Old Mutual (Blantyre) Foundation has handed over a school block worth MK36 million to Mkanda Community in Mchinji district.
The foundation together with CARE International in Malawi as a project overseeing partner has constructed two classrooms fitted with 80 desks as well as staff room and headmaster’s office.
Speaking at the handover ceremony, which was held at Mkanda Primary School grounds, Old Mutual (Blantyre) Foundation chairperson, Tawonga Manda said as a responsible business, Old Mutual (Malawi) Ltd through the foundation, is committed to contributing to the improvement of the quality of education in Malawi.
“We have a number of programs aimed at advancing the quality of education and school infrastructure development is one of them. After handing over this school block, we will be exploring further to identify other communities that also need similar help. You may wish to know, apart from supporting with school infrastructure improvement, we are also supporting 100 secondary school students with tuition under our flagship bursary program” he said.
Manda said, the foundation realizes the importance of education and that is why it is complementing government in fulling the Malawi 2063 agenda which highly recognizes education as a fundamental pillar to help in the development of the country.
“You cannot talk development and ignore education. Education is very critical to ending many of the inequalities and human rights violations such as Gender Based Violence” he said.
He also spared time to commend CARE International for the work of identifying the need at Mkanda primary school and supervising the work to come out excellent.
He further commended community members for their contribution and determination to see the work completed within the agreed time frame.
“The Mkanda community has demonstrated a very admirable character by taking ownership of the project. They have always participated by contributing sand, bricks and dedicating their time to have this beautiful school block” he said.
Making her comment, the guest of honor at the event, Ministry of Education Director of Basic Education Grace Milner commended Old Mutual (Malawi) Limited for the gesture saying it will go a long way in improving the quality of education at Mkanda community.
She said government alone cannot afford to satisfy all the needs in the education sector hence the need for partners like Old Mutual (Malawi) Limited and CARE International to complement government’s efforts.
“Improving the quality of education needs collaborative efforts. We should all be responsible and do our part. Let’s emulate what the community here has done by participating in bringing development” she said.
Milner also asked community members, school authorities and the pupils to take care of the school block so that it keeps benefiting them.
CARE International Country Director Amos William Zaindi expressed gratitude for the fruitful partnership his organization has with Old Mutual (Malawi) limited.
According to Zaindi, there is power in partnerships and great things can easily be achieved if institutions keep coming together in development initiatives.
Among others, the school block handover ceremony was graced by representatives from the Mchinji District Council, officials from the District Education Manager’s (DEM) office, traditional leaders, and several others.
Mkanda Primary School was established in 1935 and has an enrollment of 2,703 pupils, 30 teachers with a pupil to teacher ratio of 90 to 1.
The school has 6 school blocks comprising 15 classrooms with most of the blocks in poor condition.
Follow us on Twitter:
