School Building and Repairs
School Fees | Students | Irrigation/Food | School Buildings | Literacy
Opening celebration of MSP‘s first school block
Why and where our school building work began
Dilapidated, inadequate school buildings
When MSP first visited some of the primary schools in this part of Malawi in 2016, we quickly realised that they needed much more than just assistance with buying exercise books and pencils. There are far too few classrooms for the teachers and children to work in anything approaching comfort or in some cases to work at all. Very few primary school classrooms have furniture. Some are structurally dangerous. They suffer from leaking roofs, unfinished floors, missing windows, and uneven and pitted floors.
Mwanazanga Primary School
In January 2017 the school had just 3 school blocks with 2 schoolrooms each, that’s 6 classrooms in total for the school’s then 1,400-odd students. A volunteer had paid to have four grass roof shelters erected. Within a few months, they had collapsed in the rains.
The need was so obvious, and the cost so small by UK standards, that it seemed ridiculous not to try to build replacement classrooms at the school.
By February 2017 a 4th a fourth block (MSP‘s first) was under construction, with the assistance of a locally appointed management committee and project manager. It was completed in May 2017.
Digging foundations for the new classroom block at Mwanazanga
The opening ceremony, a “tent” for VIPs, and chairs brought on bicycles from a neighbouring school. There was singing and dancing and speeches
The 2 classrooms were in use the following day. With the knowhow, knowledge and experience we had gained, and – wonderfully – enough money in the bank to do it, we were able to commission another block almost immediately. The foundations were being dug by 7th July.
The four new MSP classrooms together cost £5,500 – £6,000, including labour, materials, and transport.
The 2 new MSP school blocks at Mwanazanga primary school as at December 2017
A third MSP block was completed in December 2018, doubling the size of the school and bringing to 12 the number of classrooms for the school’s 1,600+ children.
Using cement and quarry dust for a really strong finish
Our Fourth School Block
Our 4th block at Mwanazanga Primary School – done during Covid, and handled completely by the local community. Since Covid our work has continued remotely.
Early in 2021 we received a plea for help from the headteacher at Mwanazanga. He had been so successful at raising the exam pass rates at the school that pupil numbers had soared in response to parent demand, and he was yet again desperately short of accommodation. Could we possibly fund another school block?
We made a plea to donors. And astonishingly had enough to fund the block within days.
MSP entrusted the handling and management of the building to two good friends in Malawi – Dion Makina, the delightful carpenter, pastor, school governor and very kind host, who has supported MSP since its inception: and Dorothy Mafukeni, latterly the deputy headteacher of Mpasa CDSS where MSP runs its bursary programme, now head teacher of a new secondary school nearby.
Dion has been a real asset to us. For over 8 years he had been handling considerable sums of money for us for bursary school fees, all of which is meticulously accounted for. He knows the building trade because of his work as a carpenter, has acted as translator/interpreter for us, has gone to Phalombe or Blantyre to price the cost of building materials, has assisted in their purchase and has arranged for their transport to Mpasa. And he has worked in monitoring the quality of the classrooms we had built and discussing improvements with the builders. So we were confident when we began work on the 4th block that he really did know what needed to be done.
Dion Makina, the delightful carpenter, pastor, school governor and very kind host, who has supported MSP since its inception.
Dion with his wife Rose and their youngest child.
Dorothy is another gem. We entrusted to her the distribution of some of the books which we shipped to Malawi, and she did a brilliant job – travelling all the way from Mpasa in the south to Mangochi by the Lake where the books were being looked after, meeting with local charities, and transporting the balance to Mpasa for distribution there.
Dorothy is without doubt the best teacher we have met in Malawi – committed to the children and to doing her best for them. Even better, she and Dion work well together, and share a delight in getting things done. With Dorothy en route to Blantyre.
First they held a meeting with the chiefs and the community to explain what was being done. We needed the community on board: they make and provide the bricks, and do a lot of carrying of bricks, quarry dust and water for the build. They then decided to put the contract out to 3 new contractors for quotations, as well as approaching the man we have used for the other 3 blocks. We were really pleased with their approach, but rather glad when they decided (again after involving the chiefs) to use the builder we’d used before: he knew what we want. And helpfully his price compared favourably with the other 3.
Progress
We agreed and costed a schedule of materials, based on our records of materials used for the previous 3 blocks. And they employed a watchman to guard them – sadly, it’s a necessity.
That means that we had doubled the school’s capacity. And since by then there were 1850 students on the register, they needed every possible space.
Dion and Dorothy did wonders. Together they saw the project through to completion, pretty well on budget, and almost on time. And we were delighted that it was a 100% local effort.
Mpasa and Mlirankhunda Primary Schools
At Mpasa Primary there was a different problem. A government funded classroom block had been started, and never finished. The children were sitting on half bricks, with windows open to the pouring rain and hot sun. For less than £300, MSP was able to pay for the floors and windows to be completed, for the walls to be painted and a new blackboard to be installed.
This is one of the classrooms at Mpasa Primary which we completed – new floors, windows, blackboards and paint. The final picture in the gallery below shows a classroom as used by the children at Mpasa Primary School, January 2017. The adjoining room was the same.
And MSP replaced a leaking roof at Mlirankhunda Primary School. Enough of the old tiles were salvaged to enable us to repair 3 other roofs at Mlirankhunda, which had also been leaking.
