End of Phase 1 Newsletter...
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HELLO AGAIN!
Project Manager, Tanya Clarke, has some amazing news to report from ABC.
"On the 7th January 2008, we finished Phase 1 of the Build Malawi Project. We are halfway there!"
This is a picture of Tanya and her partner in crime, Kondwani Nyondo, aka ‘Happy’. They make a brilliant team and have been fervently dedicated to this project for the last 5 months. It’s great to finally see the fruits of all their hard work!
Although they were meant to finish on the 20th December, things never quite happen like that in Malawi but hey, what's 3 weeks!
Once the roofs were on, it took a bit longer than expected to do the finishes, which include pointing and painting. However, they finally did it and the result is a spectacularly handsome school.
Here is Block 1, with the window blocks painted blue which will cater for Standards 1 and 2.
Block 2 has lovely green windows and will cater for Standards 3 and 4.
Both blocks have a full compliment of desks which can seat 2 to 3 students at a time.
These are the front and rear views of the Teacher’s House which is about 100m from the school site to ensure better security. Our new headmaster is now living there.
The house proudly boasts an actual hand washing basin and a shower as we have connected it to the clinic’s water supply through an underground piping system. This is unique in Malawi and exists thanks to Dr Paul Clarke and Francois Hudson. At his previous school, the headmaster’s wife and children had to walk many kilometres to get water, so this is an incredible thing for his family.
The Admin Block is also a very special structure and is one of Tanya’s favourites. It’s simple, but will really assist in the general infrastructure of the school. The teachers also see it as a must for them so that they have a good space to work in and use for storage of valuable materials.
The Sanitary Facilities of the school are Tanya's pride and joy. When Tanya first came to Malawi, she was shocked by the state of these in so many of the schools she saw. Even the smallest of things can make something like school really unpleasant and many girls, in particular, are affected by this situation. A lack of hygiene also contributes to disease and promotes bad practices in the home as well as in general life.
So, the project was determined to build good standard pit-latrines and urinals for both girls and boys, which would be separated for privacy and comfort. This scheme is now slowly being introduced into many schools in Malawi but still has a long way to go in the country as a whole.
This picture is of a double pit-latrine and in front of it is the urinal with a hand-wash tank attached beside it. When students wash their hands the water is channelled through the urinal and flushes it clean.
The urinals are strategically placed between the site and pit-latrines in order to encourage hand-washing.
We have helped the nearby health clinic by repairing its water tank. It has a solar powered pump (installed a number of years ago) that provides borehole water to the clinic and nearby houses. The water tank had a major leak, causing it to lean over the clinic and threatening to fall at any moment. The water is now supplied to the teacher’s house and to a drinking tap in the middle of the school site. This will supplement our own borehole and pump, which is still in use until it is replaced in the next Phase.
Our Teachers
We would like to introduce you to our Headmaster, Mr Banda, who moved into his new home on the 4th. He is an active and progressive teacher and the children respond to him extremely well. He’s very experienced and was posted to Chisala Primary School with the intention of making it the ideal model school in the District.
Our other teacher, Lucy Mwalanda, is fresh out of teacher training college. She is from Karonga, Northern Malawi, and we are sure she will bring in a new perspective and energy to school life. We are currently awaiting one more teacher from the Government, whom we are expecting to arrive within the next two to three months.
We are confident that both of these individuals will help develop our Chisala School and the area and help all of us achieve our goals there. The determination in their eyes is unmistakable.
ABC has given the school some starting learning materials, including a dictionary, stationary and UK teaching books, which they have set up in one of the rooms of the Admin Block. These were kindly donated by individuals in the UK; Thank you and keep them coming! The Government has also helped with some official teaching books and basic learning materials.
Tutlas, a local business in Mzuzu, has kindly donated 240 x 80-page exercise books for the pupils to write in which we know will be used and treasured immediately by the children.
Enrolment
Enrolment started on Monday 7th January. In the first day alone, Mr Banda enrolled the following:
Standard 1 - 38 children
Standard 2 - 14 children
Standard 3 - 26 children
Standard 4 - 28 children
The Government has requested that we take upto a maximum of 60 children in each Standard. Although this seems like a lot of children, sometimes schools in Malawi can have up to 100 pupils in each class. This is obviously far more than they can cope with, but since primary education is free every child has a right to it, despite the pressures teachers face as a result.
Our Labour
We would like to say a big thank you to our contractor, Major Ntchafu, and all of our wonderful labour force. Everyone worked hard and faced many pressures with the community and raw materials, but we made it in the end.
ABC threw a Christmas party at their home on the plantation with Seema (local staple) and beer, which was very well received!
Most importantly, all of our trainees have now graduated from the ‘On the Job’ building scheme and will receive their certificates in March. Congratulations! This was a particular dream of the project managers when they started and the TEVET partnership has been such a fantastic success. Many of the trainees even had tears in their eyes at our goodbye meeting. We will be putting up some pictures and video on our website in due course.
Hand-over Ceremony
ABC organised a hand-over ceremony in which they officially handed over the school to the community.
It was an emotional moment for many people, not least for those in the community who had really fought for this school.
The turnout was excellent and we had many children as well as adults. Our Traditional Authority Timbiri was there and gave a very emotive speech in which he appealed to the community to help with the further development of the Project.
Sponsorship
In our previous newsletters, we have mentioned about requests for secondary school fees. There are still many youths asking for assistance and ABC vets them carefully before recommending support.
For example, Tanya has sponsored a girl named Brenda who has now entered into Form 2 (second year). However, only her school fees are covered as Tanya feels that these youths and their parents also have a responsibility to prioritise education and contribute in some way as well (for example, towards school uniform and shoes). This is a personal preference and anyone helping a youth in the area can choose what their money will go towards.
Please contact Tanya at buildmalawi@hotmail.co.uk if you would like to discuss individual situations.
Review
Tanya started up the Build Malawi Project as a small and personal venture because she saw education as being crucial to helping Malawians help themselves out of poverty. Since the food crisis ended only a couple of years ago, there has been major investment into education and a lot of assistance from many NGO’s in this area. However, few of them actually stay constantly on site and really make sure that there is action and ABC feels that this has been the key to their success so far.
So many individuals, patrons and organisations have shown great interest and support to the project and this opportunity has allowed both of our project managers to gain a lot more experience and confidence about the realities of operating on the ground. The Government has been a strong ally and we are confident that they will continue to help and support the school. They are equally as impressed with the speed at which the school has been built and want to make it a place for further development. Chisala and the surrounding area are very under provided for and the Government have now stated that they wish to use our school to facilitate teacher training and adult/informal education for the general community as well. The District Community Development Officer, Mr Victor Matayataya, and his wife the Primary Education Advisor, have both assisted enormously so far and want to continue to play an active role in our development.
The Second Phase will bring many changes as well and we hope to avoid many of the problems we have previously experienced. We will finally be able to get some of our schemes up and running, such as working with the women and youth groups, adult literacy schemes, the school garden, the tree re-plantation programme and compost toilets as a way to promote sustainable gardening techniques (a necessity in these rural areas).
An exciting development is that we are looking to improve the school and local community’s sports facilities as we feel it is an important way to encourage the youth to attend the site. The Great Football Giveaway (www.thegreatfootballgiveaway.org) has kindly asked if they can help and plans are underway to come up with a solution to furtherpromote sport in the area. We will keep you posted.
Finances
I am pleased to report that we have completed Phase 1 within our budget. Well under 5% has been spent on “administration” with all the rest going directly to the building work. The local community has greatly helped with free labour. However, we still need funding for the Second Phase of building starting in May 2008 after the rains, so please help if you can either through our secure on-line donation page or by mail using the Gift Aid form, I promise that the absolute maximum will again go to work on the ground.
Summary of Phase 1
Building is completed -
2 x double-classroom blocks
2 x urinals & hand-wash tanks
2 x double-pit latrines
2 x single-pit latrines
Borehole & pump
Admin building (3 rooms)
Teachers house (3 bedrooms)
Building Costs
Building Materials
| Cost (£) | Percentage of Total (%) |
| 9,553 | 35 |
Travel and Transport (including local sand and brick collection, building material delivery from Mzuzu (30km), personnel movement to and from the site, air flights and fuel)
| Cost (£) | Percentage of Total (%) |
| 10,734 | 40 |
Professional Labour (a relatively low figure due to local free labour from the community)
| Cost (£) | Percentage of Total (%) |
| 5,848 | 22 |
Admin (including comms)
| Cost (£) | Percentage of Total (%) |
| 487 | 2 |
Maintenance and Repairs
| Cost (£) | Percentage of Total (%) |
| 255 | 1 |
TOTAL = £26,880
Capital Expenditure
Isuzu Double-Cab (now for sale) £4,170
Toyota Hilux £4,515
Remaining building materials valued at £300
Our new Toyota, aka 'The Operator'
We are very pleased to introduce you to our new Toyota 4 x 4 that we have affectionately named 'The Operator'. Our previous jeep ("The Beast"), is now up for sale having done marvellous work during Phase 1. She will be sadly missed. However, our new car is definitely more suited for the rugged life on the very rough roads and the collecting of sand and ballast. I'm sure will be with us for a very long time.
John Travers
There are few risk-takers in this world (and especially when it involves a recently graduated youth from University), but John Travers was one of these people. He worked for Cushman and Wakefield and heard about the project through an acquaintance. He was very supportive of Tanya through her struggle to raise the funds for the project and gave some very sound and kind words of advice. We are very sorry to say that he passed away last year and in memory of him, both as a donor and as a friend, Tanya would like to name the Administration Block after him in Chisala. Thank you to Sam Ibekwe and Jennie Travers for their continued support as well.
Further Help
The school is always looking for new books, stationary, exercise books, teaching aids, sports equipment, team uniforms, and most importantly, furniture. We would like to equip the school properly but we especially need further funding for student and teachers desks.
We are also looking into the possibility of obtaining a 20 foot container to store materials for building. If anyone can help us with this in the UK or Africa then please contact Tanya on +44 (0)7931 767 958 or at buildmalawi@hotmail.co.uk. If we can get a container, then we will also look into transporting more donated items over to Malawi that will benefit the general community.
News from the UK
Further thanks and congratulations to Matt Waterton’s dedicated spinners (Phil Heale, Bhavnita Borkhatria, Kate Cheney, Karen Garcia, Lizzy Pollard, Suzane Fred, Paul Holley, Darren Head, Louis Fazackerley, Melissa Garcia and Marcus) who managed after two hours of hard graft to raise a fantastic total of £725.40, which will go directly towards Phase Two of the project.
If you would like to take part in a fundraising event and contribute by raising much needed funds to help the project grow, then please get in touch. Plans are being made for a sponsored cycle ride from London to Paris this summer. Details are yet to be finalised but if you would like to know more then send an email to alice@buildmalawi.org
Please remember if you are organising an event to make sure your sponsors fill out a Gift Aid declaration form. These can be downloaded from our website via this link or we can easily send these to you directly with all the required information.
Thankyou to all!
The project team feel so privileged to have so many amazing people supporting us. Tanya included a personal message in last months newsletter, but we would all like to wind up this Phase by saying a massive thank you to everyone all over the world who have helped us so far. Please continue to do so and I hope that our results will encourage more of you to join in.
ABC and the Build Malawi Project would like to give an enormous thank you to Andrew Smith for doing such an excellent job on the project website.
The project will start its second Phase in May and will be keeping in touch in the meantime. Tanya will be back in the UK on the 24th so please feel free to get in touch with her at buildmalawi@hotmail.co.uk or on +44 (0)7931 767 958.
Happy 2008!!
The Build Malawi Project Team
