Madonna 'restructuring Malawi charity'

Madonna has announced plans to expand the focus of her charity Raising Malawi.

The popstar - who founded the organisation in 2006 along with Michael Berg in order to help children orphaned by HIV and AIDS - revealed in a statement that she is in the process of "implementing several changes" to reach more children in the African country.

"I remain deeply committed and am more passionate than ever about helping the children of Malawi - especially the girls. In a country where only 33% of Malawian girls attend secondary school, I realise that the plans we had in place for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls simply would not serve enough children," the Huffington Post quotes her as saying.

"My original vision is now on a much bigger scale. I want to reach thousands not hundreds of girls. I want to do more and I want to do it better. While I am grateful to all the people who have given me guidance and support up until now, we are in the process of implementing several changes and additions to the management of Raising Malawi in both the US and Malawi."

Madonna went on to reveal that she is working with Global Philanthropy Group CEO Trevor Neilson to help her reach her goals for Raising Malawi and hopes that the partnership will allow the charity to move forward with "more efficiency".

"This is a larger challenge than I thought, but I welcome it. We are focused on an approach which builds schools within communities across the country," she explained.

"We are currently determining the size, location, staffing and curriculum of the schools. I will continue to monitor the process of reaching these goals here and through my ongoing visits to Malawi."