Madonna Visits Millennium Village in Malawi, Reviews Substantial Progress

Improvements in education, health, and women's empowerment are focus of visit

GUMULIRA, Malawi, April 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Madonna today visited Gumulira, a Millennium Village of approximately 5000 people in rural central Malawi.  Raising Malawi, an organization co-founded by Madonna, has been a partner in the Millennium Villages project in Gumulira since its inception in 2006.  Madonna was joined in Gumulira by Hans Vestberg, President & CEO of Ericsson, and Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, the director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University and co-founder of Millennium Promise.

When the Millennium Villages project in Gumulira was launched, the area was beset by a number of complex challenges.  Food insecurity was high due to limited access to specialized seed and fertilizers.  Limited access to medical services, classrooms and school supplies, and clean water were pervasive.  

"In the space of just a few years, Gumulira has made major gains in food security, health services, education, and income-generation," said Millennium Promise CEO John W. McArthur.  "We are incredibly grateful to Madonna and Raising Malawi for their partnership in making this progress possible, and their broader leadership in helping to highlight the dramatic and rapid inroads that can be made against extreme poverty."

Today, the Millennium Villages reach nearly 500,000 people across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and the partner communities in each country are registering a cross-section of major improvements. To learn more about the progress being made and the evolving priorities in Gumulira and throughout the Millennium Villages, visit www.millenniumpromise.org.

About Millennium Promise 

The mission of Millennium Promise is to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals – eight  globally endorsed objectives addressing the multiple dimensions of extreme poverty – in Africa by 2015. To that end, Millennium Promise uses a holistic approach to work with impoverished communities, national and local governments and partner organizations to implement high-impact programs aimed at stopping the cycle of poverty. Our work is premised on the belief that, for the first time in history, our generation has the opportunity to end extreme poverty, hunger and preventable disease.  For more information, visit www.millenniumpromise.org.

SOURCE Millennium Promise