Sensitisation Workshops

Over the last six weeks or so we have been holding sensitisation workshops in the area within a 5 km radius of the Edinburgh Girls School.  The purpose is to engage the local community in the proposed developments we want to bring to the area.
The workshops were intended to raise awareness and understanding of what development means - it is a hand up and not a hand out and the people have to be involved and the develpoment proposals must fit in with what they want for their area. 



Workshop at Engcongolweni

 We got off to a good start with almost 100 people turning up for the first meeting which was held at Engcongolweni with the Inkosana and the village chiefs in attendance - this was important to give credence to the meetings. We followed up with similar meetings in Chisangano and Enthongeni.

The Chief reporting on his group discussion

At each meeting the facilitator first introduced the days events, held a tutorial session then sent the participants off in groups to discuss their needs and come back for a plenary session. Everyone took part and the resluts were very positive and encouraging.


Each village has it's own Village Development Committee (VDC) but it was part ot the programme that they were encouraged to form one committee to oversee the developments within the 5 km radius and to unite them rather than having them pulling against each other.  At the end of the workshops it was becoming obvious that we were achieving our aims.


It was then agreed that all future meetings would be held in the new classrooms of the Edinburgh Girls High School and this is now the focal point.  We suggested a meeting for Training and Advocacy to be held at the school and asked for 200 representatives from each of the VDC's.  We were delighted on the day to have almost 40 people in attendance.


1st use of the new class room

 Our new classroom was an ideal venue and we were happy to be able to make use of the premises.






This was a morning session and at the end of the morning it was agreed that a committee would be formed with representatives from each of the VDC's.  This committee will attend all future meetings and report back to their respective villages.

Training in progress

Question and answer session

The proposed projects are goat and pig farming and tailoring classes.  These will be income generating activities and eventually the groups will be encouraged to set up working co-operatives.

The programme has been drawn up for the small scale livestock projects and sessions will begin next week and continue over the next two months.  Farmers will be indentified for goats and for pigs and will be trained in feeding and caring methods.  Suitable secure pens for the animals built in preparation for the handover of the livestock which will take place in March next year.

The staff house is now completed and with the onset of the rainy season construction work has come to a  halt.  We have been on the receiving end of some very generous funding from Singapore and will be in a position to continue with construction once the rainy season is over - around April next year.  We have sold the Trust vehicle which served us well for the past four years but with a mileage of over 300,000kms it was considered time to look for something else.  So we are now scouring the markets for a suitable vehicle.

The Trust office in Mzuzu is now closed for the Christmas holidays and I'm taking what I think is a well deserved break and returning to Scotland for 9 weeks.  I know the weather has been extremely cold with heavy snowfalls so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there are no airport closures next week and I reach home safely.

To all out followers we wish you a Happy Christmas and all the Best for 2011................Blogs will be back next year but for now follow us on on The Chesney Trust Facebook page and join us if you haven't already!

Staff House

It's been a busy month one way or another with very little time to spare for blogging but hopefully some of our followers have been keeping up with progress on Facebook.
The staff house is nearing completion with only the internal finishing to be done.  This will be delayed until after Christmas as we are just a little bit short of finances at the moment.


Staff house nearing completion




We will make the house secure with solid wooden exterior doors and the glass will be put inthe windows and that will have to do until we can get the painter in to finish off.
We were promised the house would be ready in six weeks and it is thanks to the supreme effort of the young man employed to undertake the construction......well done Mr Soko!



20,000 bricks built in to kiln ready for firing

 Following the visit of the Outlook Expedition volunteers and their brick making we had more bricks made so that we could have these built in to a kiln ready for firing.  This task has now been completed and the kiln built.  The firing will take place on Friday of this week.




Tomorrow, Thursday, we will open the door of one of the classrooms to some of the local community for a workshop.  We have been holding sensitisation wrokshops over thelast few weeks in the three main areas within the 5 kms radius of the school.  We listenend to the concerns and issues raised by the local community and the workshops now will be for training and advocacy.
We have now received our three hand operated sewing machines from UK and will hopefully soon begin  the tailoring training programme.  This involves bringing a trainer from the Lydia Foundation in Zomba who will train six local women in basic women and girls clothing.  These women will then train others and they will set up a co-operative to generate an income for them and improve their living standards.  This is part of our plan for the improvement of the lives of the local community.
With only a few weeks left until I come home for the Christmas break a busy time ahead and unlikely that we will start the tailoring classes until I return.  I will keep you all posted of any developments.

Good luck with the sales at the Christmas Fair this weekend ......have fun!

The Handover

  On Friday 1st October the long awaited handover of the first class room blocks for the Edinburgh Girls’ High School (Malawi) finally took place.

It was a colourful and joyful occasion recorded for us by TV Malawi and Una Purdie who is currently in Malawi visiting and filming Scottish funded projects for the Scotland Malawi Partnership. Our guests included the T/A Inkosi Mtwalo, Inkosana Jere, the Village Chiefs and Headmen from the surrounding villages, representatives from the Divisional Education Offices, Mr Kumwenda from the Community Education Department, Mr Harawa from the NGO Board of Malawi, the chief of police from Ekwendeni, the head teachers and staff from Engcongolweni, Chisangano and Enthongeni Primary Schools, Mr Mukumbwe of Fukumele Building Contractors, Mr Mike Lwanda, the architect and design consultant for the project, other invited guests, members of the local community, boys and girls from the three primary schools and the Chesney Trust Board in Malawi – a lot of people! Then there was me, Chesney or Janetee as I’m known locally!

Entertainment was provided by the three primary schools, singing, dancing and dramas.

Chisangano girls rehearsing and then performing with Chesney joining in - as custom requires

Engcongolweni Girls Choir sang a very moving tribute to Chesney Trust thanking the Trust for the donations made to the school of a computer and printer and now for this school that they can look forward to joining in the future.

The boys, not to be left out, performed a drama on the importance of education

While the girls from Engcongolweni danced.

Then it was the turn of the girls’ choir from Enthongeni and the local women.

Finally came the handover of the keys from the contractor, to the consultant and finally to Rev Henry Mvula, Chairman of the Malawi Board. Unfortunately I was so busy running back and forth for the TV Malawi people with the people they wanted to interview that I didn’t get any photos of the day. All the photos were taken by Una’s friend Janet MacDonald who is accompanying her on her visit to Malawi – thank you Janet! Una has promised me some stills so once I have them I will post the actual handover. I do have one of Mike explaining to the people that this is just the first phase of a much bigger project and that it will take time to complete.

Una and Janet thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience, Una from behind the camera and Janet who mingled with the crowd and eventually had to cover up due to the extreme heat and the blazing African sun – she is the one under the pink wrap!

Sorry Janet, but I couldn’t leave you out!



Volunteers 2010

Hard on the heels of our first group Little Heath Group 1 arrived.  They spent 3 days on site and produced at total of 2012 bricks.  They experieinced the problems and difficulties of the local community, particularly with access to water but they took up the challenge and fetched and carried water from the nearest borehole some 700 metres from where they were making the bricks.  They did try to carry the pails on their heads like the local women but had to give in to that method!     Their last day was spent going to church with the local community in the morning, enjoying a lunch prepared for them after the service and then in the afternoon taking on the local team in a game of football.  The game proceeded at break neck speed with the locals showing their flair and coming out winners in the end with a 2-1 score.  This group had carried out a laptop computer from Outlook Expeditions to be donated to the Trust and this was duly handed over to our visiting trustee from Scotland, Lyndsey McLennan.  After what they all agreed was a far too short visit they headed off for their safari in the south of the country but not before handing out 'goodies' to Baxter Gondwe, head teacher of the local primary school for the children at the school and the sewing kits that had been donated by the school for the womens tailoring classes to be run by the Trust.

Having said goodbye to the group we then welcomed our final group, Little Heath Group 2.  The buzz of excitement generated by this group was electric!  They had been given such good reports from their friends in Group 1 that they were most anxious to get to the site and get started. They were determined to beat the number of bricks made by their fellow group and did in fact make 2052 bricks (from memory so they will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong!).  I found them thoroughly enjoying trampling in the mud, singing as they worked and obviously very happy.  The photos say it all!

On Sunday, their last day, they went to Church in the morning and then joined Elias and his family at their home for a traditional meal.  They enjoyed rice and chicken with vegetables - rice being offered to the guests.  Normally it is nsima that Malawians eat.  This is prepared with maize flour (cornflour) and although filling provides no nutrional value - I have to say it is an aquired taste!  After the meal the group presented hand made cards to Elias, Watson and Henry, thanking them for showing them how to make the bricks and welcoming them in to their community.  It was then time to go outside for a demonstration on making nsima.  Once prepared of course everyone had to try it and they were again served up with a plate of nsima and vegetables and to their credit they consumed the lot!  So, well fed they set off down the hill to the village for what has now become a tradition - the Sunday afternoon football match.  Before the match the group presented me with sewing kits and an assortment of small toys.  The sewing kits will be for the tailoring classes and the toys - well more about that next time.

We are extremely grateful to each of the groups for all of their efforts, bush clearing, cleaning the maize mill brick work, filling in drum holes (huge potholes) in the access road and moulding over 5000 bricks.  The bricks will be stock piled for future use as we will require to build a security wall around the hostels and the classrooms.  Their participation was total and they all integrated well with the local community and joined in with the activities prepared for them.  Each of the groups camped at the local primary school where there is access to boreholes and clean drinking water.  Baxter Gondwe, head master, had organised bathing facilites African style for them and gave an animated demonstration of both the use of the 'showers' and the pit latrines.  He has a block of pit latrines kept specially for visitors which he emphasised time and again.

Everyone involved has given positive feedback with our volunteers experiencing the hospitality of the Warm Heart of Africa and giving our Malawian friends, as they put it, stories to tell their children of the time we spent with the visitors from England.

So to everyone involved, yewo chomene!

Our First Group of 2010 Volunteers

We welcomed our first group of 14 volunteers from High Worth Grammar School in Kent to the site last week with  Engcongolweni Primary School hosting the visitors in the school grounds, providing washing and toilet facilities - African style! The group worked very hard at bush clearing and then brick making - a staggering 1052 bricks in a day and a half - and in between time they enjoyed meeting the local children, attending church, playing football, socialising with local families and sampling Malawian food and hospitality.  They will be posting their own blog and linking it to our website so more to read about from them.

On their last evening they camped in my back yard in Mzuzu as they had an early start to their journey south the next day. It was great company for me on a very cold Mzuzu night as the group was in good spirits, not dampened by the rain or the cold as you can see from the photos ...........if I manage to get them uploaded!

Well, I seem to have them uploaded but I wish I could figure out how to have them placed with the text flowing round the photos..................hints and suggestions welcomed.

Before leaving Engcongolweni they donated lots of stationery, pens, pencils, pencil cases etc to the primary school as a thank you for the hospitality provided them.  They also donated sewing kits for the women's tailoring classes due to start once the classroom blocks are completed.  Thank you to this group for all their hard work and we hope you will follow our progress and perhaps take up the Pedometer Challenge on your return - full details on our website.

Back to Malawi

After a break at home for 6 weeks I was quite looking forward to coming back as word from Malawi was that the classroom blocks were finished and due to be handed over on the 15th July and the staff house would be 3 weeks later. This was a 'malawianism'!  Imagine my disappointment when I found that the classroom blocks were not finished and the staff house not even off the ground. It looks as though it will be another couple of months - given the rate of progress of the contractor - unless we take drastic action...............hmmm..............that just doesn't work in Malawi.................manyana, manyana, manaya comes to mind.  They will tell you it will be ready on Monday but don't tell you which Monday.  Is that this week, next week, sometime never????????? It's very frustrating but just for the record here is where we are:

Two classroom blocks nearing completion!

We now have our first group of volunteers from Outlook Expeditions here so some interesting postings to come next time.

Another Site Meeting

Another site meeting this morning but once again we are disappointed at the rate of progress.  We are 16 weeks behind schedule with a finish date now of 10th July for the class room blocks and I have to say I'm less than hopeful .  For the staff house the contractor has been given until 31st July and it is unlikely that the house will be completed by then. 

The site was visited recently by Kennedy Nkana, Statistics Officer for Mzimba North Education Division and he was delighted that such a development is taking place within his area.  We hope to be able to take 20 girls form the surrounding area who have dropped out of school back in to the education system and this is welcomed by the education division.

Since our last visit 3 weeks ago the only difference is that the windows frames have now been set and the beam above is in place............

We recently donated a desk top computer to Engcongolweni Primary School and the head master and the staff are now putting this to good use.  In the photo is Baxter Gondwe, head teacher at the school surrounded by Scottish flags!

While we were at the school we met with the students who want to join the drop-outs class  and we met with the Engcongolweni Girl Guides.................

Latest News............that was almost a month ago...........network's been down, down, down!!!!

 4th May: I have been struggling with a very poor signal so access to the internet has been practically non existent.  I have a Wifi dongle and it is slower than the 14kbps dial up!  Try to open a website...........go make some tea, maybe when I come back it will have loaded..........no , not yet, OK..........check what the garden boy is doing.............loaded now?  Oh no 'cannot display the web page' and that has been the situation for almost two weeks.  How am I managing to get on today, well just bought a Wifi card from a different ISP and bingo...........I'm online.  My first task was to get to my online banking to transfer my monthly funds for my living expenses out here and all was going well until I hit the 'submit' button.......,.slow down, melt down then a message from the bank ' sorry we are experiencing some problems, please try again later'...............does somebody up there not like me or what...................aaaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Anyway that's all part of life out here so down to business which again has been slow and problematic but we are overcoming the difficulties..........an old 60's song comes to mind (for those of you old enough to remember - 'we shall overcome')  yes a sense of humour is essential.  See below:

17th March: How time flys when you're busy, or having fun - I've just realised the last post was on 20th February so what have I been doing with my time?  Well........we had deadlines to meet for project proposals and we were working flat out but sadly we were not successful with either the Scottish Government call for proposals or with Fondation Ensemble but we remain optimistic and we keep plodding on.

Progress at the site has been slow, marred by the rain and, would you believe, strikes by the labourers!  Yes, it happens here in Malawi too.  Thankfully the problem is NOT with Chesney Trust it is a problem for the contractor and his employees but nonetheless it has a knock on effect and as a result the construction has slowed down.  Our consultant has called for a site meeting with the contractor to resolve the difficulties and this will take place next week.  Hopefully the outcome will be satisfactory and work will begin again.

The photos taken on site yesterday show the progress to date although we had expected the classroom blocks to be completed by now.

4th May: The consultant who is looking after the project  called a site meeting and the contractor has been told in no uncertain terms to 'get his act together' and  the classrooms have to be completed by the end of June  and the staff house by the end of July.  So hopefully............

Now the battle to upload the photos begins.............

Well, that wasn't so bad...................we are getting there with construction.  What I can say is that a very high profile lady's ground breaking ceremony was a week after ours and the following photo was taken last week..............so some comfort knowing that despite having mega bucks, this is still Malawi and it will be done in Malawi time!!

Latest News from Malawi

Site meeting with the consultant 18th February 2010

On Thursday the architect from DSA came for a meeting at the site with the contractor and Chesney Trust. He was there to check on progress and take samples of mixtures for analysis of mortar mix, check the quality of the S.S.B’s and the standard of work in general.

Let the photos show the progress so far:

                                     

After inspecting the work we sat down to the site meeting. This was progressing well until it was interrupted by heavy rain and a thunderstorm and we had to scramble for cover. It was agreed that the work was of a good standard but the contract has over run the deadline of 25th January 2010 and the contractor was advised to speed up or suffer damages for delays. A revised work programme is to be submitted to DSA for consideration and approval.

On Friday 19th February 2010 the project was visited by Karen Gillon MSP during her visit to Malawi.  Karen has visited the site on two previous occasions and was amazed at the trasnformation to the area with the completion of the bridge, the construction of the maize mill house and now the work started on site for the school.  We were accompanied by a team from Malawi Television News as a follow up to their visit when the ground breaking ceremony took place last October.  Karen was invited to lay some bricks and was more than happy to oblige.  Accompanying Karen was Charlotte Ager,  a former pupil of Mary Erskine Stewarts Melville school.

The local Chief, Inkosana Lazaro Jere welcomed the visitors back to the project.  Everyone was intervied for TVM news.

It was a visit enjoyed by all present .

.

Rain, Rain and yet more Rain!

Yes, it's that time of year again when you don't venture out without the raincoat and the umbrella although with the torrential rain neither offers much protection.  Not my favourite time of year as it is hot and steamy.  There was an earthquake in Karonga at the beginning of January with aftershocks lasting over a week and the tremors were felt as far south as Mzuzu.  It was a bit strange to see parked cars shaking and the furniture in the house shaking but no damage in Mzuzu.  There has been severe damage in Karonga and some deaths but aid is there and people are being put up in tents and assisted with clean water etc.  I understand it was 6.something but the damage is much less severe than that in Haiti.

We have been very busy in the office after the Christmas break with lots of paper work to catch up on but we are now begining to see the wood from the trees. Unfortunatley not the same can be said for the progress on the school site as that has been hampered by the rains.  I visited the site last week and the surrounding bush is now a lush green and the vegation is reaching for the sky so it looks as though there will be plenty of bush clearing work for our volunteers coming out again in July and August.  We have had confirmation from Outlook Expeditions that we are to receive three groups of volunteers this year so we are now planning work programmes and activity/entertainment programmes for the groups.  The bush clearing done by the volunteers last year saved us in time and money as this did not have to be done by the contractor.

On site the foundations have been completed for the two classroom blocks and the pit latrines have been lined but as we are using soil stabilised bricks construction has been held up by the rain as these bricks must be kept dry.  The foundations for the staff house will be dug out and further pit latrines so there is still work to be going on with.

As soon as we have some up to date photos I will post them on the website.