Brighter Tomorrow

Home

Kenya Initiative

Malawi Initiative

News

Brighter Tomorrow at Origin

Archive News from Kawalazi Tea Plantation Project - July 2007

Weather and crops

July being the coldest month of the year the temperatures have been very low and the weather has generally been very dry with no rainfall, resulting in slowing down of the growth. There will be an expected increase in the crop by mid August when the temperatures start rising which will mark the end of winter.

Activities on the estate

The main operation during the month was irrigation. A round of foliar micronutrients application has been applied to stimulate the growth of tea.

In the new development areas mulching of the young tea has been done during the month in order to conserve the moisture in the soil in preparation of summer months coming ahead.

Training (locally referred to as “centering”) of the young tea plants in development of the initial frame of the tea bush has also been carried out in the development area.

Being the low activity month most of the workers at the plantation have obtained their annual leave.

The surrounding community is also at the tail end of its maize and rice harvest with most of them already having completed the harvest and are now preparing their land for planting of beans.

Other highlights

The netball and football General Manager’s trophy finals took place this month. The tournament was attended by over a thousand spectators and the trophy was won by the Mweza Division for football and the Tea factory for Netball. This was followed by cultural dances performed by the tea workers.

Highlight on Joseph Bernard

Another plantation worker whose story is a success is Mr Joseph Bernard, who joined Kawalazi in 1997. He came from Dedza in the central region. He has established a grocery shop and still continues to work as an employee at the plantation. He has been able to make substantial savings with the money he earns to invest in his business. While he works at the plantation, his wife takes full responsibility for the shop and with the progress he has made in this period he further wants to add to his existing working capital of MK65,000 to go as high as MK 100,000.

Mr. Joseph is blessed with four children who all go to school and thanks the company for the encouragement he gets at work, that is the driving force behind his success

We provide regular newsletters on our projects in Malawi. Read recent archive news from the Kawalazi Tea Plantation Project.

» Read the current news from Kawalazi

» More archive newsletters from Kawalazi