Good News Children's Home Shines Bright

​Good News Children’s Home is a small orphanage located in a rural village in southern Malawi in Africa. The orphanage first opened in the 1990s to care for children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic that devastated much of the continent at that time. Today, Good News Children’s Home (GNCH) is run by the son of the original founders and serves not only 60 parentless children, but also about 40 children from the local community as well. GNCH provides the children with shelter, meals, education and most of all, love.

Kelvin, a GNCH resident, receives a track suit, undergarments and a Luke Light.

As one of the economically poorest countries in the world, Malawi’s rural population makes up about 82 percent of their entire population, with nearly 72 percent of the nation’s roadways being unpaved. Consequently, many of Malawi’s communities can be considered “last mile”: remote or hard-to-reach areas that have insufficient provision of education, health care, water, and sanitation.

Unite to Light’s mission is to provide low-cost solar lighting and energy to people living without electricity to improve global health, education, prosperity, and to fight climate change. To do this we work with a number of individuals and organizations across the globe, aiming to reach “last mile” communities such as the Good News Children’s Home. 

We started partnering with Good News Children’s Home through Unite to Light volunteer John H. and Hope House Mauritius. Hope House Mauritius is a small nonprofit based out of the tiny island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar. Hope House is run by a husband/wife team of Andre & Yvette Holl and they run projects on Mauritius, Madagascar, South Africa and Malawi, always focusing on empowering local communities toward self-sustainment through skill development, education and mentoring.

The boys creatively personalized the Luke Lights with their names.

​At Good News Children’s Home in Malawi, the progress over recent years has been steady and impressive. On John’s first visit there in 2019, the Hope House team installed the orphanage’s first light bulb—a single bulb running off solar power to light the room used as a library. GNCH was not connected to any power grid at the time and this was the first time GNCH had light after dark.

Now, four years later, GNCH is connected to a power grid, but it is often unreliable and
unavailable. The orphanage runs several bore hole wells off of solar power and they recognize the benefit of sustainable energy sources. Despite the progress, there are constant hardships. GNCH relies on local women who serve as “housemothers” to care for the children at the orphanage. These heroic women leave their families for a month at a time to live at GNCH and they cook for, and tend to, the children and perform a multitude of tasks – all with endless love and joy….and often in song! (see video below)

One of the hardships the housemothers face is that with poor lighting and often poor vision, essential tasks such as threading a needle to mend clothing or the children’s bedsheets become nearly impossible. Solutions that we take for granted are often out of reach in many parts of the world, but that’s where Unite to Light comes in. It’s our mission to help provide low-cost solar light and power to those without electricity across the globe, so we partnered with Hope House in October 2023 to provide 125 solar powered Luke Lights to the children and housemothers at the Good News Children’s Home. Combined with the reading glasses supplied by Hope House, the housemothers can now see well enough to perform the tasks that keep the children well cared for. And the children can now each have a light of their own to be able to read and study after dark and to light their way around the orphanage grounds at night.

These children, who typically have no personal possessions other than one or two shirts, a pair of shorts and flip flops, each received their own Luke Light, much to their amazement and delight! They also each received a handmade track suit, sewn by a Hope House volunteer. The track suits were designed to keep the children warm at night in the winter months, and despite it being the beginning of summer on this recent visit, the children were so excited to receive a tracksuit of their own that they wore them all day—even in the heat!

GNCH boys sporting their new track suits and Luke Lights.

​Despite their hardships, the children and team at GNCH are continuously striving for improvements, and are genuinely happy people. John recounted about his recent visit: "Malawi may be one of the economically poorest countries in the world, but it’s known as the “Warm Heart of Africa” for good reason; its people are rich in love and joy! We look forward to continuing to build on this relationship." 

All stories of impact delight us, but we are particularly inspired by stories like Good News Children’s Home. Giving children who have not much more than the clothes on their back something as simple as a solar light, knowing it can improve their lives and futures in a significant way, makes us so proud of the work we are able to do -- thanks to your support. 

You can make a donation with “Education” in the message line to support more projects that benefit children striving for an education across the globe:

Light the World