St David’s Prep in West Wickham has raised funds to provide over 240 children in Malawi with school lunches for a whole year.  The astonishing enthusiasm and commitment of the children in the last couple of months is extraordinary.

When Alice was asked what motivated her to raise over £300, she said she had imagined herself as one of the children in Malawi coming to school hungry and how she would feel sitting on the floor in a big class with nothing to eat. Isabelle felt it was unfair that we have all the stuff we want and more yet children in Malawi don’t even have what they need.  She and her sister Ava made cakes which their dad sold at work raising over £150.

Other ways the children at St David’s raised the funds included singing carols, running a mini bingo evening, giving their pocket money, and doing extra chores around their homes.  Lotte sold some of her dresses which were too small for her.  It’s wonderful that these young children care about children 5,000 miles away whom they don’t know but can identify with.  Thank you everyone for your hard work, time and effort.

Over 1,500 primary school books have been donated and sorted by school children from St Dunstan’s primary school in Cheam.  Following an assembly where the children learnt how different a day in the life of a Malawian child is to life in the UK, they brought to school the books they had finished with. Some children brought new books.  The books have been sorted and will be transported to Malawi on the next container and will enable another library to be resourced in a rural primary in rural Blantyre.

Mpemba Primary School students have achieved their best results and the school has performed better than other schools in the area.  Three boys have gained places at top national secondary schools havng scored over 90% in their recent exams. In addition several boys and girls gained places at local secondary schools.  Since only 20% of all Malawians currently go to secondary school this is a remarkable achievement.

These students are obviously bright.  However, staff at the school are attributing the improvement in results to the resources the school now has: the library (opened in 2015) and feeding prgramme  which started in 2013, and to the support that the librarian Peter gives to both students and teachers.

It is thrilling to see the fruit of these projects which many of you support.  Thank you for your ongoing commitment.

Now, students who are bright and diligent, have the opportunity to perform well and achieve great results and

Although primary education is free in Malawi, secondary school is not.  Many of these children come from poor families who can not afford the school fees.

Hope4Malawi would like to set up a fund which will allow these children and others in the future to attend secondary school.  If you would like to contribute to this fund please donate here or if you would like to support an individual child in secondary or tertiary education please contact Sara info@hope4malawi.org

The container packed with books has arrived in Malawi – the team from the UK sorted the books in a hanger at the airport and they are now ready to be distributed.  Primary school books, reference books, bibles, law books have all been categorised.  The team has begun to distribute the books and other resources.

The MyBoy programme at Mpemba secondary school with the older boys was enormous fun. The boys were very responsive and we had some good discussions on gender stereotypes and how they can help the girls stay in school. We discussed the characteristics and responsibilities of an ideal man as well as some local myths and misconceptions about sex, sexual development and menstruation.

Schools in Malawi have very few resources.  Imagine a school day without a classroom, desks, chairs, books, chalk.  Our dream is to see children thrive at school with the resources they need.   The headmaster of Chipwepwete Primary School talks about some of the challenges facing the school here

Comedian Tim Vine gave up his time last night to entertain 450 of us with his quick witted puns, songs and live chat show with members of the audience.  The full house at Trinity school raised over £15,000 towards classrooms for a new secondary school in Chipepwete, rural Blantyre.  We are currently raising funds for the first phase building of the secondary school which will allow children from Chipepwete primary school and 5 other primary schools to attend.  Read more about the project here or make a donation here - thank you