Community-based Early Childhood Development Centre near Lunzu

I suppose it is inevitable that the time has come when I want to write about something that happened today, but I have not written about a previous event to which it is relevant. I never intended that this should be an exhaustive, chronological account either of my doings in Malawi, or of the development of our course, but I have come to realize that the blog may become very useful to me later when I come to write up my MA dissertation on the development of our Introductory Child Care Course. I believe I mentioned that we had met Eunice of the APPGM (Association of Pre-school Playgroups of Malawi). One of the things we asked her was if she would show us examples of very good pre-school practice in Malawi, the sort of thing that she would wish the care givers who attend her organisation's training programmes to emulate. She promised to show us one City and one Rural project. A few days ago she took us to an SOS children's village which I assumed was the rural option as we travelled out of Blantyre, but I now know it must have been within the city limits as today's trip was truly rural! The nursery setting we saw was the nearest thing to a UK nursery that we have visited in Malawi, although of course it was not a carbon copy by any means. There were three classes with about 20 children in each class and two teachers. Children were grouped according to age with 2-3's, 3-4's and 4-5's in separate rooms. They all wore smart blue and white checked gingham uniforms. It was immediately apparent that the children were very confident and used to visitors. This was the only place so far where it was not permitted for us to take photographs of setting or children. There were many homemade resources, but also many bought resources. There were half a dozen bright plastic tables in each room with table-top activities including plastic construction sets, paper and pencils for drawing, imported inset puzzles and so on. Each room had large wooden building blocks and other items that you might expect to see in a UK nursery, but also homemade alphabet and number charts similar to those we have seen elsewhere. There was medium and short-term planning documentation displayed on the walls and a simplified version on a parent's notice board. Half the children come from the adjacent SOS village which accommodates orphans, mostly the children of people who have died of Aids. The other half are from local families. The children bring in snacks from home at break time and there were all the problems of keeping track of and appropriately storing 60 lunch boxes that so many of us are familiar with at home, only complicated by the much hotter climate! I asked about record keeping for individual children and was told that records are kept for parent's evenings which happen once a term, but that records are not made on a daily basis. I asked too about relationships and communication between nursery and home, but apart from saying if there is a serious concern about a child's development or behaviour they would ask the parents to come in for a meeting, it did not seem to be something that happened very much. This may be partly because children are independent in terms of travelling to school at a much younger age and it is not uncommon for little brothers and sisters to be dropped off at nursery by their five year old big brothers and sisters. The children were very ready to engage in play with David and with me. He soon had a group of four and five year olds engaged in trying to build really tall towers of blocks, while I amused an ever increasing gaggle of children by playing round and round the garden over and over again. They seemed to love the anticipation and the tickles and they came back again and again for another turn! I came away feeling that perhaps the knowledge I have gained from working with British children will be sufficiently transferrable to the Malawian situation after all! I have been having serious doubts about my fitness to do the job and worrying that there is just not enough time to learn how to make our training culturally appropriate before we have to start teaching next Monday. Really we have no alternative but to 'suck it and see' but I have been fretting rather about how good a plan this really is. David has the confidence and enthusiasm of youth and an admirable attitude that if we make mistakes we must just learn from them and do it differently next time! He is right of course and we must 'feel the fear and do it anyway'! Nevertheless George says of other aspects of the project that she is 'head of worry' and I am afraid that this role is rather more natural to me than is comfortable. Vince has said several times that whatever we offer will be much better training than anything else our students might have access to, but I am constantly fearing that it will not be good enough and certainly not African enough, but we have no choice but to get on with it and if necessary pick up the pieces afterwards!

Anyway 900 words ago I sat down to write about the astonishing, moving and humbling day we have had today at the Chinansungwi group of Community-based Child Care Centres (CBCCs). David and I have been joined for the last couple of days by Lindy who is Jan's wife and who is newly arrived and looking for a role within the Beehive projects. She is an Early Years teacher and a music specialist, so very interested in the school and in our training project. We picked up our guides from the APPM and set off out of Blantyre up the Lilongwe road. Shortly after Lunzu we turned left onto a dirt road and into rural Malawi. The soil here was redder than in Blantyre, the terrain hilly, but not mountainous and the aspect open, we could see for quite a long way. Around Chilomoni there is scrub land with small bushes and every spare patch is prepared at the moment ready for maize plants to go in once the rains start, but here it is wilder and the bushes and small trees are larger and seemed greener. We drove at least a couple of miles off the main road and eventually arrived at the main CBCC of the group where we were welcomed by the Director of the project. We were ushered into a meeting room with tables arranged in a rectangle with chairs around the edge of the room. All the teachers and staff of the project came in to meet us while the children played outside. The meeting was formal and began with a prayer in Chichewa led by one of the care givers. Several care givers brought their young babies in to the meeting with them. The Director then introduced everyone by name and said their role in the project and we were asked to tell everyone what our role was and why we had come to see them and what we hoped to learn. He translated some of what we said in to Chichewa, but I felt that on the whole we were understood. He was a very articulate man, although I sometimes found his accent difficult to understand. He spoke passionately about the history and development of the project which had clearly had a profound effect upon his own life as well as the lives of probably everyone in the local community. The project began on 10.10.1998 under a tree in the village. It began with 12 orphans who had lost both parents and the community worked together to provide clothes, food etc for these 12 children. It was a project which involved the chiefs, party and church leaders and the whole community. By 1999 the project had grown to include 74 children, not only orphans but other vulnerable children in their community who may have had parents, but maybe no house for shelter, no blankets or money for school. At this point there was involvement from a government social welfare officer but I was not able to understand the precise nature of this involvement. By 2000 there were 120 children involved in the project in one centre called Cedrick CBCC. Children were travelling from other villages and so other centres were opened one by one until today there are 15 centres in an affiliated group which together serve 5420 children. In total the cost has been K1.5 million, which if my calculations are correct is about £7500.00. Was there ever better value for money? The walls of office and meeting room were covered with hand written posters giving statistics of various times and aspects of the project. Today's figures are as follows:

Beneficiaries:

1-2 years    507

3-5 years    1067

6-18 years    963

19-25 years    436

26-64 years     women        1021

26-64 years    men        849

65+ years     497

Community leaders and care givers have been trained to give their skills to the community, to care for the children. Although there have been funds provided in the past there is currently no income for the project and it has been sustained by the local community members giving their time for the last two years. The chiefs have given land which is farmed by the local community, they grow maize for nsima, soya beans and vegetables from which the children and volunteers are fed each day. The Director proudly showed us the food store where at the end of the dry season there were still sacks of flour and beans to see the project through until the next maize harvest. If orphans are not fed at CBCC and school they do not eat. The local people give their time and work to the project for the benefit of the whole community. This work means that the village now supports the following activities despite the fact that they are currently receiving no financial donations at all.

1. Orphans and vulnerable children project 3-5 years
   
2. After-school club 6-8 years, children come to the centre after primary school is finished, they play games and build for their future. They are fed from the community garden, but there are no fees.
   
3. On Saturdays and Sundays the children come to the centre between 8.00am and 4.00pm. They get their lunch
   
4. There is home-based care for 45 people living with HIV/Aids provided by what the Director described as positive people.
   
5. There is an Elder care project for vulnerable people aged 65+
   
6. Widows are supported
   
7. Young people aged 19-25 come to the centre to use and borrow books to continue their studies. The Director says this project helps to keep them from too much involvement in drink, smoking and sex!
   
8. Parenting education for pregnant women, prenatal care and new born care for children from birth to two years.
   

The project now serves 21 villages within a radius of about 7 Km.

 

There is a growth monitoring programme which feeds and weighs babies.

 

I am conscious that this account is rambling a bit and jumping from point to point but I am working through my notes in the order in which the director spoke. You will have to forgive repetitions and slight inconsistencies. I am using his words, where my notes allow for this. I am sure that there are points when I did not fully catch his meaning, but I have done my best. He told us that for two years the project had a UK donor, a very good man called Mr Philip who gave between K15 and 16 million over this period. Mr Philip's money built the project offices, purchased a vehicle which they now struggle to find the money to run, opened a private clinic in Lunzu which gives free medicines and opened a feeding programme. From 2008 there has been no funding but the volunteers manage to sustain the projects through sheer dedication and hard work. The key aims for the CBCCs in each community are to raise living standards for children and to reduce discrimination between children within the same community.

 

At this point in the meeting David asked the question that we have been asking many of the local people we have visited to explain the work we will be doing in Chilomoni, 'What do you think is the most important thing for children in Malawi?' The Director was very clear, he said 'It is food. The food is to advocate the children to come to the centre. When they are there our aim is to improve the education.' He went on to say that the village comes together when the children are safe. Then the adults can get on with other things. School is now special. This motivates children to go on with their education.

 

Members of the school committees go round the houses of children who are not attending school and find out why they are not attending. They see that children do go to school. If they do not this is reported to the heads of villages. The same is done for the 3-5s and CBCCs. Parents are supported and all 21 villages work together.

 

The original 12 orphans are now at secondary school in Forms 1 and 2. They still live in the village and the villagers pay their school fees.

 

The director wound up the meeting by listing a number of challenges faced by the project:

1. Training – 8 volunteers work in the office but they are untrained. 240 volunteers cook for the children in all the centres. They work Monday to Friday for no financial reward and they have no training to do the job.
   
2. There are 40 positive people supporting the home-based care. It is a challenge he said, that we ask too much of people. We would like a small fund to assist people to open small businesses so they can support their families.
   
3. It is a challenge to keep the vehicle on the road. Money is needed for fuel, for services and for tyres.
   
4. It is a challenge that the clinic in Lunzu is too far away for some children.. Sick children die on the road on the way to the clinic. They dream that they may one day have a clinic in the village on land that has been donated by the chiefs to the project.
   

Here the meeting ended and we were shown around the CBCC. In the nursery room children were in four groups, one group in the music corner with drums and other instruments. Lindy was instantly on her knees getting involved with the music making. A group of children were playing with homemade dolls. Some had them strapped to their backs with strips of material in the same way that their parents carry babies strapped to their backs in bright chitenges. A group was building with big blocks and making towers and here David was soon on the floor building and laughing with the children. I went to the group who were painting with paints made by their parents and teachers from local materials from plants and brick dust and soot. Pictures were displayed at child height on the walls. There was free flow to a huge outdoor play area with many swings and climbing frames. The highlight for me was a roundabout which was also a pump, as the children made the roundabout turn, water was raised which supplied a drinking fountain and also an irrigation system for the garden. There is a building which has walls, but as yet no roof. It is intended to be a chicken house, but since the funding dried up they cannot afford to roof it and at the moment therefore have no chickens to supplement the food that is grown in the garden.

 

I could write so much more, but I am tired and tomorrow is another working day! Never in my life have I been so aware of how much good work can be done with a little money. One example that really struck home for me today is that the project has been given a computer, but it is of absolutely no use to them whatever as they have no electricity supply. The quotation from ESCOM to lay cables is several million kwatcha as the village is so far from a town with a power supply, but a solar system would be only K500.000. So if any of you has a spare £2500 just let me know. I can think of a very good use for it! Electricity has the potential to make many positive changes to this amazing community.

 

I am beginning to have a greater understanding of the Malawian Government's Early Childhood Development Principle no.1.

    'Development is holistic.'

It has been a privilege to make this visit today and I think we have made another step towards an understanding of the context in which our Early Years training in Chilomoni is situated!! And yes, I am still scared, but also excited!