News from Malawi

Dear friends,

Hope you are all enjoying the end of summer.
You may all be thinking, why the sudden silence and disappearance, no emails or even an update on facebook from me.
Truth is from the day I touched the Malawian soil June 4th I have been on my toes non stop.

I left New York May 24th for London. There I attended a benefit organized by Rick Nowels and his wife Maria. The benefit was to raise money for our Jacaranda school in Malawi.
It was an amazing event that took place at The Home House on May 30th.
A magical night with performances by Rick and his wife Maria Vidal and Mel C of the Spice Girls and the legendary Jack Bruce of Cream. A night to remember.
The money raised is going towards the purchase a school bus. We are in our final stages of shopping for the best model, size and price. The bus will bring children who live far, to school and back to their homes. Taking educational trips, something that has never happened at Jacaranda and even more, as we have children who are sick with HIV AIDS, we will be able to take them to the hospital for their check ups and to receive their medications on time.
We thank everyone for making this happen and for their generous donations.

I left London for Malawi June 3rd. We welcomed Lindsay Haskell. A student from Shangai American School. She stayed with us for seven weeks teaching Life Skills to Standard 7 and Form 1, conducting debates and even having the children reach out to their community with a community meeting and plays about the awareness of AIDS and other issues the children are facing. The children's guardians parents and friends attended this meeting.
Her work and dedication to helping our children made a great impact on the people she touched. Lindsay will be attending Wellesley College in Boston this year.

June 12th Mr Robert Burke a teacher from Shangai American School returned for the second time with 23 students and three teachers. Mr Tom Banasewski an English teacher and Mr and Mrs Barrons who met in Malawi many years ago when they were Peace Corps. They married later. This was their first trip back. On this trip were their two sons and their daughter whom they named Chimwemwe, a Malawian name which means Grace.

The team from Shangai spent six days at our school conducting activities such as painting the library, and Standard 1 and 2 with numbers and figures on the walls. Some taught English with their teacher Tom, and others taught History and Math.
The boys played sports and the girls worked on jewellery making for a project.
Some students taught music. One student brought with him 10 harmonicas and taught our students to play.
Also the school arranged to fix our students' home for a family of six whose mother is HIV positive. Her youngest 7 year old daughter Alinafe is HIV psitive too. The three sisters in the family attend our school. Their house was in very poor condition. With the help of SAS, the family now has a roof, a door and a cement floor.

Shanghai American School sent many donations to our school this year. Over 40 boxes of books, and another shipement of 177 boxes is under way! From reading books to textbooks, and reference books both for our students and teachers. They sent us school supplies and microscopes waiting to be used in our labs. They brought with them self charging torches for each child at the school and left the children with clothing, t-shirts, and shoes.
We are waiting for the arrival of another consignment on its way from Shanghai with projectors, books and much more. We thank Mr Robert Burke for making all this possible. We at Jacaranda School thank Mr Burke and everyone at SAS for our growth.

Whilst on this trip, SAS worked on another project for Habitat and Humanity where they travelled to Mulanje Mountain which is about an hour away from our school. They built a home for a family there.

We then had a visit from the Chinese Ambassador Lin Sontian, who gave us a donation to build a water tank. The water costs at our school were killing us. This water tank will enable us to use water directly from the well. Our school toilets, drinking water, garden watering and all other purposes of water consumption will come from this water tank. Great development for Jacaranda.

June 18th Shanghai students, teachers and many in Malawi attended our first fundraising concert organized by Luc Deschamps, the director of Jacaranda in Malawi, and a group of four German Volunteers: Meryem, Johannes, Jonas and David. My friends Marilyn Dantier and Rehanna Ibrahim worked very hard on this event too. This event was advertised throughout Malawi and took place at the French Cultural Center. (The place I first met Luc 18 years ago). It was a great event with major artists like Skeffa Chimoto, Sally Nyundo, Marco Sadik, Young Kay, Tigris, Snowden Ibbu, and many more. Host was Sista Fire a famous radio host in Malawi.
But guess who stole the show? Our one and only Jacaranda School Band! Yes we have a band. Our students formed a band in January this year using our donated instruments like drums from the Steinberger family, the keyboard from Rick Nowels, guitars from SAS Students, small drums from Owen Sussman. David and Jonas volunteers from Germany coached our students since January and I was amazed at what they learnt and their ability to learn so fast in such a short time. Their performance was breathtaking. Our school band was then featured in most national newspapers in Malawi.

SAS students and teachers left June 24th. Luc and I accompanied them to the airport in Lilongwe. The night before their departure, we were all invited to dinner with the Chinese Ambassador. It was the first time some of us had, must I say, the pleasure of tasting donkey meat... I knew that it was donkey because Ambassador Lin Sontian told me so. But many did not realize they were eating donkey. Some enjoyed it. We still chuckle.

Chimwemwe Barrons stayed behind for another 5 weeks. She organized and painted our little makeshift library, painted with Dr Seuss characters from the book 'Oh, the Places you'll go!'. As received over 3,000 reading books of all ages this year, we decided to give each of our 400 children a book to take home for keeps. The children were very happy and we will give them another one for Christmas.

We had our primary school painted too. Our students gave a hand at painting their classes. We numbered all their porridge cups and hung them in their classrooms.
Chimwemwe went through our container, sorted and distributed items that needed immediate use at the school. She prepared new attendance books, and even stood at the gate each morning to see which children were coming in late and why.
She created sports for recess for the primary school and organized a fun day event at school which was a lot of fun for the children. Chimwemwe left for college. I am happy to say she has intentions of coming back next year for a longer period. She is a student at University of British Columbia.

Mid July our primary school headmistress suddenly left to further study. Well guess who was put in the position of acting headmistress? ME!!!!!!!!!. From Nanny to Headmistress. Not joking. For about three weeks I had to get up by 6 am get ready and be at school no later than 7 am. Monday to Friday. Lots of changes and reshuffling happened within these weeks. From timetable changes to establishing new rules such as lateness, absentees, meeting with guardians and interviewing for both teachers and a headmistress. Good news is, we have employed a new headmistress, Mrs Stella Naferankhande.
She is a retired headmistress from a very good school in Blantyre called Chichiri Primary School and was headmistress there for thirteen years.

August 2nd we welcomed Lane and Charles Hill. Earlier this year, Lane painted a portrait of me which was in an exhibit in Washington, on Whidby Island where I was invited to the opening. I invited Lane and Charles to Malawi. Lane brought art supplies and taught art to our students, and Charles himself a renowned professor in economics from the University of Washington lectured at our school and at Chancellor College in Zomba. One of our best colleges in Malawi. Lane and Charles spent a week with us. It was a pleasure having them visit us.

The construction of our physics and science lab is about to happen. I am happy to announce that Shanghai American School with the help of Mr Robert Burke and the school, PTSA, parents, and many of their friends, who worked throughout the year in fundraising for this project, have raised the money to build our lab. We thank Uniting People in Spain who helped raise money for this project too. Our children will be blessed with the labs and a library/study room. We will be building a double story. Money for the library and study room was raised by GO Campaign in the US. Thanks to Scott Fifer and all at GO. We hope Scott will pay us a visit when in Malawi next time. We understand his trip this year was cut short of days.

The rainy season is over, so we can start building. We wait for our architect to return from his summer vacation. We intend to use a good architect and interestingly he is a friend I knew when growing up in Malawi. Mr Patrick Calisse, from M.O.D Chartered Architects. Today he is one of the top architects in the country.

Our garden project is amazing. Thanks to Startfund USA. The children just harvested sweet potatoes and soya beans and cabbages.
We are already seeing the growth of food around us. I am hoping that by this time next year we will be able to feed each of our 400 Orphans with what we grow ourselves. This includes, chicken meat and eggs from our farm and vegetables from our garden.

After the passing of Upile an 8 year girl at our school early this year, we now have a registered nurse, who comes in twice a week. She keeps records of all the children, which helps us determine who are the children who need immediate attention. Due to limited funds, we would have liked the nurse on a full time program as we have seen the huge difference it has made to have medical care on the premises.

All the children have taken their examinations and school closed three weeks ago for vacation. For the Form 4 MSCE students, their results will determine whether they go to college. I am proud to say that, as of today, we already have 14 students in college and one in America, Stella. They are all doing well.
We have seen our nine graduates of 2009 go to college. Four girls are taking Hotel Catering and Management, Two boys and one girl, Electronic Engineering, one boy is studying Business Management, and another one is taking Carpentry and Joinery. We pay for everything even up to their transport fare to get to college for those who are not in boarding.
As I wait for this year's graduates, I look at the situation of our funds too.

Due to the economic situation everywhere, a lot of funding has been cut from Jacaranda, especially the college funds.
I realize that this is happening to many small foundations like ours.
My goal is to continue to find ways in which I can keep the schools funds flowing. Each day, I am realizing even more, the need for this school. By seeing how hard the children work and want to succeed, makes me realize the difference we are making. Last year alone our school's pass rate was 87.5% for Malawi. This is very good for a school that has no grants whatsoever. None from the Government or sponsors or from any other organization. Today we have limited funds at Jacaranda. Especially the teachers' salaries. We need a specific amount to pay our teachers.
Funding for Jacaranda depends on my going out there and reaching out to people for help.
It is through your support that I have been able to do what I do.

Last year I decided to work full time on the foundation, after working as a nanny for seventeen years.
It was a learning and exciting experience. I spoke in many schools and Universities, as well as networking, and raising some money for the school.
I have now decided to go back to work as a nanny, so as to take care of the ongoing expenses at the school.

I will continue to reach out for donations such as school supplies, books, clothing, shoes, uniforms, and container shipping costs.

Luc and I will work hard towards the process of self sustainability. We are getting there, with our chicken and vegetable farm project.

Extending my stay in Malawi to October is due to my having to be here to oversee our major projects off the ground before I start work.

I want to thank everyone who has helped us throughout the year. The friends who sent in donations, the friends who listened to us, the families that have supported Jacaranda.
We are a small organization, that produces results and positive ones. We are working for the good of our children. I thank you all who see this.
Please continue your support, and share our mission and work with your friends.
THANK YOU.

I am enclosing a few pics. Will post some on our website, facebook and blog too.

Have a fun, safe end of summer filled with lots of good health, love and laughter.

Love,

Marie.

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