1. Summary

The CCAP Education Department in collaboration with World Servants Netherlands initiated a project in Makonje where a school block of two classrooms and two toilets of two rooms were constructed. The community and the partipants from the Netherlands worked hand in hand to construct the structures together. Apart from construction, other activities took place such as home visits, childrens work, game park visits and partipating in tradional dances.

The community members and the participants worked tirelessly together to come with good structures within the specified time. By the time handovers were being done, the school block had been roofed and the toilets were at slab level, but the other toilet was half way done. In general the project had accomplished its intended target. The team leader of the project was Anne Marie de Jong and she did a good job in making sure that the team remained united and accomplish its objective. She was also very understanding and this helped us to work and solve problems together as a team.

The project was identified by CCAP in consultation with the managers of schools and the Primary Education advisor. After the identification exercise the Set-up team visited the school and approved for a project to take place in the area. The School Improvement Plan process was conducted in March where all the stakeholders were gathered in their social groups to surface issues that contribute to the low quality of education standards in the school. It was evident enough that infrastructure is among the major factors that contribute to poor quality standards at this school, hence the construction of a school block and two latrines. Due to lack of infrastructure and accommodation for participants, the temporal structure had to be renovated to create space for the accommodation of participants.

In preparation for the coming of the participants, the community built the foundation up to ant course. When the participants arrived, they started working on the construction of the walls together with the community and they worked side by side up to the last day. The following were some of the works that took place during construction: brick laying, drawing water for construction, filling the foundation with soil, ferrying bricks on the construction site, ferrying sand on the construction site, mixing mortar, ring beam and carpentry work.

By the time the hand-over ceremony was being done, a lot of work had been done on both the school blocks and the toilets. The school block was roofed and plastering was done half way in one classroom and office room. The participants and the community also worked very hard to fill one classroom to the level of flooring. This was a very great achievement as no one expected that it could be filled within the time when the participants were still around. The toilets were also already constructed up to slab level and one toilet had been raised half way from the slab level. In general, it can be said that the participants and the community did a great job. Especially considering that the school did not have a water point close to the school and also sand had to be collected far from the school.

The participants were accommodated in two classrooms which were renovated with extra funds from World Servants. The rooms were small, but managed to accommodate the participants. This because the number for boys and girls was almost the same, this made it easier for them to be allocated in the two relatively small rooms. Food was being prepared by the chef Chrodney Manda. The participants liked the food because more vegetarian dishes were being served and they proved to be good for the participants. It was also very pleasing to note that not even a single participant fell sick during and after the project due to food.

The life skills program did not take part, because this being a junior primary school it became difficult to mobilize the children of the required age to take part in the life skills program. The children program was very successful as the children enjoyed the Bible stories and playing games and singing.

Most of the cultural activities also took place and the interaction with the community was very good. There was a lot of things that the participants did together with the community, such as traditional dances, traditional songs, learning how to farm in the Malawian way, washing clothes and drawing water by carrying buckets on their head just to mention a few. The visit to the lake was also a relaxing moment for the group and they enjoyed swimming in the lake. The participants were accommodated at Chenda hotel in Mzuzu, because the CCAP guest house was fully booked.

Transportation from the airport to the project site was by the borrowed coaster from Ekwendeni school of health sciences, cruiser and the lorry for luggage. The breakdown of the CCAP bus was a heavy blow to the project, because we ended up spending more on transportation due to hire costs. But also there was little control over the coaster as they also used their own drivers. No serious issues were observed on transport apart from the breakdown of the cruiser on the way from Mzuzu to Makonje from the lake.

There were no safety problems recorded from the group.

The cooperation with the staff was very good and very satisfactory. Especially considering that there was good communication and understanding throughout the project. The staff should be commended for being very organized and flexible when handling issues and it made the project to be a success. Makonje is a very small community with very small population, yet it is also a very poor community with only one house with iron sheets, the rest are grass thatched. Managing a project in this kind of a community needed a lot of understanding from both the staff and the participants, hence the cooperation that existed was key to the success of this project.

The involvement of all stakeholders in the project was overwhelming as everyone was actively involved in the project in one way or the other. To begin with the primary Education Advisor, when he noticed that the participants didn’t have access to drinking water he made it possible for us to be drawing water from their borehole, which was situated about 10 km away from the school. The learners were involved through the various activities taking place during the children’s work.

The local authorities were always available to mobilize their subjects and making sure that the locals were involved in the construction of the structures. The community, despite being a small community, worked really hard from the first day to the last day. They were well organized and their cooperation was equally encouraging. The staff also managed to take control of the participants through organizing different activities for the participants.