Queen honours Malawi Education Link founder
Queen Elizabeth, has awarded the founder of Malawi Education Link (MEL) an MBE in the New Year Honours list for services to the developing southern African nation.
Caroline Hansford of Huntingdon was awarded for her exemplary work improving schools in Malawi.
Hansford has been running a charity in Malawi for over a decade working in partnership with local schools in the Nkhotakota and Dwangwa area to improve facilities and help teachers and students gain a better environment to work and learn.
She regularly brings out students from the United Kingdom to Malawi to help build and improve schools .
Hansford is currently in Malawi.
In her reaction to the MBE honours, the charity boss said she was “overwhelmed.”
She said Malawi Education Link is for the hundreds of volunteers “willing to place themselves in my hands.”
She added: “They are the ones who have done all the fundraising and helped build the schools – I’m just a facilitator who knows how things work in Africa.”
She said she finally relented and allowed her name to be put forward after being “metaphorically smacked on the knuckles” by friends who encouraged her to see the honour as positive for MEL, not just herself, according to The Hunt Post.
