In a village near the town of Mchinji, in Malawi, a mother of six proudly demonstrates her latest household acquisition. A "tippy tap", made from an old, perforated bottle, sticks and string, helps her family to preserve water when they wash their hands, as well as acting as a visual reminder that they need to wash them before they prepare food.

She and her neighbours have been shown how to use the tippy tap, and shown some rudiments of food hygiene, by staff from Concern, the Irish aid agency, which does much work in the country often referred to as the warm heart of Africa.

A friend says that arriving in Malawi, with its clear-eyed, gentle people and scorched red earth, is akin to a spiritual experience. Others point out that, although regional conflict has diminished greatly in the past decade, Malawi has a different side, one with significant economic disparity.

In another village, on the outskirts of Lilongwe, the capital, I meet George Banda, a 31-year-old farmer. An amiable and proud father of four, Banda stands amid fellow farmers on his own patch of land, which teems with maize and spring onions. It wasn’t always so: Banda and his family have at times endured months of hunger.

Concern’s livelihoods programmes have helped Banda put his land to work. “Beforehand I couldn’t manage to do work like this,” he says. “Today I can stand on my own, and that makes me very happy.”

He lives nearby in a small shack furnished with a washing line and four wooden stools. It has no electricity. His first significant purchase as a cash-crop farmer, a bicycle to take him to the market or to the village water pump, takes pride of place against the wall.

If you have ever bought a gift through a development charity’s Christmas catalogue, the upturn in fortunes of people such as George Banda is in part your doing. People tickled by the novelty of “buying” a chicken or goat for a loved one have sometimes parted with their money thinking little of the journey those funds then make. It transpires that there are many ways in which the gifts from charity Christmas catalogues keep on giving.

Real asset

Caoimhe de Barra moved to Lilongwe with her husband and two young sons earlier this year, to become Concern’s director in Malawi, where the charity has 90 staff – a smattering of them Irish or international, but most locals. She says that the annual Christmas spike in funds allows development organisations to plan for the year ahead.

The chickens, goats or pigs that Irish people buy do materialise 12,000km away, but they’re not moved here from Irish fields; the livestock here is local – and hugely significant, de Barra says. “A goat, for instance, is a real asset for people. They become your social security, your money in the bank for a rainy day. If someone needs to go to hospital, or if someone needs school fees, a goat is a protection mechanism in a situation where people have no savings and no social welfare.”

Change to Malawi's social infrastructure is slow. Joyce Banda, who became president in 2012, disposed of the presidential jet and other perks, yet the country's "cashgate" scandal in 2013, when a reported $100 million in government funds was misappropriated, put an estimated 15 million Malawians on the poverty line.

The country ranks 174th out of 187 on the United Nations' Human Development Index. Nongovernmental and development organisations have become a larger and even more important part of Malawi's social fabric.

The programmes run by organisations such as Concern give families the means to help themselves out of poverty. Local field officers train villagers to tend vegetable patches and kitchen gardens. Other villagers become community leaders, trained to guide on farming methods, food preparation, health and hygiene.

So far about 10,000 women have started village saving-and-loan schemes, which work in much the same way as credit unions. The scheme encourages women to develop their own businesses, and nobody has yet defaulted on a loan. In the Nkhotakota district, members have bought livestock; a social fund for emergencies – drought, floods, funerals – has also been established.

The women can now afford to buy rice, which was once a delicacy reserved for Christmas dinner. They have also gained status in their households and communities.

Fighting sexual assault

Gender-based violence, long entrenched in Malawian society, is also high on the agenda. Local government is taking action to address intimate-partner violence, sexual assault and abuse; development organisations are also waging their own quiet war.

Gender equality in the household, though, is improving. In Mchinji I meet "lead mothers" Lucia Mayosera, Thembistre Samuel, Lyness Josophat and Rose Chapuma. Many of them married at 18 or 19 and had their children in their early 20s; they screech with laughter when I mention that I am unmarried.

The women now tell other local women about childcare and contraception; they have also learned about growing, harvesting and cooking foods such as gumnuts (the fruit of the eucalyptus tree, which can be ground into flour), mangoes and potatoes. Pumpkin leaves, another delicacy once reserved for Christmas, appear in several of the village’s kitchen gardens.

Family planning and slowing down population growth are seen as critical to Malawi’s long-term welfare. “If you are taking contraceptives there is a good spacing out of children, and you have time to care for each one,” says Josophat. Your love for your husband increases when there is a gap between children, she adds.

After a cookery demonstration, in which the lead mothers cook a feast of roasted nuts, porridge and okra, Mayosera jokes that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. “Because of these skills, the husbands are co-operating,” she says. “I feel more confident and empowered, and when friends of my husband come to eat they appreciate that the food has been prepared in a special way.”

Gender-based violence is a problem across the developing world; as President Michael D Higgins has said, sustainable development goals cannot be met unless it is eradicated.

Concern and a nonprofit called Grassroot Soccer run the Skillz initiative in four districts. It is an after-school soccer club that provides life skills and gender education for boys and girls on the brink of adulthood. It also offers them HIV testing and counselling: one in 10 Malawians is HIV positive.

Skillz Girl

Some of the funds for this come from Concern’s Christmas catalogue: the gift of an €11 sports kit can have a palpable impact.

Skillz Girl, which teaches teenage girls about gender-based violence – how to identify it and how to empower themselves to speak out about it – is a notable initiative.

I ask the girls what they learn in Skillz Girl classes. The answers come thick and fast: they learn about the right to go to school, the right to take care of their bodies, the right to work, the right to go to church. Every teenager in the class wants to finish her education before she marries. They want to travel to South Africa, the UK, the US or Kenya, to become pilots, soldiers, doctors, teachers, policewomen or lawyers.

Lestina Loyson, who is 16, wants to be a nurse; she would also like to compete as a runner. I tease her about boys and marriage; she says that she thinks first and foremost about her education and that marriage is the last thing on her mind. Yet Lestina is far from the norm.

“One in two girls has a baby before 18 here,” de Barra says. “The expectations for a girl and boy are very different here. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy for men; they are expected to be the breadwinners, the providers, the protectors. A lot of what we do is to try to work on gender equality, so that boys and girls identify that the roles they’ve been given by society can be changed.”

Slowly but surely, change is happening. The internet and smartphones, with their limitless bounty of information and ideas, have yet to reach rural Malawi. In the meantime wind-up radios spread valuable information about farming, gender, nutrition and other societal issues.

Conversations about survival, plain and simple, have dominated many Malawian households for years. Now, thanks to people power both in Ireland and in the warm heart of Africa, the future appears to be a little bit brighter.

HELPING HAND What's in this year's catalogues CONCERN concerngifts.org From a piglet (€9) or stove-making lesson (€25) to an entire farmyard (€114) or even a classroom (€1,000), Concern has gifts for every budget.

TRÓCAIRE trocaire.org/gifts Donors can support Middle Eastern refugees for €65, provide safe medical care during childbirth in Somalia (€100) or sponsor a budding female entrepreneur in Ethiopia (€250), among other gift options.

OXFAM UNWRAPPED oxfamireland.org/unwrapped Through Oxfam's festive initiative it's possible to educate a young girl (€25), fix a well (€32) or even feed 10 families (€65).

GOAL gifts.goal.ie Christmas gifts can be bought for as little as €3.95, or bought in memory of a loved one (up to €100).

BÓTHAR bothar.ie As part of an extensive catalogue, Bóthar transports Irish dairy cows to developing countries (€1,800) and even provides dairy camels to families in Kenya (€200).

UNICEF unicef.ie/christmas-gifts With gifts ranging from €16 (copybooks) to €373 (a water pump), Unicef's survival gifts for children are plentiful. Particularly popular is a set of winter clothes for child refugees (€41.90).

Tanya Sweeney travelled to Malawi with Concern