Canadian school raises £1,000 for Malawian charity

A Canadian school has raised £1000 (MK938,000) to support a charity project in Malawi called Bwengu which is aimed at empowering Malawians.

Tony and Sue Melia who run the charity projects in Malawi received the £1,000 cheque from Canada’s Crescent Primary School deputy headteacher Bryony Forth on May 9.

According to information at hand, Crescent School’s year 4 pupils have been raising the money all year long for Bwengu Projects which is an organisation that carries out projects in Rumphi.

The school’s deputy headteacher Forth said supporting Bwengu project is something which he is very proud of.

“Supporting the Bwengu Project is always a highlight of my teaching year, something of which I personally am very proud to be part of. In September, 2009, we made Bwengu our study for comparing ‘a village less economically developed than Rugby’ and our fundraising has grown since then,” he said.

Forth added that they wanted to raise £7,000 to help in paying for renovating schools and building women development centre.

“We must have raised around £7,000 now and helped pay for renovating schools, building a women’s development centre, sewing machines, a teacher’s salary and 58,500 meals for orphans,” he said.

Each year the Year 4 pupils study Africa, in particular Malawi and the work Bwengu Projects does.

Studying the challenges the people in Malawi face helps the children to appreciate the similarities and differences in societies.

The children then choose specific projects to support and organise fundraising activities the whole school participate in.

Bwengu Projects is a small NGO run by Sue and Tony Melia.

Each year they work in north Malawi, in completing various building projects of local village schools, churches and medical centres and generally supporting the community.

Another part of Bwengu project work is in the provision of self-managing food projects providing for orphans and other children.

The money the school has raised will be split between the Bumba School Furniture Project and the Orphan Feeding Programme.

On his part, Tony Melia said their aim is to educate a lot of individuals not a few individuals.

“Our aims are quite simple, to educate the many and not the few, as we know it is difficult to ask a question of those that lead you, if you cannot read, write or even count. Our philosophy is simply helping the many to help themselves,” he said.