Revamping our school sponsorship programme

As you may know, we operate four village schools that offer free education to children who are not yet at 'school age' and additional support to students who want to access further learning. But in Malawi, school is not always free.

Primary education is usually free up to Standard 8 (students aged 13) but the costs associated with learning materials, uniform and examination fees still means many families are unable to support their children through school. And for those students who want to continue into secondary education, families must pay tuition fees and often transport and accommodation. For years, with the support of some incredible donors in the UK, we have been running a school sponsorship programme, to ensure that those students who want to continue learning have the opportunity to do so. It was through this programme that our very own Thocco, now Communications Manager at Community Highlight, was able to complete his University degree.

This programme has always been something we are really passionate about as we truly believe that education is the key to unlocking opportunities, potential and aspiration. Over the last few years we have faced some challenges in keeping this running and making sure it is effective and sustainable. However, we are very excited to announce that we are now in a position to re-design our school sponsorship programme, with support from our friends at Matandani School.

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Previously we were supporting young people at all stages of their educational journey, but we will now just support primary school learners - with Matandani taking on the sponsorship of our secondary learners. This will allow us to expand our programme to support up to ten children per year. We also plan to slightly change the way we support our students. We will now only pay a percentage of the school fee; meaning it is the family's responsibility to contribute at least a small amount towards their child's education - this will reduce community over-reliance on us as an organisation and improve mentalities towards the importance and power of learning. If families and carers are unable to contribute financially we will offer them opportunities to take part in our education programmes by helping to clean, collect water and provide building support for our schools. We are also looking to introduce a Parents Teachers Association (PTA) to ensure that the carers of our sponsored children are engaged in the programme.

The rest of the money we raise for the programme will go towards school materials like uniform, books and stationery. We hope that this will help to improve grades and motivation as it will mean our students have the practical items they need to produce good quality work; this is something that has historically held our students back.

Any donations we now receive towards this programme will be put into a central 'sponsorship pot'; this will give us more flexibility to support our ten children per year in a more individualised way. The new format also allows us to more closely monitor students' progress and grades, to ensure they are getting the support they need; we will be working closely with staff at Matandani School to do this.

We are really excited to see what impact this revamp has, and we look forward to some big successes and great work this academic year ⭐

Thank you to everyone who has supported our school sponsorship programme over the last nine years. If you would like to get involved and contribute to the education of children in Domasi please email [email protected] for guidance on how to set up a regular donation. Zikomo kwambiri.

Donate towards our school sponsorship programme