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Monday Jun 01, 2009

Running a nursery on a shoe string

I’m working (with my Malawian counterpart) at a nursery school in a semi-rural, fairly poor village. When we arrived at the nursery school we found the following resources: a dirty but sizeable room, a small plastic table too high for children, and a bucket with two cups. There were also, thankfully, 6 eager and saintly teachers, who were all Mums from the community, volunteering without monetary reward and (here’s the downfall) without training or experience. Enrollment was 20 children, though around 200 live in the catchment area.

Can you imagine the challenges you might face trying to sustainably develop such a place? I was daunted. How could I improve a nursery and teach 2-5 year olds when I have no experience or training? How could I communicate with children and teachers with no common language? How could we run a nursery with no paper, crayons, paint, or toys? How could we create a good learning environment with no cleaning equipment, nothing to decorate with, no cement to fill the holes in the floor and no glass to mend the jagged broken windows?

Well, the answer is that we couldn’t. But we didn’t have to. Actually, it seems you never really have NOTHING to work with, and the key is to seek out and pursue every minute opportunity available to you. My incredible Malawian counterpart has helped me build up my confidence, and has eased communication by teaching me Chichewa (the local language) and translating for me. In the face of no resources, we found ourselves pummeling cassava to make glue and flowers to make paint, collecting plastic bottles, containers, boxes, bamboo and scraps of fabric from the tailors to make dolls, instruments, building materials and decorations… In the face of no resources, we became very resourceful! And actually, very soon we had decorated our classroom and provided “toys” for the children without spending a single penny. It was wonderful to see the change.

Posted by Sally ( 3:22 PM )
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