Unicef and the Ministry

The drive from Ntcheu to Lilongwe took at least a couple of hours. We just had time to book into the Korea Garden Lodge before we had to jump in the Land Rover and speed off to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Community Affairs where we met with The Director, whose name is Hyacinth, but I didn't catch her surname; Francis Chalamander, Dr Foster Kholowa and an administrator who was called, I think, Immaculate. We were welcomed and ushered in to the Director's Office where we sat down in a circle of chairs. Francis Chalamander chaired the meeting. I asked them to tell us about ECD in Malawi, but clearly this was not considered to be the business of the meeting and we had to explain what Beehive is doing in Chilomoni and what our course involves. They seemed concerned that we were wanting accreditation of some sort for a course that has already begun, and also raised concerns about the sustainability of the course given that David and I only plan to be in Malawi long enough to see our current group of students through to the end of the third, practical part of our course. This seems an entirely reasonable comment to me. As far as I know no decisions have been made about whether the course will be repeated after the first students have graduated and are working in the Children's Centre. I probably would not accredit a course myself without more concrete plans for the future. A copy of our draft curriculum was handed round and accepted rather grudgingly as an outline that was OK but far more detail will be required and they did not retain the copy that we offered them for their records. They did however comment that it did appear to cover most aspects that they consider to be essential, so that at least is a start. To get government accreditation for the course it will be necessary for us to jump through a number of bureaucratic hoops, such as to be registered as an NGO, and also to be associated with an educational institution and although all this may well happen with time I think it is likely that this first set of students will have to be satisfied with a Beehive Diploma, rather than one which is nationally, let alone internationally recognized. Dr Kholowa was pretty quiet during the meeting, but appeared quite positive and I think it would be good to go and see him at Chancellor College, in Zomba, find out more about the future plans for the course that is happening there and perhaps explore ways of working cooperatively with him. We will need to talk to Vince about the various registration and inspection procedures necessary. It was a pity he did not come with us to the meeting. We were not really aware of the dealings Beehive has had with the Ministry in the past and this knowledge would have been useful. One thing that was clear was that we shall have to work closely with Dominic Misomali who is head of Social Services in Blantyre and this is no problem, we have kept him informed of what is going on and David has visited him since our return and reported on our visit to Lilongwe. I have invited him to speak to the students about Child Protection issues and to come and see the course whenever he is in the area.

The following morning we visited Bruce Parry of UNICEF who was very positive and helped us with some of the UNICEF literature we have had trouble getting hold of. He has also promised to give us the Malawian curriculum for ECD and the Training Manual in electronic versions which will be very useful. I am to go and pick them up next week when I take Jack back to Lilongwe to the airport. He also advised us to register the Children's Centre as a CBCC as this may open up the possibility of funding through UNICEF, which is a useful bit of advice.