Schools in Malawi
Building Futures in Malawi have built two Secondary Schools in Malawi we are currently working on the third and most ambitious of all of our schools. In 12 years of building schools in Malawi we have learnt a lot! The main lesson has been that building schools is not easy, making them sustainable is harder and making them successful is even harder! However, after years of hard work and many highs and a few lows we feel well equipped to not only build a school but we can also make them fully sustainable and above all ensure that they offer a good standard of education.
Where our schools are (Lilongwe, Malawi):
Helping to meet the need for more schools
The charity was set up to help support the need for secondary schools. In Malawi primary school education is funded by the government and is offered to everyone in the country. Malawi does not have enough secondary schools and as a result many of the children that pass through the primary school system are then left without much opportunity to extend their education. We wanted to meet this need.
Ensuring our schools are sustainable
As a non-government organisation we are able to offer something that is not being met by the Malawian government. Therefore we are not stepping on anyones toes. Furthermore all of our schools are run by Malawian committees and we do not have a say in how they are run. This means that we are also not adopting a colonial attitude and telling Malawians how they must do things. Instead we focus on infrastructure.
It is a very simple plan. We build the buildings required for a school; classrooms; teachers offices; a school hall and toilets and the school is run by local people. The money for the running costs is met by the fees a pupil pays. This means that the fees do not need to be high to meet the costs of the buildings and it also means that we as a charity do not need to regularly donate money. If our funding dries up then the school will carry on.
Past Successes
We are proud to say that our first school Falls Secondary has run successfully without any financial support from us for 7 years. This method of paying for infrastructure is also great for people that donate money as we can tell you exactly where your money has gone. In fact you can visit and touch the buildings that you have raised or donated money for.
You can help
Your support is vital. You can help by donating some money toward one of our building projects by buying some bricks, roofing or cement. Perhaps you or your company would like to contribute to an entire building. The cost of four classrooms is in the region of £12000 and the cost of an administration block is around £6000. Toilets cost around £1000 and £1000 will buy a football pitch size plot of land. An entire school that would have the capacity for 480 children would cost in the region of £60000 - what a bargain - that is less than a third of the UK national average house price!!!! This one off cost would last forever with 160 children graduating every year!
Stationary
Text-Book
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Blackboard
TV Gives Charity Donations A Boost
Friday 26th February 2010
The science of marketing psychology isn't just reserved for the consumer masses, it can be used to help maximise donations to charities and not for profit organisations. A recent study carried out by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) found that different types of media coverage can have a profound effect on the amount of money donated by the public.
Following the Haiti disaster, the foundation found that newspaper coverage of the event was not as effective in encouraging members of the public to donate to the appeal. Advertisements and stories influenced only 6 per cent of those who gave money. This is in stark contrast to 11 per cent of the public who donated to the DEC Asia-Pacific appeal just a year earlier.
The shift in trend could be seen as alarming by fundraisers, but in fact it is our use of technology that is affecting the way we empathise with a cause, and our likeliness to donate to an appeal. Television coverage accounted for as much as 75 per cent of donations received for the Haiti Disaster Appeal, a figure that has risen since the Asia-Pacific appeal in 2009, where the figure was less than 70 per cent.
It is evident that fundraisers need to maximise the potential of modern technology, and use social media portals to tap into altruistic tendencies. Television may be top of the donation leader board now, but surely it is just a matter of time before social networking sites such as FaceBook and Twitter play just as an important role in raising much needed funds for appeals.
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