Kumanaga Umodzi facilitates junior primary school renovation

TAGWIRIZANA is one of the Kumanaga Umodzi in Group village headman Khomba of Traditional Authority Njolomole in Ntcheu district which is playing a remarkable role in development with the aim of breaking the spirit of dependency syndrome in the community.
Katedze Junior Primary School was opened in 2005 with community effort to with an aim to reduce walking distance for the kids especially those in the lower grades of 1 to 4. The school has been managed by an elected committee, however just after a year the committee started to flop and became almost non functional. The school blocks were thatched with grass but as the rains of two yeas fell on it the grass stated to rote hence left the class rooms with only but poles on top.
As the rains of 2007 – 2008 started there was an outcry of the kids and teachers because once the rains start it meant no classes. Government initiative to the school was only desks and teaching and learning materials. Two volunteer teachers who are working at the school tried to reason with the communities to take an action but to no avail.
In January when it seemed that there was nobody to come under rescue of the school Tagwirizana Kumanga Umodzi approached chiefs surrounding the school to assist them to mobilize the communities of the three concerned villages to discuss on how they can rescue the buildings from collapsing with rains. After the meeting the communities were convinced to take an action. 27 bundles of grass were collected, he who had no grass was contributing K15 ($0.1) and total amount of money collected was K980 ($7.00). On 15th of January the community came together under the supervision of the KU to renovate the school. This move helped to save the blocks from collapsing but also to sustain classes when they were about to face risk of being suspended due to rains. The kids who are schooling at the school have been relived from the hassles of rains. They were saved from being soaked by rains; they are saved from sun heat too. The action taken by the KU has acted as a wake up call to the School Management committee which was almost dead. This KU also made an effort to mobilize the communities to rehabilitate the bridge which is joining two villages. The bridge was over flooded by rain water there by posing a challenge to people to connect to the other village. But it was more threat especially to the kids who are schooling at Katedze School when they are going and coming from school. The bridge is now in good shape though rehabilitated from local and simple available materials.

NEWS FROM ADRA Malawi SAFARI Project (Ntcheu District)

Author: Francis Zande