Schooling
Brighter Futures Through Education
At Support Malawi, we firmly believe that quality education is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty.
With this in mind, we have built 2 primary schools and 2 secondary schools which are consistently top performers in their educational zones. We have modelled them as grant aided schools which means we work hand-in-hand with the relevant Department of Education to ensure we are meeting the needs of the children to perform to the highest level possible.
We encourage our children to work hard all the way through their school years. To be able to give the children the gift of choice once they finish their secondary education is the greatest gift ever.
Here are some children from Namisu Primary School planning early for their futures! We have a teacher, nurse, policeman, farmer and 2 soldiers…….watch this space!
Hot meals at lunchtime
Both of our primary schools provide a hot meal for the children at lunchtime. When we say the children……we mean all of the children who attend the schools. That’s around 1,100 meals prepared every day! It’s quite a production line!
Some of the children walk for many kilometres before reaching school. Add to that also having to work in the family garden before school then it’s no wonder that the younger ones can’t make it to the end of lessons before sleep takes over.
Shhhhh!
All of our schools have well stocked libraries where the children are encouraged to attend after-school lessons and revision sessions at exam time.
We also use the library facilities to hold literacy and numeracy classes for adults from our local communities, most of whom weren’t able to finish their own schooling due to lack of school fees.
Girl’s Hostel, Umodzi
Poverty is the number one reason why students drop out of school and don’t get the opportunity to complete their education. In particular, girls face the biggest challenges. Sadly if their family isn’t able to pay the school fees, they are likely to be married early (sometimes as young as 13 years old) to ease the burden on the family. More often this then leads to teenage pregnancies and the girls are then caught in the cycle of poverty that, had they been able to finish school, they may have been able to break.
At Umodzi we noticed that in Form 1, the first year of secondary education, there was 50/50 split of girls and boys. This very quickly declined as the years progressed until the final year, Form 4, we saw a 80/20 split favouring boy students. Clearly we needed to take action to address the imbalance which lead us to building a girl’s residential hostel with the sole aim to keep girls in education…..and it’s working! We are proud to now have a more even split between girls and boys.
First-Time Comforts
Almost all of the girls who move into the hostel will have never slept in a bed before or been able to enjoy 3 meals per day.
We take care of the basic needs so that they can concentrate on their schoolwork. They are very proud of their dormitories which always look immaculate. Well done, girls!
It’s always a very exciting day when the students who have been selected to go to university or college flee the nest! We provide them with everything they need to begin the next chapter of their education. Along with the fees, we provide a laptop, upkeep and pocket money and stay in close contact with them to continue to encourage and monitor their progress. Good luck!