Week Seven
I’m trying to resist the urge to write the definitive post covering everything that has happened since I last wrote. A lot has happened and I’ll try to cover the main points as best I can.
Teaching
Over the last few weeks we’ve changed the focus of teaching at Chiedza to the Junior school rather than the senior school. Having lost a handful of teachers in quick succession they have been greatly under staffed in the junior school. Helena (one of the other volunteers) had been working flat out there to try to help out. So a few weeks ago Allan and I reduced our senior school classes and began to help out with the Junior school. We’ve had a lot of fun with them but it can be really exhausting. No matter how well you plan for a lesson you find yourself constantly having to come up with impromptu lessons here there and everywhere. This week it was impromptu lessons on the solar system.
The kids were on extended term this week and last (extra classes at the end of the regular term) which gave us the opportunity to do more creative activities with them. You get the feeling you are constantly auditioning to be a kids TV presenter!
Back to the more serious normal classes next week!
Entrepreneur Program
It’s now in its 5th week and going strong. We have spent the last couple of weeks looking at idea generation and opportunity recognition and this last week we covered market research. The participants are a great bunch, really keen to contribute and it really is a lot of fun. It’s given me a great opportunity to learn more about business and entrepreneurship in a developing country. The hardest thing is to switch between teaching 6 - 10 year olds in the morning to teaching 20 year olds in the evening. Sometimes you get the methods a little mixed, much to comic affect. Trying to get a group of six year olds to split into groups and brainstorm ideas often leads to chaos 
IT Program
In addition to the entrepreneur program I have been helping out at the youth center with a train-the-trainer program for an IT course. Over the last few weeks I have been reviewing Microsoft Office with some of the members of the youth center. It is hoped that after the program they will then be able to go and train many more members of the center as well as other youth in the area. Computer illiteracy is very high in Malawi and I’m very hopeful that this program will help to reduce this problem.
Construction Project
We are funding a children’s play park at the youth center as there are no public play parks in the whole of Blantyre. We have local builders and welders making slides, see-saws, roundabouts and swings. It’s great to go to the youth center every day and see the progress on this. We are VERY excited about the benefits this will bring to the community. There are hundreds of younger kids who come up to the youth center every day who have no real facilities for them to use. When this park is finished I can imagine it will be swamped with kids all day, every day.
The project has attracted attention from UNICEF who want to use it as a model to create other play parks in various townships throughout Malawi. We are hoping that this project really has a lasting and widely felt impact. It’s amazing to think that something as simple as a play park can bring joy to so many kids.
Other Projects
There are a raft of other projects going on including a drama group, a football coaching course and tournament and volunteering at a post-HIV testing clinic. Needless to say we are all exceptionally busy but enjoying every minute of it.
It’s not all been about work. We’ve been doing quite a lot of traveling as well. I’ll write about that in the next post.
Until then. Be well.
