Hilal Afrika Reaches Out to Makanjila Community with Medical Camps.

A Germany-based organization Hilal Afrika, in partnership with Dawn Aid from Malawi, conducted medical camps
in the areas of Traditional Authority Lulanga and Makanjila in Mangochi District on July 13 and 14, 2024.

Speaking at one of the three organized camps, the Chairman of Hilal Afrika, Umut Turan, said this was not the first medical camp they have organized after recognizing the need and challenges people in the area face in accessing health services.

“Last year we did a similar medical camp for a day but we ended up exhausting the doctors and other medical personnel because of the high turnout, so this year we decided to make it in two days,” he said.

Turan added that the organization planned to attend to 3,000 patients but received a huge turnout of about 7,000 patients across all three camps.

“As a small charity organization we did not anticipate having such a huge turnout, but we managed to help them all because we had a total of 50 medical specialists of different expertise from Mangochi District,” he said.

One of the patients treated at the camp, Sakina Mwamadi from Mnomba Village, said the initiative has helped many patients in the area because they struggle to go to the hospital due to distance and lack of funds for transport.

“Since last year this is one of the best things happening in our area. Some of the experts who attended to us are not available at our local hospital. We also expect more, especially monthly medical camps,” she said.

She also added that Hilal Afrika has been bringing many impactful charity activities to the people in the community.

In his remarks, Senior Medical Officer at Mangochi District Health Office, Dr. Innocent Lanjesi, who was also
the manager of the medical camp, said most people in the area die due to the failure to access medical treatment at bigger hospitals.

“As you are aware, Lulanga Health Centre is not yet a big hospital.

It is very hard to provide some treatments, but after its construction, we expect it to be much more helpful to the people in the area,” he said.

Dr. Lanjesi also thanked Dawn Aid and Hilal Afrika for their continuous support to the community with different initiatives, including the medical camps.

The initiative cost the organization funds of about 15 million Malawi Kwacha.

On July 14, while monitoring the camps, the Chairman of Hilal Afrika and Dawn Aid officials had the opportunity to distribute school bags and school stationery to 200 students from different primary schools in the area.

Turan explained that the gesture was done as one way of encouraging the students to go to school and be the first to uplift their community.

“One of the principles at our organization is providing services that will lead the community to be self-reliant. We don’t want them to continue asking for help but to be the help they want for themselves.”

Turan further explained that they always prioritize hard-to-reach areas since they do not have access to a number of things.

Some of the items received by the students included school bags, ten exercise books, rulers, mathematical Dr. Lanjesi extracting a decayed tooth from a patient’s mouth instruments, five pens, and a pencil each.