How time flies! Already three months have passed since our last blog entry shortly after Christmas. Nonetheless, the last months have been a good time for us here at MOET.
Football/ Netball Match
The beginning of January started with a football and netball match between MOET and Kalenjeka School. All teachers and many students squeezed themselves in the back of a big pick-up truck and 40 minutes later, they reached a village near Monkey Bay.
Sadly, all of our netball and football teams lost narrowly.
New Volunteer
The month continued with the unexpected arrival
of a new volunteer: Karin, a professional primary school teacher from Sweden.
She stayed in Mangochi with her husband for a few months and came to MOET three
times a week using a minibus! She helped us with new teaching skills in English
Grammar and Social/ Environmental Skills in Standard 7.
At her last visit with her husband, she left some nice games for the children and helped us financially with the means to buy a new printer. We thank her a lot for both, the time and the gifts she gave to MOET!
A few weeks ago, another much-appreciated
donation was given to us by Doug Funk (from the “Solon Foundation”). Firstly,
he provided us with a lot of educational software and after we asked that we do
not know how to use it with the children in the classroom, he spontaneously got
a projector from his car for us. Now our learners can enjoy very new ways of
learning!
MOET Cares
Here at MOET, we do not care solely for the
education of our children, but also for other important aspects of their lives
like their health. Many of our children go to the lake very frequently for
washing or bathing, although some of the areas of Lake Malawi away from the
beaches of the lodges and hotels pose a risk of contracting Billharzia to them. Since
this illness remains largely untreated in the most of the villages, we have
invited a nurse from adjacent Koche Private Hospital to give out adjusted
medication to all children according to their weight and size.
Nursery block construction
For the first time in the history of MOET, we will have our own, solitary nursery block! The new "Early Childhood Development Center" (ECD) will have enough space to cater for up to 80 children. This is a big step forward from our current small nursery next to the ANAMED, which is quite congested and can hardly accommodate more than 30 children.
Following recommendations by the government, the ECD and the rest of MOET will be completely separated. This means that the infants will have their own kitchen, playground and sports equipment to play with.
We are very grateful that the strong fund-raising activities by FOMOE have enabled us to
pursue this goal!
The construction has begun exactly 1 month ago, on 25 March, and as you can see, by now we have already reached up to the window level! We expect the whole nursery building to be finished in the end of May.
Right after that we will continue with the kitchen, eating room, lavatories, playground and a fence around all of it to protect the children.
