• Civil Society and Governance
  • Civil Society and Governance Overview
  • Institutional Capacity Building
  • Civic Education
  • Citizen Participation
  • Advocacy
  • Democratic Governance
  • Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Women's and Minority Rights
  • Disenfranchised Groups
• Education
  • Education Overview
  • Basic Education
  • Higher Education
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
  • Education for Vulnerable Groups
• HIV/AIDS
  • HIV/AIDS Overview
  • HIV/AIDS Prevention
  • Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)
  • Grants Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Institutional Capacity Building
• International Visitors Exchanges
  • International Professional, Academic, and Cultural Exchanges Overview
  • Undergraduate and Graduate Academic Exchanges
  • Professional Exchanges
  • Youth Exchanges
• Capacity Development and Training
  • Capacity Development and Training Overview
  • Participant Training
  • Institutional Capacity Building
  • Undergraduate and Graduate Academic Exchanges
  • Grant Solicitation and Management Capacity
  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

FORECAST - Malawi

"The initiative has been as successful as could have been imagined…mostly because of the Malawi students themselves.  Their strong work ethic and positive school spirit have inspired and motivated many of our traditional students…All maintain over a 3.0 GPA, and the vast majority have graduated with honors."

Lakeland College Website

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The FORECAST Malawi Program supports both the education and health sectors under USAID/Malawi's Investing in People program through academic training in the US (students earning undergraduate degrees in education at Lakeland College in Sheboygan, WI) and in third countries (students earning graduate degrees in health-related areas at institutions in Kenya and South Africa).  World Learning has worked with USAID/Malawi on this important academic exchange since 2002 under the START contract.  To date, 40 Malawians have graduated from Lakeland College and have returned to Malawi to take up teaching positions at Malawi's six teacher training colleges.  Another 15 are scheduled to graduate before the contract ends.  Five students have either graduated or are in the process of earning their Master's Degrees in Community Health in Kenya and have returned to work at the Ministry of Health in Malawi, working on such pressing issue as River Blindness and Malaria prevention.

Since graduating from Lakeland College, students have been making critical differences in the lives of their students and communities in various ways:  helping to set up an education department at the new University of Livingstonia; setting up a children's library, the first of its kind, at Mzuzu University; helping to write a new syllabus and a book for a course for elementary school teachers; helping to return over 100 teen mothers to primary and secondary school through a Return to School policy introduced by the Ministry of Education; and coordinating projects aimed at reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS.

World Learning continues to refine its strategies for increasing program effectiveness through a series of post-training activities.  During its first site visit to Malawi in November 2008, World Learning strategized with former participants on a series of workshops designed to enhance skills and knowledge in areas that will have a direct impact on their environment.  The first two workshops took place in June 2009, on grantsmanship (grantwriting, grantseeking, and project planning and implementation).