Japanese High School Students Launch Crowdfunding to Provide School Meals and Safe Water for Children in Malawi

A project group led by high school student volunteers, represented by Renka Tsukuda and Nao Sasaki, will launch a crowdfunding campaign on May 13, 2026, to deliver school meals and safe water to children at Chisomo CBCC, a childcare facility in the Republic of Malawi, Africa. The project is being carried out in collaboration with Seibo Japan, a nonprofit organization that supports school meal programs in Malawi. Chisomo CBCC, a Community-Based Childcare Center located in a mountainous area of Blantyre, Malawi, is a preschool education hub operated by local residents. However, the area is surrounded by deep forest and remains isolated, making it difficult for government and external support to reach. The most serious issue is water scarcity. Children and women must spend hours each day walking long distances to fetch water, losing opportunities for education. Unsafe water also causes infectious diseases and threatens children’s lives. The high school student members have been exploring what they can do for children around the world while continuing their everyday school lives. They have previously supported Malawi through activities such as selling fair-trade Malawi coffee. Wanting to create a more direct system to change children’s futures, they decided to launch this crowdfunding campaign. The project will provide support in two phases. First, it will deliver warm school meals every day to children facing chronic malnutrition and stunting. Second, it aims to secure safe water by building a well on the school grounds, providing clean water essential for meal preparation and hygiene management. Expected outcomes include improved nutrition, helping address stunting among children under five, which affects about 37% of this age group; expanded educational opportunities, as school meals can motivate attendance and help prevent child labor; and reduced burdens on women and children by freeing them from water-fetching duties and creating time for study and work. The crowdfunding project is titled “High School Students’ Challenge: Delivering Meals and a Future to Children in Malawi.” It will run from May to August 2026, with a target amount of 100,000 yen. Return gifts include message cards from children in Malawi, fair-trade Malawi coffee drip bags, and tea. Renka Tsukuda commented that although high school students may only be able to take small steps, she did not want the activity to end with simply learning about the issue. By understanding the situation in Malawi, she realized that what she takes for granted in daily life is not universal, and began thinking about what she could do. She hopes to help connect Malawi’s children to a future where they can live with greater peace of mind, and to expand awareness and support. Nao Sasaki said she encountered Malawi through coffee sales and began this challenge from a sincere desire to find something she and her peers could do. She noted that stronger school meal support would allow children to receive sufficient nutrition in a safe environment and gain access to education. She also emphasized that many areas still lack complete water infrastructure and that some people continue to use water from puddles in daily life, making sanitation improvements urgent. She said public support is essential to improve these conditions, help people in Malawi live healthy and safe lives, and open up the future for children.