UK education charity in MK31.5mil school project in Kasungu
A UK-based charity organization, St. Peter’s Malawi Education Trust, has mobilized a total of MK31.5m (£35,000) for the construction of seven classrooms at Chalizya LEA School in Kasungu.
According to the Trust’s Public Relations Officer, Sapulain Chitonde, in whose honour the Trust was founded, the construction of the classrooms will be done during the Easter period of 2018.
“The Trust has been registered under Charity No 1171615 in United Kingdom and it’s aimed at promoting education in Kasungu by constructing school blocks, starting with Chalizya LEA School in Senior Group Village Headman Mnyanja, Sub-Traditional Authority Chitanthamapiri,” explained Chitonde.
He said the project would also include construction of staff houses, provision of clean water for the pupils, and distribution of mosquito nets to fight malaria in the surrounding communities.
Chitonde said in July this year a small team would be visiting Malawi to establish links with the British High Commission, the Malawi Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and the area’s traditional leaders to draw plans for the project.
The Trust’s spokesperson said in 2007 he was adopted by a team from St. Peter’s High School of England who had come to visit the St. Andrew’s Anglican Church at Mtunthama where he, then 18, was learning.
His stay in England with the family of a Mr. Andrew Hubbard, team leader and Deputy Head Teacher of the visiting school, and later with the family of Dr. Peter Lee and Dr. Sally Ewings, gave the young man an opportunity to appeal to his newly-found family for support of his former primary school, Chalizya, which was then dilapidated.
In 2008, a group of 40 volunteers among them members of the British Army, private engineers, architects, brick layers and many others flew into the country and camped at Chimbiya Village to work on the renovations of Chalizya Primary School.
“Since 2008 the project has been ongoing and as we speak now, there are four well-constructed classrooms and with the seven more that the Trust intends to construct next year, there will be a total of 11 classrooms,” explained Chitonde.
He added that the school will also have solar electricity to help the pupils study during off school hours while the community will use the electricity to power their mobile phones.
The Trust will also donate over 500 reusable sanitary kits to girls as a way of keeping them in school when they have their monthly cycles.
“The girls will be trained on how to use the sanitary cup effectively,” he explained, adding, “The cost for one sanitary cup is £20 (around MK18,000) and it would last for 10 years.”
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