Umunthu Plus is a Local Organisation established since 2015 by a group of young women teachers as a grassroot movement. The organization was established upon noticed that majority of women and girls faced a number of challenges than their male counterpart in education, health and social issues including women and girls empowerment. The organization is registered with government of Malawi, council for non-governmental organization (CONGOMA) and NGO Board.
Umunthu Plus works to address the challenges that vulnerable groups of people face such as women, youth and children (people living with HIV, people living with disability and sex workers) through the use of a rights’ based approach to development to address poverty, inequalities, and poor governance in public sector, social exclusion and limited capacity for participation among citizenry. Umunthu Plus works to address these challenges because it realizes that poverty is more prominent among those vulnerable groups who mostly rely on and social services such as education, health, economic empowerment for their survival. In addressing issue of identified above, conducts a power mapping analysis as to identify who holds power, who makes decisions, who else is involved in decision making (who is excluded), how those decisions are made and who benefits. Through this approach Umunthu Plus would be addressing the root causes of poverty, gender Based Violence, child rights abuse and inequalities faced by these vulnerable groups at various levels. For influencing work, Umunthu Plus has adopted a convening approach of bringing a wide range of actors together to work collaboratively within their shared interest to challenge issues of poor governance, child rights abuse, inequality, social exclusion and Gender based violence.