{"id":547,"date":"2010-11-23T22:22:22","date_gmt":"2010-11-23T22:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=547"},"modified":"2010-11-23T22:22:22","modified_gmt":"2010-11-23T22:22:22","slug":"sister-beatrice-chipeta-founder-of-the-lusubilo-orphan-care-in-malawi-wins-a-1-million-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/23\/sister-beatrice-chipeta-founder-of-the-lusubilo-orphan-care-in-malawi-wins-a-1-million-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Sister Beatrice Chipeta, founder of the Lusubilo Orphan Care in Malawi wins a $1 million award"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Sister Beatrice Chipeta, founder of the Lusubilo Orphan Care in Malawi’s northern tip lakeshore district of Karonga, has been awarded one of the world’s largest honours, the Opus Prize at Fordham Jesuit University in United States of America.
\nMalawian sister wins US$1 million Opus award
\nThe prize is an annual faith-based humanitarian award that celebrates unsung heroes, designed to provide a single significant infusion of resources to advance humanitarians\u2019 work\u2014and bring greater visibility to causes that have gone untold.<\/p>\n

She shares the US$1.1 million award with Fr. John Halligan who works in Quito, Ecuador.<\/p>\n

This year marks the first time in the Opus Prize Foundation\u2019s seven-year history that the award is being split evenly between two recipients, said Don Neureuther, spokesperson for the foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSister Chipeta and Father Halligan embody every aspect of the Opus Prize selection criteria,\u201d said Neireuther on the Fordham Jesuit University of New York website.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re delighted to honour these two faith-based social entrepreneurs who have dedicated their lives to addressing some of the great social issues of our day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sister Chipeta, known as the \u201cMother Teresa\u201d of Malawi, began ministering to orphaned children in the 1990s in poor and AIDS-stricken areas with the mission of empowering every child and adult.<\/p>\n

Her organization supports child care centres in 64 villages, a network of food centres that serve more than 4,000 children every week, youth programs, a bursary program to help with school fees, agricultural and vocational training, and HIV\/AIDS support groups and a rehabilitation centre.<\/p>\n

Lusubilo (hope) also supports 75 orphan-headed households by providing food and counselling services. It sponsors a residential care facility for 250 displaced children.<\/p>\n

Fordham University website reported that Sister Chipeta who is Catholic Relief Services\u2019 partner, bowed to the audience upon receiving the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many things coming into my mind, but mostly it is joy,\u201d she said, according to Fordham University website. \u201cThis gift makes us have hope of continuing our aid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chipeta urged students to \u201clisten to your inner inspiration, and take some action\u201d to help others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes from God,\u201d she said, \u201cand God never fails you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe children are happy because there has been a change from the way things were to the way things are now,\u201d she reportedly told the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod has used me to meet the needs of so many people he cares. He is using the powerless to carry out his will.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Opus Prize website, Chipeta was raised as a Presbyterian but became enamoured at an early age with Catholic nuns who were ministering in Malawi.<\/p>\n

As a young woman, she converted to Catholicism, joining the Rosarian Sisters who live and work exclusively in the diocese of Mzuzu. She spent much of her career as a teacher, and when she retired from the classroom, Sister Chipeta focused her energies on her charity work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sister Beatrice Chipeta, founder of the Lusubilo Orphan Care in Malawi’s northern tip lakeshore district of Karonga, has been awarded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[253,252],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-religion-2","category-non-profit-organizations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}