First day of school term, all the CBCC, primary and secondary school children return to classes.
Unfortunately the term at Chimteka II starts poorly with a number of teachers absent from class (including headmaster). Go and have a word with the Primary Education Advisor (PEA) to try and nip this in the bud, still issues with late payment of salaries to teachers.Travel to Malawi Ministry of Education to get stats on dropouts for girl’s hostel application. Amazed to find how helpful the people are and they provide me with loads of stats for last ten years in Malawi (in electronic format for future ref).
Stephano joiner comes to re-quote for construction of benches at Chimteka II-hopefully we can get work started on this program next week once the quote has been completed. Receive quotation for construction of 30 benches from Joiner Stephano: 84,500 Mkw
Water and Sanitation
Visit Katakungwa and am amazed at the progress they have made, it really is starting to look like a model village-the toilets are so clean, I hope they are using them…..
Health and Disability
Early start: Transport 10 patients to Lilongwe-500 miles Clinic for prosthetic assessment and fitting.
Collect a letter from the Ministry of Lands outlining progress of land acquisition for hostel/maternity sites by respective Ministries.
The District Health Officer (DHO) from Mchinji calls and asks if we can meet, I also arrange to take Katy (a local Peace Corp) volunteer who wants assistance in networking so she can develop a mother and child facility in her area.
DHO asks about the electrification of staff houses at the Health Centre and also improvements to the existing guardian shelter, as they are trying to improve maternal health facilities.
Apply for some malaria rapid test kits that have been made available by an organization in Lilongwe, they require two letters of referral which I am able to collect from Ministry of Health and Chioshya H/C. Successful in our application and agree to collect next week
Meet with the Health personnel at clinic and discuss improvement of sanitation facilities at Clinic and how we can follow up the electrification of staff houses with District Health Office and ESCOM-also discuss how the Tenteleni volunteers can assist at Health Centre.
No Saturday visit from Evelyne so take the opportunity to have a trip into Zambia for the day.
Nutrition and Food
Energy
Get an accurate measurement of length of electricity cable needed to connect Chimteka Full to mains supply using Liam’s measuring wheel.
Purchase 50 meters of twin wire in order to connect Chimteka Full Primary school to electricity, this is supposed to be supplied by ESCOM but after waiting over a year we need to give them a bit of assistance.
Chimteka Life
Check progress of CLTS in a number of villages; two (Liwinga and Katakungwa) are virtually complete and will have to organize a ceremony next week to recognize there Open Defecation free (ODF) status.
Take 3 patients to Mchinji for X-rays. Collect:
* Suction delivery machine for maternity.
* X 50 microcuvettes for Hb machine (donated by Annie B-W).
* Drugs for health centre,
* Maternity books, returned by Dalton know he is transferred to Mchinji.
Give Christi a lift to Lilongwe; she is undertaking 10 days of Peace Corp In Service Training (IST), next week her counterpart from the Health Centre (Hsa Elias) will join her for joint training sessions.
Meet with World Vision to discuss there program of residual spraying of houses (to kill mosquitoes), this has been proven to reduce the incidence of malaria and if done correctly can last 6 months. This technique was piloted in our area by CARD last year but unfortunately this project has know come to an end.
Disability
Evelyne arrives at Chimteka for combined head control, sitting-standing-walking-hand function workshop.
In Lilongwe, collect vitameal from Feed the Children and have a long discussion with the country director Ken Patterson who
would like to come and visit us within the next few weeks. He has some ideas about introducing technology to resource poor
, rural areas and has some contacts in America who need a place where they can trial some developments.
Mchinji
Meet Mr Ndelema of Escom to discuss the electrification of Chimteka Full Primary School (we have been waiting over a year!!)
He says “pay as you go” meters are now available but not the wire to connect to the school, I believe our only option is to purchase this twin wire at 700 Mkw per meter (we will need 50m) to get the job done.
“Journey of life” training still being undertaken in the hall, have been looking at training material and the Community Based Management component regarding child protection is particularly interesting. Malawi lacks the infrastructure or capacity that we have in child protection cases and has to try and deal with individual cases within the community rather than relying on national legislation.
Children cannot be removed from situations as Malawi cannot accommodate them elsewhere so local solutions have to be developed.
The “Journey of Life” training finally comes to an end.
Collect 4 Tenteleni volunteers from Mchinji (3 girls and 1 boy) and visit all the different places where we operate.
After visits we look at different areas they would like to assist with:
* Drama therapy for the HIV/AIDS group and youth.
* Discuss issue with girl youth leading to the broadcast of a radio program from a community radio station in Mchinji.
* Supporting information for girls hostel application and health centre data collection.
* Work with CBCC children
Employment and Enterprise
Meet with the honey producers of Belo village to discuss marketing and sales of the honey they have in there possession-three buckets full.