Their focus is on empowering local people to lead sustainable projects prioritising skills, dignity and self-reliance over dependency in six districts of Malawi.
The challenges faced by rural communities in Malawi
In Malawi, rural communities face multiple intersecting barriers:
- – Heavy deforestation driven by cooking fuel needs and clearing land for farming and settlements.
- – Overfishing along Lake Malawi, threatening food security and biodiversity.
- – Low agricultural yields and soil degradation.
- – Minimal educational infrastructure
- – Limited access to clean water and basic health services.
These pressures reduce resilience, restrict income-generation, and environmental sustainability, passing disadvantage from one generation to the next. Since they are systemic and deeply embedded, solutions must go beyond one-off aid.
Local solutions are essential, because national infrastructure and aid alone cannot correct these deep-rooted constraints.
Ripple Africa’s approach to protecting the environment and empowering communities in Malawi
Ripple Africa was founded in Malawi in 2003. They have worked in partnership with rural communities to design and deliver programmes based on the unique needs of the people and land. Their work is concentrated in six districts across Malawi and spans three principal pillars:
- – Environment: clean cookstove roll-out to reduce wood consumption and smoke-related illness; fish conservation initiatives to protect breeding stocks in Lake Malawi; forest protection and tree-planting.
- – Education: support to Early Childhood Development centres, primary schools including teacher training; library and literacy programmes.
- – Health & livelihoods: empowering communities to understand family planning options and to access maternal health services; low-tech but effective agricultural improvements to increase yields and improve diet and nutrition; water projects to reduce time burden and disease.
Flagship results
The charity is making a huge difference in Malawi, but remains small enough that it remains effective, efficient and innovative.
Ripple Africa, alongside their partnership communities, have protected 736km of Lake Malawi shoreline, planted 26.5 million trees, and have supported the building and usage of 125,000 cookstoves – benefiting over 625,000 people in poor rural areas of Malawi.
They run eight pre-schools, support six primary schools and support over 250 children and their families in a disabilities and injury rehabilitation project.
"We are supporting rural communities in Malawi to have fuel-efficient cookstoves by sponsoring 700 cookstoves"
Activities in focus: fuel efficient cookstoves
When working in community tree planting and forest conservation projects, it became clear that a primary cause of deforestation in Malawi was the traditional three-stone fires used for cooking by over 90% of rural households. They consume large amounts of wood, produce a lot of smoke (the cause of many long-term health damage), and are unstable, resulting in many people suffering serious burns.
Ripple Africa worked with communities to develop and introduce the Changu Changu Moto (Fast Fast Fire), a simple, fuel-efficient brick cookstove which is a safer and more sustainable alternative to the three-stone fire.
They are completely free for householders. Trained community members teach the householder the skills to create their own stoves. They source local clay and sand to make clay bricks, dry them in the sun, then take them to the kitchen and build the frame of the stove, coated in more clay. This takes only a few hours and gives the householder ownership and pride in their cookstove, and lasting skills for maintenance and repairs. Each house is regularly visited to provide advice and ensure that using the new stove becomes a way of life.
These stoves are simple but transformative. They use two-thirds less firewood than traditional methods, helping to reduce deforestation and carbon emissions while improving family health and safety by cutting indoor smoke by more than 70 percent.
The stoves save an average of two bundles of firewood per household every week. Women will save 10 hours a week just collecting wood, time that they can spend on their farms, running their businesses and with their families.
How Explorations Company partners with Ripple Africa
Explorations Company has partnered with Ripple Africa for the 2025-2026 year because their community-led environmental work aligns with our belief that travel must safeguard the places we visit.
We are supporting rural communities in Malawi to have fuel-efficient cookstoves by sponsoring 700 cookstoves to be built. This partnership forms part of our Impact programme across Africa.
How can you engage with Ripple Africa on your Malawi safari?
By arrangement, Explorations Company clients can engage with Ripple Africa in Malawi in thoughtful and immersive ways. Staying at one of Ripple Africa’s lodges on the shores of Lake Malawi — for example at Mwaya Beach or Lowani Beach — offers both a place to relax and an opportunity to visit the charity’s projects in the surrounding rural area.
- – Explore Ripple Africa’s education, agriculture and environment projects close-up, guided by local staff and programme teams.
- – Learn about rural Malawian life and how local communities lead and sustain change.
- – Participate in project-based visits that remain respectful and community-first.
Because visits are carefully managed to preserve the integrity and dignity of local communities, spaces are limited — ensuring the experience remains meaningful rather than intrusive.
Why this matters
Ripple Africa demonstrates that locally-owned, practical solutions can shift futures more effectively than external aid alone. Their work protects ecosystems, increases food and income security, and strengthens education and health in places where resilience is most needed.
If you would like to understand how this work can connect to your own safari in Malawi, or how this charity fits within the wider Impact programme, please contact our team for more information.