world with 80% of the population living in rural areas.

Lake Malawi, a body of water some 360 miles long and about 1,500 ft above sea level, is its most prominent physi-cal feature. Malawi boasts a variety of landscapes, from wetlands and lakes to mountains and forests. National parks and game reserves beckon visitors.

The Chichewa people—predominantly Christian/Protestant— form the largest population group, located primarily in the central and southern parts of the coun-try. In the mid 1990s, the first elec-tions were held in three decades, giving Malawians a taste for multi-party democracy. Its single major natural resource, agri-cultural land, is under severe pressure from rapid population growth.

Malawi’s infection rate for HIV/AIDS is one of the highest in Africa. Tens of thousands die of AIDS every year. They have left behind one million or-phans, being cared for by poor village grandmothers, who rely on subsistence farming to eat. This food supply is hostage to the regular extremes of drought or heavy rainfall.

1.3

Where is Malawi?Background

Gogo Grandmotherss groups began in the villages around Zomba in the south.

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The SAFE (Sub-Saharan African Family Enrichment) Connection

Background1.4

Gogo Grandmothers is a relatively new aspect of the mission of SAFE in Malawi, Africa. Sub-Saharan African Family Enrichment (SAFE) was founded by Dick and Charlotte

Day, American missionaries from Southern California. Other aspects of SAFE’s work includes the training annually of thousands of public school teachers to teach an eighth grade-level, Christian-character and abstinency training curriculum designed to help solve the HIV/AIDS crisis by attacking its roots—changing the cultural and human behaviors which sustain it.

How GOGO Grandmothers grew out of SAFE’s mission

SAFE-Africa, a registered NGO in Malawi, (Non Government Organiza-tion) began in 1995 addressing the needs of the youngest members of society—

children ages two to five. The first step was to help source funds for a “lab school” on the Chancellor College campus of the University of Malawi.

Charlotte Day, SAFE’s ECD/OVC Director, introduced the first ECD course, and the lab school provided a practicum for her students at the university. (ECD = Early Childhood Development. OVC = Orphans and Vulnerable Children).

In 2000, realizing that 80 percent of children live in rural condi-tions, SAFE with Makungula Village group headman and local chiefs,

brought together parents and children to plan a community-based ECD center. After three years of meeting daily under a mango tree in the chief’s yard, a culturally

appropriate, cost-effective and developmentally appropriate shelter was constructed with the help of the community. It was dedicated by Honorable Joyce Banda, Minister of Gender, Social Welfare and Community Services and later chosen by President Bingu wa Mutharika for celebration of the Day of the African Child in 2005.

Mphanje, meaning “preparation of a garden” in Chichewa, is the name of this pilot ECD preschool located in Makungula Village, TA Kuntumanji, Zomba district. The caregiver/teachers call themselves the Mizu, meaning “roots”—the ones who give support and offer growth to the children, the young plants in the garden.

The caregivers/teachers have been trained in exploratory play pedagogy and child-centered activities in order to promote optimal psychosocial stimulation and cognitive growth. They, as of mid-2007, have trained more than 50 other village caregiver/teachers. The Mphanje Makungula ECD Center hosts many government and international visitors, and it has become a model rural community-based preschool.

In a small longitudinal study at the local primary school, children graduating from Makungula preschool have shown a pass rate of 77 percent, versus 39 percent for those not having attended preschool. This is far above the national average. The conclusion is that the methodology and pedagogy of explor-atory learning, coupled with teaching and learning aids made from locally available resources and trained teachers provide results in school performance. While 86 percent of Malawian children begin primary school, at present only 34 percent progress past grade four. The hope is that with developmentally age-appropriate and child-centered learning, these statistics will change.

Gogo Grandmothers

From the ECD mission a need surfaced to work with the village elderly, specifically the old gogos

©

SAFE Sub-Saharan Africa Family Enrichment

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Background1.5

About SAFE(grandmothers) who are burdened with raising their grandchildren left by their dying children, many due to the AIDS pandemic. With only the land they live on, they struggle to feed, clothe and keep the children in school. With support in prayer and fundraising efforts from Gogo Grandmother groups in the United States, SAFE provided commercial fertilizer and seed for 39 grandmothers’ gardens in 2005. From their harvest the grandmothers returned over 600 pounds of maize to feed the Mphanje preschool children.

In 2006, American grandmothers provided funds for 155, 120-pound bags of commercial fertilizer for 155 poor Malawian grandmothers. This support program is called “Gogo Grandmothers” and groups of grandmothers from America, as well as the urban cities Zomba and Blantyre, have formed prayer and caring networks to help their less fortunate sisters. The Gogo Grandmothers meet both in the village and urban areas on a monthly basis to socialize, share needs, give and receive help. Funds for blankets, school fees, and food have been raised to give to the poor village grandmothers. The African grandmothers enjoy monthly times of fellowship, reading the Word of God, praying, singing and dancing.

GRAFTING GRANDMAS: In Malawi, grandmothers near the viillage of Makungula come together regularly to socialize. discuss raising their orphaned grandchildren and pray.

Grandmotherly LoveBy 2010, Africa is expected to have

40 million orphans. As AIDS continues to claim the lives of their parents, many orphans are left to their grandmothers, or gogos as they’re called in Malawi, where there are currently more than I million orphans. Often elderly, weak and afflicted with their own diseases, go gos have neither the health nor the means to raise these children.

Recently, these gogos enthusiastically welcomed the support of a group of women from across the world— many in their 70s and grandmas themselves—from Mariners Church (marinerchurch.org) in Irvine, Calif.

The group of about 20, known as Gogo Grandmas, has sent new T-shirts bearing a Gogo Grandmas logo to the Malawi grandmas, as well as pencil boxes filled with school supplies for their grandchildren.

“We just want them to know that we

care,” says Gogo Grandmas volunteer Bertie Knowlton. An artist by trade, she’s currently creating ethnic note cards to sell and raise money for the Malawi grandmothers. Knowlton helped found the Mariners group after hearing from Charlotte Day, one of the church’s mis-sionaries in Malawi.

Day began the original Gogo Grand-mas near the African village of Makun-gula, by meeting regularly with a group of grandmothers to discuss issues such as nutrition, child discipline and other parenting challenges. The meetings afforded a relaxing, social time for the tired gogos, but they also gave Day opportunities to read the Bible, build relationships and pray with the women for hope and encouragement.

“They need to know, the Lord,” says Day. “And they need His help in raising these children.”

—H.J.

09/11/2007 06:29 PM‘GOGO’ GRANDMOTHERS HELP OTHER GRANDMOTHERS IN AFRICA

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ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

‘GOGO’ GRANDMOTHERS HELP OTHER GRANDMOTHERS IN AFRICA

By Mark EllisSenior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

LAGUNA BEACH, CALIFORNIA (ANS) -- Mai Mweraknows the tragedy of losing a son and two daughters toAIDS. Now this grandmother in Malawi finds herselfraising a grandchild and two others orphaned by thedeadly disease—a situation not uncommon in Africa.(Pictured: Mai Mwera leading praises to the Lord).

“In Malawi there are one million orphans because ofAIDS,” says Charlotte Day—a grandmother herself to11 grandchildren. She started Gogo Grandmothers, agrassroots organization of grandmothers supportingother grandmothers caring for African orphans.

Charlotte and her husband Dick went to Malawi for a one-year sabbatical in 1990. Then God grabbedtheir hearts as they witnessed the unfolding HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. The Days decided to stay, and

have promoted Christ-centered educational initiativesthroughout the region to meet the pandemic. Dick becameAssociate Professor of Human Development and FamilyStudies at Chancellor College at the University of Malawi.Charlotte became a lecturer there as well, and later head of theHome Economics Department. (Pictured: Charlotte Day with twoGogos caring for orphaned grandchildren).

In much of Sub-Saharan Africa, the age group from 20-40traditionally provides the only social security available to agingparents. “The most productive segment of society is dying out,”Charlotte says. “These young people are dying and leavingchildren for elderly grandparents to raise,” she says. “It’s very

frustrating because many grandmothers in the rural villages are old, thin and weak and they have thisextra burden.”

Charlotte introduced a program for early childhood development, care and education at ChancellorCollege. While she taught the concepts of child development to her students, she longed to see themimplemented in the rural areas surrounding the city. “I wanted to take our students out to the villagesto work with poor children,” she says.

Doing just this, her work in the village of Makungula gave rise to a preschool started under a largemango tree. The school now provides a rich source of early training and support for 70-90 children.“They usually don’t have breakfast at home,” Charlotte says. “Some kids walk three kilometers to getthere—and they’re tired little people when they arrive,” she says. All the children receive an enrichedporridge after they reach their destination.

09/11/2007 06:29 PM‘GOGO’ GRANDMOTHERS HELP OTHER GRANDMOTHERS IN AFRICA

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Charlotte and her fellow teachers soon discovered what they had begun to suspect. “We realizedmany of these children were orphans being cared for by their grandmothers,” Charlotte says. Sheasked her teachers to survey six smaller villages surrounding the preschool and found 104 orphansbeing cared for by 39 grandmothers.

Feeling a sense of compassion for their predicament,she invited the grandmothers to come together as agroup. “It was a social time. We read the Bible togetherand talked about issues important to their lives,” shenotes. They began to meet regularly, discussing issuessuch as nutrition, child discipline and other mattersrelevant to women facing such a challenge. (Pictured:Gogos praying in rural village).

Then she organized a group of well-educatedgrandmothers from the city as a support group. “Ichallenged them to do something for these poorgrandmothers in the village,” Charlotte says. Theyraised the funds to provide blankets before the coldseason arrived, and they adopted an unusual name for themselves: the Gogo Grandmothers, takenfrom the Chi-Chewa word for grandmother—‘gogo.’

Charlotte has also started two Gogo groups at churches in the U.S. “Some women in my age groupdon’t have an awful lot to do,” Charlotte notes. “This gives them a sense of purpose.” A GogoGrandmothers group meeting at Mariners Church in Newport Beach, California recently put together acare package for some of the orphans containing pencils, crayons, scissors, rulers, glue sticks, andpencil sharpeners.

“We don’t hand out money, but we will raise money for food,” Charlotte says. “There’s going to be areally bad drought and famine this year in Malawi,” she notes. “We’ll be distributing dried beans andpeanuts, sugar, salt, soap and cooking oil in six villages.” She wants to gradually expand hersupportive efforts to surrounding villages, and hopes to see more Gogo Grandmothers groups formingin other churches.

Charlotte recently lost her head preschool teacher to AIDS. “Gloria was a darling young woman whowas training others throughout the country about early childhood development. She went to churchand her mother is a wonderful Christian.”

On the last day of Gloria’s life, she asked her sister if she could go outside to see the sunshine onelast time. Then she came back inside and sat down on the floor. She told her older sister she wantedto pray. “She put her head down to pray—and then immediately she went to be with the Lord,”Charlotte says. “She was the third child lost in her family due to the horrible AIDS pandemic.”

As the toll mounts throughout Africa, prayer becomes a primary weapon in the battles that lie ahead.“The main idea is to pray for the grandmothers, because many of them don’t know the Lord,”Charlotte says. “They need to know the Lord and they need His help in raising these children.”

Mark Ellis is a Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service. He is also an assistant pastor inLaguna Beach, CA. Contact Ellis at marsalis@fea.net

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