Build a school house in Chiyola, Malawi

Denga Afrika needs your help to raise $1600 for a new schoolhouse!

The story

Lauren met Friday Monsole, a schoolteacher at Chiyola School, who was her interpreter in 2019 when she was conducting an impact evaluation of an anti-child labor project in Northern Malawi. The school, which over 270 students attend, had a thatched roof and no desks. Students were learning under trees. During the rainy season, school often had to stop and students had to return home. They were losing valuable learning time. They did not enjoy coming to school because it was not a nice learning environment. Friday and Lauren agreed to do something about it in the future together.

The first school

After getting the community leaders' buy-in, Lauren, Martin, and Diana pooled enough money together in 2021 to complete a 16 x 32 ft school house–complete with a steel roof and plastered floors and walls! The school was also painted with bright murals to attract learners.

The local community was engaged from the start:

Our new project

However, our work is not over. The community recently started to bake their own bricks and build another school block. Unfortunately, bricks need to be supported with cement and wood to last. Otherwise they crumble, as shown in the picture below.

Hit hard by COVID-19 supply chain shocks, rising inflation, and the climate crisis, the community cannot afford to take this cost on alone right now. We are asking for your help to build another, bigger school block.

The total cost of building a new school block is about $1600 and we know with your help we can do it.

What's next?

We want to use this next schoolhouse as proof of concept to be able to write grants and win big funding. We also want to leverage its completion to get more UNICEF desks donated to the school.

Over the next year, we plan to scale up to build thousands more schoolhouses across rural Malawi.

Any additional money over $1600 that we receive will go to funding (1) our schoolfeeding program, which provides nutritious porridge for the kids 2-3 times per week and (2) building additional schoolhouses.

Your donation is the first step to help us get there.

Why Malawi?

Malawi is one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world. It ranks 174 / 189 countries on the Human Development Index. 50% of the population lives in poverty and Malawi is expected to double in population by 2038. Access to education is difficult: some kids have to walk very far to go to school, parents might prefer that their children work to make money instead of learning, and there is currently a severe school block shortage. Schools are so overcrowded the average school has 73 students per teacher. Only 1% of students will attend college. Low education rates increase the risk of child marriage, teen pregnancies, forced labor, sexual abuse, and gender-based violence.

Aren't other non-profits/NGOs already doing this work?

Yes, some are. However, many charities either operate in spaces that are easier to reach (like around the capital) or have strings attached to their donation (e.g. religious messaging). We operate in a very rural area of Northern Malawi that has yet to be penetrated by aid. We have no strings attached: we simply provide the funding from the school and measure its impact. Lastly, we are a lean organization. There are no overhead costs and we are all volunteers.

We are really excited about this journey and are always looking for ways to improve. If you have any comments, words of wisdom, or would like to connect, please contact Lauren, Martin, or Diana.