Students taught lessons at Ulande School in Mang’umbi village
Materials for the school
Pat and Bryony were impressed with the facilities at this local clinic in a village on Lake Malawi.
We plan to continue supporting this clinic on future visits.
Nkhudzi Bay Community Trust clinic
Bryony gives donations to Agness Nyasulu
The theme of the trip was supporting education.
The group visited several schools, many of them in very rural settings, supporting their learning, playing sport and helping in their feeding programme.
Nat reads to a small group of enthusiastic children
Becky plays ball with a group
Cataloguing books in one of the school libraries supported by the lodge where the group stayed
We took in part in borehole monitoring which involved surveying boreholes in the local area to asses whether they were functioning or not. We went out in teams to check the status of known boreholes and help repair them. This survey also allowed us the opportunity to monitor the quality of the borehole water.
Bryony at work with the field testing kit
Using a field kit the water was tested for faecal coliforms and in particular E.coli, with some very alarming results, with some water sources showing heavy E.coli contamination.
Work like this allows identification of contamination so that action can be taken which will help to provide safe water to communities, as a single borehole can supply 100s of people (Bryony Down)
Students reading to young pupils at Mpemba Library, one of the projects supported by Fisherman’s Rest, the lodge where we stayed in Malawi. This helped the children improve their English language skills and was fun for all!
This nursery teaches 157 children under five.
During our stay at Nanchengwa lodge at Lake Malawi we visited Mdalacikowa Nursery where we all donated some toys as they had nothing before we arrived. The children’s smiles lit up the room when we gave them each a toy to play with. We spent two mornings playing with the children, this was a lovely experience and really good fun. They sang twinkle twinkle little star to us in English and they loved playing clapping games. Beth Doda
Bryony with excited young children at the nursery
We went to help a village high up in the mountainous region, too far and treacherous for any vehicle to enter carrying building supplies such as bricks. We arrived to be engulfed by a large group of the children, as was the case at most villages we worked at. We met a group of villagers who were making bricks from the water, mud and clay dust which was available from the ground itself. The process involved mixing water and mud together with hoes, then all of us jumping around in the mixture till it was a smooth dough like consistency. I definitely shouldn’t have worn jeans! The mixture was then placed in casts and left to dry in the sun. As we started to get involved more and more villagers came out to help which showed a strong sense of community. Sunny Nahal
Getting dirty making mud bricks to build a classroom
..we read to children…
..we taught in schools…
..we prepared teaching materials…