Eating rice to help Malawi - the Kilombero #Virtual90 Challenge

Since living in Malawi for two years I've always tried to support the country in any way I can. One of these has been to buy Kilombero fair trade rice which is produced in Malawi and imported and distributed in Scotland by JTS Fair Trade. I've been buying this rice for years from the One World Shop in Edinburgh. It's a very good rice with a great taste and texture, available in brown or white. Every bag helps Malawian farmers to improve their lives. It's a rice that is grown using environmentally sustainable methods too.

This year Kilombero rice has been expanding it's business and is now available in more stockists than ever, though I'll continue to buy it from the One World Shop as it sells big bags of the rice, unlike some of the other stockists that only sell 50g bags. (We eat a lot of rice!)

As part of this expansion, Kilombero Rice is asking people to join in their #Virtual90 challenge to spread the word about this special rice. Why #Virtual90? Because the proceeds from selling 90 bags of Kilombero rice can enable a Malawian farmer to send one of her children to high school for a year! All you need to do is take a photo of yourself with a bag of Kilombero Rice and share it on Twitter (or Facebook). You can find out more here and if you're quick enough you'll see my photo featured on that webpage or indeed on the JTS Facebook page!

This photo in fact:

So here I am in the Malawian corner of our living room, wearing one of my Zimbabwean t-shirts and an African necklace, holding up a bag of Kilombero rice. The bags don't come with two sticks on top, that's the TV aerial in the background. Also in the background, on the right are two paintings by Jomwa Phiri, an artist from the Mangochi area of Malawi, which was where I lived. On the left are two batiks that I bought from a shop in Blantyre in southern Malawi. (And no I don't normally wear just a t-shirt around the house at this time of year, we are great believers in putting on more layers before switching the heating on!)