YOUTH FELLOWSHIP LAUNCH MAJOR PROJECT

The aim of the group is to set up a permanent connection with Malawi and have a rolling plan for fund raising and aid donations.

The main focus is on the Mary’s Meals project which combines education and a meal a day for all children.  Education is seen as a way out of poverty and by providing a meal for every child they are encouraged to attend school every day.  The group feel this is where they can help by raising enough money to build a school and enable Mary’s Meals to operate there.

The building work is undertaken by the local workforce in Malawi, we provide the money for materials. The bricks for the project are made in the village and have to be made before December (the start of the rainy season); it takes approximately 3 months to complete the building programme.

The initial project will have the goal of taking a small group of older children (16+) out to Malawi in early July 2010 to decorate and fit out a class room and enable Mary’s Meals to operate at the facility.  The purpose of the trip next year (2010) would be to decorate the class room, not just a coat of magnolia but educational murals, times tables etc on the class room walls. These provide permanent learning aids for the children.

The project will provide funding for the school room and equipment for Mary’s Meals and it will empower the local communities to help themselves. Mary’s Meals is run by the women in the village, mainly mothers, it provides one meal a day for all children attending school and two meals for the under 5's. It costs approximately 1p a day to feed a child in Malawi.

The Republic of Malawi, the 5^th poorest country in the world, is a landlocked country in South East Africa and is among the world's least developed and most densely populated countries. It has been devastated by Aids, wiping out a whole generation leaving hundreds of orphans and many children with only grandparents left to care for the family. With a population of around 12 million, Malawi has 6 million children. Poverty prevents many children from attending school; the need to help the family feed itself is far greater than attending school. Mary’s Meals was set up in 2002 by two brothers Magnus and Fergus MacFarlane-Barrow, with the aim of encouraging children to attend school with the knowledge that they would still be fed.

MALAWI - THE VISIT

‘What an experience’ was the first comment I heard as young Megan stepped of the minibus which had just delivered a team of ten members of the St Wilfrid’s and St Mary’s Youth Fellowship back from a two week visit to Chikwa village in Northern Malawi.

It was Ash Wednesday 2009 when the vision to build a school in a remote area of Northern Malawi was planted in the minds and hearts of the Youth Fellowship members. Over the following fifteen months many fund-raising ventures took place in the two small parishes of Monk Fryston and South Milford. These included concerts, car wash evening, pig-racing night, school events, a sponsored parachute jump, a national three-peak’s walk, grow a pound schemes, a Chinese banquet, and many, many more. Over that period of time some £20,000 was successfully raised.

In February this year initial funds were released to a Malawi bank account to fund the materials needed to make the bricks in readiness for the school to be built. Shortly afterwards the school began to take shape with a good flow of communications and picture coming back from Chikwa.

The Youth Fellowship members then set about obtaining exercise books, pencils, rubbers, text books, and were given double baggage allowance by Kenya Airlines which allowed them to take some 650kgs of resources with them.

A number of nervous parents saw their teenage sons and daughters off under the supervision of four adults. There was very little communication during the trip as Chikwa is very remote, so there was great deal of prayer for the team during those two weeks. The team consisted of Alistair Curran, Katie Sadler, Amy Holdsworth, Lester Hill, Lizzie Mone, Megan Holmes, Jane Wright, Phil Wright, Debbie Hetherington and Arthur Mone.

The visit was an immense success with formal opening of Kalwera School in what has been named the ‘Fellowship Building’ which houses two classroom ‘St Wilfrid’s’ and ‘St Mary’s’. The school will provide education for in excess of 700 children who come from Chikwa and the surrounding villages. Whilst there the team finished plastering the inside of the classrooms and then painted permanent lessons on the walls (pictures of the universe, a map of the world, a detailed map of Africa, basic biology images, equations, and many more). Living in Chikwa under canvas was extremely challenging – especially as all mobile phones, Ipod’s, hair straighteners, make-up and all the other comforts that teenagers are used to, were left behind in England.

The food was also basic as the team bought local produce and lived on maize porridge, rice and a variety of vegetables that they could source locally. There was, however, a surprise when after two days of living and working in the village the ‘Headman’ of the group of villages that makes up Chikwa gave the group a goat and asked which of the lads wanted to kill it. Needless to say, none were overly keen, so the Headman killed the goat for them, skinned it, cut it up, and left them to make what has been described as a ‘pretty chewy goaty stew’. Accommodation was also very basic and meant living in tents among the villagers.

After the time spent working in the village a trek had been planned to Lake Malawi (some 65 miles) over a three-day period; this was planned as part of the trip so that the group could a lot of ‘de-briefing’ in situ and help the readjustment process once they arrived back in England.

The group have returned to the Benefice with great plans for the future, and will soon begin working towards the erection of a further building and possibly a church in the village also. All those who went intend to go back again, and after sharing their experiences with the congregations who sent them, there is no shortage of people who wish to make the journey with them next time.