Childcare group to open Malawi centre

CHILDCARE group Midlothian Sure Start is planning open a new centre — in Malawi.
Carole Dick, co-ordinator for Stepping Forward Midlothian Sure Start's Centre in Penicuik, is in Ekwendeni this summer to work on an Aids/HIV project. While in Ekwendeni, Carole will attempt to set up something similar to Sure Start.

Young people in the area whose parents have died of Aids are often sole carers for their siblings, and increasingly grandparents are the sole carers for children. Resources are tight and as most is used for medication, there is no money left to provide additional family support or community development work.

Carole, who is undertaking the project with Midlothian Sure Start and Glasgow University, is hoping to encourage local people to support one another and will be working with those who are capable to set up childcare facilities.

Carole will also teach older teenagers some basic childcare and development, enabling them to provide childcare while the support groups are taking place.

Carole is also keen to explore how a country which cannot afford to foster copes and the contrast and similarities faced by grandparents in Scotland and Malawi.

Midlothian Sure Start operates six centres in Mayfield, Woodburn, Gorebridge, Bonnyrigg, Loanhead and Penicuik. It is hoped the project will help to break the ongoing cycle of oppression and poverty in Ekwendeni.

Sure Start says the parents who attend Stepping Forward at Eastfield Drive are excited at the prospect of having a partner centre, and they will be able to correspond with the project and help raise funds. The project will last to August.