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Chesney Trust <TheChesneyTrust>

"Promoting Education for Girls in Malawi"

	Greetings from the Chesney Trust's man in Malawi!	130 giorni fa
	Monire everyone, Chris here. As most Chesney Trust enthusiasts will know, our dear CEO, Mamma Janet Chesney, has had to return to Scotland for a few months. I was asked to come out in her place to keep an eye on things and in particular to make sure our three groups of volunteers who came/are coming to work on the site were looked after. I arrived at the end of June and only have two weeks to go which is unbelievable, the time has passed incredibly quickly, as it does when you're busy! The volunteers have so far been absolutely tremendous! The first group came from Putney High School. They arrived 9 July and stayed for about a week. Thanks to the fantastic kindness of the headteacher of the local primary school, Mr Baxter Gondwe, they were given terrific accommodation, far better than I think they had expected. They were allowed to use one of the school's classrooms to sleep in, which was better in terms of security and shelter than the tents they had thought they would use, and which also had an electrical socket in it, woooo, fancy! The school had also constructed these absolutely brilliant outdoor shower cubicles using dried grass to give them some privacy for washing. On top of that, there is a bore hole nearby and an abundance of pupils to fetch water for the visitors – not that they expected or particularly wanted the pupils to fetch their water but local hospitality wouldn't allow their guests to do this for themselves! Even better than all this is that the school had some new, unused pit latrines which they kindly opened for the visitors so that they wouldn't have to do their business in the same ones used by the school, which are, to be honest, pretty ripe. With all these luxuries, there really was no excuse for the girls not to get stuck in to work at the site. And no excuses were needed because they absolutely got stuck in! We had a number of jobs that needed to be done which were: clearing the bush in the area where we hope to start building some classrooms in the very near future, painting a building we've already constructed to house a maize mill, clearing the bush around the perimeter of the site and digging holes so that when the rains come we can plant our jacaranda trees to mark out the school site, and making mud bricks for the contractor to use when he builds the school. Having watched some of our local friends making the bricks, the group decided they couldn't match the pace of those guys and decided that their time would be better spent on the other activities. They did a fantastic job of painting the maize mill, although time didn't allow them to complete that particular task with all the liming, priming, undercoating etc. and the time it takes for each of these stages to dry. They also cleared a frankly astonishing area of the bush around where our first classrooms will go. Everyone who saw them was amazed at their prowess with slashers and phanga knives! Both of these jobs are really important to the project and help to demonstrate to the local community that the Trust continues to work hard on the getting the school started and are serious about assisting in developing the surrounding area. So many, many thanks to the Putney High School girls for their exceptional contribution to our work in Malawi. I need to get on with some other stuff just now so I'll finish there but be ready for more updates in the coming days and weeks, including reports on the next excellent group of volunteers we had who came from Queen Victoria and Longridge Towers Schools and a little bit more about what I've been doing with my time. Yewo chomene Chris
	inserito da Chesney Trust