Two weeks into my new life

Two weeks ago I took the train from Leigh-on-sea for the last time until next year. My parents helped me to trawl my luggage across London, my mum never once letting go of my brand new crash helmet, to Heathrow airport for the start of a new adventure. After stopping off in Addis Ababa for a spectacular Ethiopian sunset I arrived in Lilongwe, here are my first impressions of what is known to be the friendliest country in Africa.

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

Teachers are using the Apps and seeing what the children will be learning. The Apps were designed to match the Malawian national curriculum and all instruction is in Chichewa.

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