Widzo school receives Ambassador’s Self-Help funding.

By Ellen Bremenstul

It was a great honor for me to participate in the handover of a recent Self Help Project.  Widzo Private Secondary School is within the outskirts of Luchenza town (Mulanje District) in the Southern Region of Malawi.  Approximately 250 students attend Widzo and a portion of these also board at the school.  It is a pleasant environment which offers students an opportunity to focus on learning without diverting their attention toward the many demands of homelife in rural Malawi.  Girls outnumber boys in some forms at Widzo. 

The Ambassador’s Self Help Fund provided the school with $6,600 to procure high quality desks and thereby increase the overall number of desks at Widzo.  With fewer students per desk unit, this gift provides each student with a better learning environment.  The grant also funded the construction of new and improved latrines adjacent to the girls’ dormitory.  Headmaster Zolowere enthusiastically gave Tony Ayuninjam, Self Help Coordinator, and me a tour of the entire campus.  He showed us all of the classrooms and we saw that the new desks were shared equally in all the forms.  The newly completed latrines were bright and airy.  Future school development plans include a science laboratory and improvements to the boys’ latrines and dormitory. 

Many local officials were present at the handover ceremony which was facilitated by Headmaster Zolowere.  One of the third form girls gave an excellently prepared and delivered speech thanking the United States Government for assisting Widzo Private Secondary School.

On behalf of the Ambassador, I congratulated the School Board of Trustees and community for taking appropriate steps toward addressing a critical problem in their community.  I reminded them that Americans are Malawi’s true partners in development, adding that we, Americans, are pleased to help Malawians who are working hard to make their own lives better.  In my closing remarks, I thanked the project manager for collaborating with the Self-Help Office and hoped that the community would continue to work together to make their future community projects just as successful.

After all the formalities were completed, the students presented us with a gift of fruit from their region.  They also asked if the Embassy might facilitate a relationship with a school in the United States whereby students at Widzo could write letters to American students.  Please contact me if you know of a high school that would be interested (+265-1-773-166 X 3403).