Mackenzie school
Sponsored until 2009

What, where and when:

The Mackenzie School is a private school completely set up with proper funds in the Mackenzie Village, on the many villages in the Salima (Malawi) district.  In this district there are public schools but quite often the distance between the different villages and the public schools are so big that none of the children used to go to school.  We realized that in a number of villages the need for a local school existed; the children would just hang around.

In 2003 we started building one class next to the church, followed by a second class and the church is also used as a class during the week.

We also ensured the construction of a corn mill which enables the people in the near surroundings to mill their own corn and foresee in their own provisions.
 

Management:

This project is managed by Mrs. Esther Grant.  She is the initiator and most important driving force of this project.

With her own means she started building the school and church.  With the help of a couple of “benefactors”, amongst which our non-profit organization, she succeeds until now to keep the school running.

Number of children:

At the start of the project 80 children were registered, now 155.

There is a nursery class and a primary school from 1^st till 7^th school year (primary school counts 7 years in Malawi), after that the children go to secondary school.

Furthermore there are 9 teachers and 1 headmaster.  This way every class has its own teacher.

Costs:

Initially all children could go to school for free.  Since the last semester, however, we have decided to ask the parents for a small contribution for the meals.  We did foresee one free meal per day per child.  However, due to lack of resources, we had to ask the parents for a contribution of €1/month.  For some parents this was even too much.
 

The main costs are:

• The salaries of the teachers

• Food for the children

• Decoration of the school, electricity, school books, etc.

What did we realise:

• building of the school classes in 2005, 2 new classes and an office/library

• classes have been equipped with a black board and chairs

• notebooks and other necessary teaching material

• uniforms and food for the children

• sports gear donated by sponsors

What we still need to realise:

• 

• After having built the classes, they still need to be decorated.

• We would also like to build a play ground for the smallest children.

• We’d like to build a space that could be used as a “kitchen” and pots and pans to ensure more hygiene when preparing meals for the children.

• We’d also like to build a nursery class.

What help can we use:

• Financial help: all financial means now come from Esther Grant and her friends, amongst which our non-profit organization.

• People who want to do something or organize something on behalf of this projects.