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Monday Jun 08, 2009

Sustainability

The next step was to make it sustainable. We went to the Town Assembly to find out why they weren’t supporting the nursery, and were given the phone number of the government worker responsible for nursery schools. We called her and arranged to meet in three days time. Two days later, I was napping in the nursery after classes when a huge shiny white 4-by-4 pulled up. The logo on the side showed me it was a Unicef car. I woke up as quickly as possible and greeted the Unicef and government officers responsible for nursery schools in Malawi! They promised us massive assistance, but first we had to move the nearby primary school from our building.

Our next, and most promising, move was to meet the local MP. In that meting, he agreed to build two primary school blocks so that Unicef can begin their work at the nursery. He’s also pushing our proposals for income-generating activities for the nursery, so that they can continue to function without regular donors. He has delivered 100kg of rice to make porridge for the children (many of whom miss school because of hunger). And he gave us a large immediate donation to buy essential items, and especially toys for the children. As you might imagine, we were walking on sunshine on the way home that day!

Things now are looking really positive. As I write, 75 children’s names are on the school register, and we see new faces every day. Together, Unicef, the Malawi government and the local MP have promised all the assistance, resources, classroom maintenance and teacher-training we need. GX certainly seems to have passed on to me some of the secrets of sustainable development! And it’s wonderful to have been given the opportunity to leave such a positive long-term impact on the school and its surrounding community.

Posted by Sally ( 4:08 PM )
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