In the past year the Malawi Connection group have carried out a variety of activities to raise funds and awareness of our link with Malawi. They have:

• Attended the Scotland Malawi Partnership Youth Congress at Hampden Park.
• Organised Malawi Week which included an S1 Change Challenge and bake sale.
• Given a presentation at Lenzie Old Parish Church.
• Delivered a lesson in Chichewa at the P7 Open Night.
• Attended the Lenzie Fair Trade Bake Off.
• Held a stall at the local primaries’ Christmas Fairs and Lenzie Gala day.
• Delivered culture lessons at Lenzie Meadows Primary school.

Profile of Partnership School Nansomba Secondary  
                         

Nansomba Secondary is in the south of Malawi in the beautiful area of Mulanje. The school has 275 boys and 242 girls; total 517 with 17 teachers and 5 support staff.

OUR MOTTO: Aim high to succeed.

OUR MISSION STATEMENT:

At Nansomba secondary school our mission through combined effort of teaching staff, parents, students and the community is to provide students with a foundation in a wide range of skills, to provide a positive work ethic, to create an environment that harbours tolerance and respect for each other and to spark an attitude of enquiry and an enthusiasm for learning that will enable our students to become confident, responsible and productive citizens.

OUR GOALS AND AIM:

As a school, we are very much delighted with the partnership that has been established with our sister school, Lenzie Academy. In this view, we cherish this partnership which we feel will be of beneficial to both schools.

The school has the following goals which it would like to achieve in its partnership with Lenzie Academy:

• We exchange skills in the teaching profession.
• We exchange and diversify the cultural aspects between the two schools.
• We learn from each other how to achieve social justice and equity among students of the two schools.
• We learn from each other how best the two schools can achieve peaceful conflict management amongst students and the communities they come from.
• We achieve sustainable development and globalization.

To achieve the stipulated goals the school aims are:

• Sensitizing the members of staff as well as the students of its partnership with Lenzie Academy.
• Forming partnership clubs at the school in specific subject areas e.g. in humanities, languages and sciences.
• Enhancing pupil to pupil and teacher to teacher contact (pen pals) between Nansomba Secondary School and Lenzie Academy students.

Having reciprocal visits between teachers and young people of the two schools to discuss, share and plan joint curricular work with global education themes.

Nansomba Secondary school offers the formal curriculum in the following subjects following under the three faculty departments of Languages, Sciences and Humanities as follows:

Further information:

The pupils at the school have to pass an entrance exam and may come from villages far away. Some pupils travel as much as 10km to get to school. Pupils have to pay a fee to attend the school (only primary education is free in Malawi). The school has a real need to develop better accommodation for the students and is in much need of basic teaching resources that we take for granted here in Scotland.

What can we do at Lenzie Academy  to build our partnership?

• Develop a whole school approach to a partnership with Nansomba Secondary.
• Create learning contexts that raise awareness of Malawi.
• Create professional dialogue with our Malawian colleagues.
• Support fund raising activities.

Lenzie Academy has been working with pupils, staff, parents and the local community to support the development of better resources for the pupils at Nansomba Secondary School.

Over the past few years at Lenzie Academy we have used a Malawian context to teach some areas of the curriculum.

• In Modern Studies, our young people in S2 learned about Fair Trade and participated in the Malawi Kitchen Rice challenge whereby they sell rice to parents and staff and every 90kg sold can send a child to school in Malawi.
• In Geography, young people in S2 participated in collaborative activities to research and compare the impact of deforestation in different parts of the world including Malawi and Scotland.
• In English, young people in S1 developed their skills researching endangered species including some animals in Malawi.

The Malawi Connection is a fundraising group within Lenzie Academy, committed to raising funds and awareness of our partner school, Nansomba Secondary, as well as other community projects in Malawi. We have raised money for a variety of projects.

The Malawi Connection Group meets in B12 on a Monday Lunchtime. We take part in making a varied range of arts and crafts which are then sold at events in school and the local community. This year, we are raising funds to improve the facilities at Nansomba Secondary, our partner school. We are also continuing to support the Scottish charity ‘Aiming Higher in Malawi’ and the Mendulo Early Childhood Development Centre (Nursery).

Below are a few of the examples of fundraising activities that the staff, young people and members of the school community have taken part in over the years.

• In 2015, we successfully raised funds to build a community nursery, the Mendulo Early Childhood Development Centre, which caters for many disabled children.
• In 2016 -17 we continued fundraising to build toilet blocks for the nursery.
• In 2016 we raised money to work in partnership with Classrooms for Malawi to refurbish classrooms at Nansomba Secondary. Pupils and teachers from Lenzie Academy helped paint the classrooms.
• Malawi Casual Friday – In 2014 the money raised was used to paint and buy books for Nansomba school library.
• Staff, pupils and the wider Lenzie community knitted hats, blankets and jumpers which were donated to Mulanje Mission Hospital and the people of the villages in the Nansomba school community.
• Staff and pupils raised £1,100 to buy playground equipment for 5 nursery schools in Malawi in partnership working with Sister Anna of the charitable trust CCC. Staff and pupils also raised £300 to buy school uniforms for children, many of whom were orphans.
• In Geography, S2 pupils raised funds to buy indigenous trees such as mango, papaya etc. which were planted in the Nansomba school orchard.
• The Duke of Edinburgh Expedition raised funds for a World Map which was completed in 2012.
• S6 ASDAN – Sponsor a Chicken/Pig with the money used to buy chickens and pigs for the Mother’s Group at Nansomba Secondary School.
• Social Enterprise Group – raised funds by making and selling items to parents, pupils and staff to buy a data projector and DVD player. They also collected unwanted DVD’s for the members of the Film Club at Nansomba Secondary.
• S5 NPA in Enterprise and Employability organised a cake sale and a “Walk for Africa”

• Powerpoint of Malawi 2014
• The Duke of Edinburgh's Award School Project 2013

to be updated.