Classrooms for Malawi

Since our creation almost 10 years ago, Classrooms for Malawi have improved the day-to-day school environment of over 30,000 across Malawi. We provide children with the opportunity to attend school in a safe, clean and friendly learning environment. In Malawi, often children are taught outdoors due to a lack of adequate infrastructure, our mission is to take children from the shades of trees to the light of a classroom! We work side-by-side with Malawian communities and the Ministry of Education to identify communities in most urgent need of improved infrastructure. In partnership and consultation with community leaders, parents, teachers and local authorities we form a plan for improvement of each school we work within and help the community to deliver against this plan. We employ local tradesmen in Malawi (employing over 20 people indirectly at any given time), we work with locally sourced materials to improve the educational infrastructure. Our projects are mainly the provision of classroom blocks, however we also work on toilets, dormitory buildings and libraries. We believe in the importance of education both here and in Malawi, thus we promote our work and school partnerships within the context of the Global Goals. Our donor base is a network of schools, community groups, businesses and faith groups who have come together to help us in our mission. We are grateful for all donations, large or small (monetary or otherwise) that will help us build more classrooms.

Our work has left a lasting impact in all of the school communities in which we've worked. In terms of infrastructure, there are 200 classrooms that will be standing for over 50 year. This has a significant impact on education, impact assessments to date have shown increased attendance, attainment and improved pass rates in National Examinations. We have also seen more girls attending school as a result of proper sanitation and dormitory accommodations. Our work employs up to 50 builders across Malawi each year, we use only local materials. In Scotland, we have an outreach programme working in schools and community groups to raise awareness of our partnership with Malawi, the global goals and the friendships that can be made. This creates a lasting impact with children both here and in Malawi.