You will certainly all remember the shelter school. It was our first contact with Malawi and our starting point for Marajowi. Funds permitting, we decided to try and sponsor the activities ongoing there for two different reasons.
First of all, to try and make Gresham’s dream (i.e. contribute actively to the education of the youth of Nkhata Bay) come true. Gresham’s support to Marajowi is valuable and essential, but he currently does not have any source of income. We need to do something there or sooner or later we will lose him. Moreover, also partly because of the bad administration of the current Director, the shelter school does not have any sponsor and it would otherwise be destined to close down immediately for lack of resources. That would be a big loss for the community of Nkhata Bay.
After a lot of negotiations and discussions we agreed with the local community and its chiefs that the shelter school should change everything. First of all, the current Director, Happy, was demoted. He will now have only a role of advisor and will help mobilising the community when needed. Gresham will take the role of Director and will take care of the day to day running activities and administration of the shelter. Together with Mrs Mwasangwale he will be responsible also to give lessons to the children. In order to be able to provide proper assistance, their number will be limited to 35 (currently there are more than 60 children attending the shelter). These will be selected (with the help of the local community) among the most vulnerable ones.
Thanks also to the generosity of some of you during the Christmas time, we have funds to take care of this for the first quarter of the year. In the meanwhile we will keep a close eye on that and see how to proceed.
Below the breakdown of the first expenses:
– Rent of the shelter: 10.000 Kwa/month (4 months to be sponspored thanks to Apotex Nederland B.V);
– Monthly allowance for Mrs Mwasangwale: 3000 Kwa (thanks to Piet and Janny);
– 4 boxes of chalk: 500 Kwa/box (thanks to Julie Quayle & Wesley Hackett);
– 1 tin of blackboard paint: 4500 Kwa (thanks to Julie Quayle & Wesley Hackett);
– 8 units of exercise books: 400 Kwa/unit (thanks to Julie Quayle & Wesley Hackett);
– 1 unit of red pens: 400 Kwa (thanks to Julie Quayle & Wesley Hackett);
– 2 blackboard dusters: 750 Kwa each (thanks to Julie Quayle & Wesley Hackett);
– Chairs refurbishment: 8000 Kwa (thanks to Apotex Nederlands B.V.);
– Extra blackboard: 10200 Kwa (thanks to Mairead Minto & Christian Hoult).
For your information 1€ = 216 Kwa.
