The first thing I couldn’t help but notice was the lush
vegetation, not something I was expecting but I have arrived in rainy season
and this year the rains have been good so beautiful shades of green are
abundant.
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. Tobacco
has historically been the number one cash crop with some exports of tea and
coffee therefore the economy is fragile. Maize is grown for subsistence but is
becoming increasingly insufficient to feed the rapidly expanding
population. There is only one crop a
year and so the months we are in now are commonly known as the hunger months
because the maize is running out and people anxiously await the next harvest.
In Lilongwe maize is grown absolutely everywhere, wherever
there is a square metre of land it will be planted with maize. Lilongwe is an
unusual city in that it is very spread out. The area in which I live is known
as the city because it hosts embassies, banks, the main conference centre and
plush hotels. The other two main areas are old town and new town that are
joined across a river by a sprawling market. There are several big supermarkets
and household stores in the new town selling pretty much anything you might
need although not all within a volunteer budget.
I realise at this point that this is really boring without
photos but I haven’t got any good ones of the city so far!
On to more interesting stuff!
I have now visited five of the seven schools I will be
managing the project in, observed another volunteer delivering training on how
to run a learning centre, taken part in registering children and joined my project
manager at a very posh council committee meeting in the civic assembly rooms.
Not bad for the first two weeks!
Schools are in a crazy state. The Ministry of Education has
worked hard to achieve the MDG of education for all. Primary education is free
and most children start school although only about 17% finish primary. A huge
increase in the amount of children going to school has not been matched by an
increase in classrooms or teachers.
One of the schools I will be supporting has 4500 children and
only 11 classrooms. Because of this standards 1 & 2 start school at 7.30
and finish at 10.00 to allow standards 4 & 5 to use their classrooms from
10.00 until 12.30. Some classes are taught under shelters outside whilst others
are having break, as you can imagine this is far from satisfactory, the poor
teacher is standing at the front of 100+ children who are trying to follow what
she is saying whilst other children are running around them playing. It is
mayhem; children are in school but the quality of learning…
The Unlocking Talent project at least allows children to
have 30 minutes a week of maths teaching from a digital teacher in their own
language.
Each school
taking part in the project has a learning center, which is a purpose built
classroom equipped with a cabinet storing 29 learner ipads, 1 teacher ipad, two
batteries, a charge controller, the school server allowing internet access and
mats for the children to sit on. The Internet is not necessary for children to
work on the ipads it is just necessary for uploading data and project
monitoring.
Before a
learning center is opened at a school we hold a sensitization meeting with all
local stakeholders: PTA, local chiefs, police, local education committees etc.
The purpose of this meeting is to develop a sense of community ownership of the
learning centers so that theft of solar panels will be less likely and if it
does happen the community will be active in retrieving the stolen goods. When
people have a go on the ipads they seem to be very excited about how they will
support their children’s learning.
Sensitization
meeting (before having a go on the ipads, they did look excited later!)
The next
step is to train the teachers on using the learning center and how to register
their children.
Practicing
with the registration process with the teacher ipad
Then the teachers need to register each child individually with their
photo and name, this can take some time as in many schools they have 400+
children in each year group.
This school
was a very well managed school and the fantastic teachers getting the children
organized efficiently helped registration; these children are waiting to come
in and be registered.
Another part of my role on the Unlocking Talent project is taking on some of the project management. In preparation for this and to gain a greater understanding of the project I am working alongside Yesani, the project manager. Here I am doing the very important job of changing the slides on the powerpoint!
As with any
initiative it is always necessary to build good relationships with the
politicians and this meeting at the council assembly rooms in Lilongwe was all
about raising the profile of the project and welcoming support from council
members and other stakeholders.
Well it has
been a hectic fortnight and this really is just a snapshot of what has been
going on. Over the next year I will hopefully be able to go into more detail
about a lot of things but that’s it for now.
Please do
comment, ask questions, let me know you’re reading and it will encourage me to
write!
Zikomo
Papa Kate
