Sarah’s blog 9/1/24
I shared some photos before Christmas of the official handover of the improvements at Chambo Primary School thanks to a £6,000 grant we applied for and received from The Kitchen Table Charities Trust.
The story starts in springtime last year when we applied for a grant to KTCT on behalf of Chambo Primary School. What we were asking for wasn’t straightforward but, with a few emails back and forward and a bit of waiting, we were absolutely delighted to receive £6,000 on behalf of Chambo Primary School. This is the nearest primary school to the Foundation and where most of the orphans and other vulnerable young people we support attend. There are eight classes, each with at least 60 children.
No big charities are feeding children in schools in this area so all these children are really hungry. Many of them are suffering from malnutrition. We only have enough money to send to feed 500 children once a week and some of those children are walking up to 15km to 20km to receive this one decent meal of the week. It’s not good enough but it’s all we can afford. If anyone would like to help us provide food for the children then please do email contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com
As well as no food, the children had no clean water supply for drinking and washing their hands. Their drinking water came from the river which isn’t a clean supply. The children and their families still use the river as a water supply when they are at their homes. After liaising with and receiving permission from staff at Chambo Health Centre (which has it’s own clean water supply), we paid for a survey to check that it was possible to bring water via an underground pipe to the primary school and have taps installed outside the primary school.
We were delighted when we got the green light from the water department staff, health centre staff and, of course, The Kitchen Table Charities Trust. As you might imagine, all this took time to implement. Prices have been escalating in Malawi and this has also caused issues whilst we have been trying to stick to a budget. The headteacher at Chambo Primary, whilst being extremely thankful and pleased that the school would have clean water, rightly wanted the digging of the trench delayed by a few weeks until school holidays. No one would have wanted either children or staff tripping and falling into a hole in the playground! We also had to wait for this part of the project to finish to check costs before moving onto the next part of the project.
In addition to the clean water part of the grant, we asked for money for desks and benches. Only one classroom out of the eight classes already had desks and benches. We originally thought we would have enough money to get desks and benches made for three classrooms but unfortunately, due to price rises, we didn’t manage to do this. However, two classrooms now have new desks and benches and the students are enjoying not having to sit on the floor.
Whilst employing qualified plumbers and carpenters, part of what we wanted was the opportunity for some of the young people who are supported at the Foundation to be able to gain some experience by observing and helping with some of the more straightforward tasks. It’s been a real team effort.
We had previously gifted seventeen boxes of books to Chambo Primary School as part of our School Literacy Project. We hope to help children become more confident readers by having access to a wide range of reading material. What I hadn’t understood until recently is that all these boxes of books were being stacked and kept in the headteacher’s office. This was the only place in the school with a door that locked so poor Mr Nyondo was surrounded by boxes of books! So, with the grant money, locks were bought for the four classrooms that have doors and book shelves are being made so the books can be distributed between those four classrooms and they will be kept safely as these classrooms now have locking doors. We hope, in future, that we might have money to put doors on the remaining four classrooms.
I could keep writing about this project as I’m so pleased at how it has all worked out. I’m so thankful that The Kitchen Table Charities Trust liked our proposal and trusted us to carry out these improvements with their grant money. None of it was to benefit our charity or the Foundation we support directly, however this was a project that we could see would have huge benefits for vulnerable children we support and the community in general. It makes the hard work worthwhile when you see photos of smiling children enjoying sitting at desks, drinking clean water and reading books. We also provided buckets and cups with the grant money and our charity donated exercise books, pencils and bars of soap.
Thank you so much to everyone involved in helping us continue Changing Lives (in) Malawi. I also want to thank Levison Mlambya, the Foundation Director, whom we work with very closely on a daily basis. Levison works tirelessly for his community and always puts others above himself. As well as project managing these improvements for Chambo Primary, he has also been project managing the building of classrooms 3 & 4 of Bright Futures Secondary School and a teachers accommodation block. The carpenters were going back and forward between projects when they were needed so there was a lot to organise! 2023 was a very busy year! I hope you enjoy the photos and videos, Sarah x
Chambo Primary School – School Literacy Project Visit 18/10/21
Great News for Chambo Primary School
Chambo Primary has clean water!
Chambo Primary: Clean Water/Latrines/Desks & BFSS gifts of clothes for students
