Easing early learning in remote areas of Malawi

By Macdonald Thom:

It is a chilly Thursday morning. We leave Blantyre at 8am. We know the destination but we are not very sure of the route we are using.

Our journey to Milepa Trading Centre, through Chiradzulu Boma, to some remote location in Zomba all depends on a voice note one of the locals sent to us. Any slight misunderstanding on the directions will force us to start again from THE Chiradzulu Boma Junction on the Blantyre-Zomba Road.

We do not need that wastage of fuel and time. Community members are waiting; children at Kalambe Community-Based Child Care Centre (CBCC) are waiting.

In fact, they have been waiting for months for the books, charts and other learning materials Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation purchased for them.

Luckily, after travelling for 45 kilometres from Blantyre to Milepa Trading Centre, we branch off into an earth road, which zig-zags through farmlands and villages, until we make it to Kalambe CBCC.

On arrival, community members’ anticipation is clear. One of the CBCC’s problems, namely shortage of teaching and learning materials, has been taken care of.

“We would like to express our gratitude to Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation and Dzuka Publishing Company for this support. We, as caregivers, use charts, books and other materials. These are exactly the same things we have been given. We will no longer be forced to work overnight when preparing for teaching and learning materials,” says Boniface Pensulo, one of the CBCC’s caregivers.

He hopes the donation of the teaching and learning materials will curtain-raise more assistance to the learning centre.

“We have a number of problems. We need good infrastructure so that we can improve our delivery of ECD services. For example, this place is, in most cases, waterlogged. Toilets easily collapse. We need better toilets; toilets that withstand the soils we have here,” he adds.

Despite the challenges they have been experiencing, the centre is still able to train young minds in a number of areas. Felister Ngalawa, from Kalaundi Village, Traditional Authority M’biza, reveals that since her three-year-old son started coming to the CBCC, he has improved in his early learning.

“My son is able to introduce himself. He is also able to recognise letters and numbers.

After knocking off from school, he shares what he learns here with his friends at home. This centre is important.

It just needs some few things for it to be a better place. Apart from the teaching and learning materials, we also need a borehole here,” Ngalawa says.

Village Headwoman Kalaundi is also all praises to Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation.

“I am happy with the support we have received.

We did not expect it. We are thankful to Dzuka Publishing and Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira for helping us,” she says.

She adds that they will continue supporting the CBCC. “We are putting in place measures to ensure that the centre has basic requirements.

A borehole is another most important thing we are also requesting well-wishers to help us with,” she says.

ECD is a crucial social service which is experiencing a lot of challenges across the country. The 2017 ECD Policy cites inadequate ECD centres, insufficient qualified and motivated caregivers, limited play and learning materials, weak organisational structures to enforce the implementation of activities and insufficient funding as some challenges.

Zomba District Council Assistant Social Welfare Officer Wells Chikwiri says the donation will help ease challenges the CBCC is experiencing, particularly on teaching and learning materials.

“I am very delighted for the support. Let me appeal to other well-wishers to borrow a leaf from Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation. We need more support to the ECD sector. We have to invest in our children’s knowledge,” he says.

He has, however, highlighted strides the district is making in ECD service provision. “We are heading in the right direction. As you can see here, we have many children, parents and others witnessing how this CCBC is working. This is painting a picture of what we are doing here in Zomba,” he says.

Recent statistics from the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare shows that Zomba has 38,338 children in 746 public CBCCs, which have 966 caregivers.

The statistics further show that 155 of the public CCBCs in the district have structures. Dzuka Publishing Company Manager Maureen Masamba says they sought support from Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation so that children in remote areas can also benefit from the books the company publishes.

“When we develop the books, we always hope that they will reach the targeted groups. The excitement that this donation has created gives us pleasure that our initiative to invest in developing teaching and learning materials for ECD is a milestone that we need to have done a long time ago,” she says.

She adds that the company will continue looking for more partners so that they can donate ECD books to more CBCCs across the country.

“We will take steps towards what we have started. It is one of our strategies to reach out to non-governmental organisations, the corporate world and others to do what we have done with Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation. We believe that, helping one CBCC at a time, will help close the gap of teaching and learning materials in the CBCCs,” she says.

Dzuka Publishing Company has ECD books which were published in line with the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare’s Integrated ECD Curriculum. They cover numeracy, literacy and environmental activities.