TWO city teachers are spending their summer holidays in Malawi schools to help improve children's education.
Katherine Simpson and Jane McClounan will stay with families in a rural community for five weeks as part of an international charity's project to raise education standards in Africa.
As well as helping to develop learning methods, the teachers will lay foundations for what could be a lasting bond between schools in Malawi and Glasgow.
It is hoped the scheme will lead to future exchanges, with teachers and children travelling between countries.
advertisementJane, 40, who works at Shawlands Primary, is no stranger to taking classes in foreign countries as she has already taught in Egypt, China, Taiwan and the Philippines.
She said: "Although I have worked overseas before, this will be totally different - I'm looking forward to what will be the experience of a lifetime.
"Each of us will be living with a family in a village where there is no or electricity or running water.
"Massive class sizes and lack of material resources present huge problems but in co-operation with Malawian colleagues we will work very hard to make a positive contribution."
Jane and Katherine, who teaches autistic kids at Middlefield residential school in the West End, are due to be sent to communities in Dedza district, central Malawi.
They fly out in June and should find out which schools and families they will be placed with over the next few days.
Katherine, 27, said: "It will be a real culture change in every sense.
"It can be perceived as corny to say I want to make a difference,' but that's why I went into teaching in the first place."
The project is run by Link Community Development, a charity dedicated to advancing education in Africa which places teachers in Malawi, Ghana, Uganda and South Africa.
A total of 18 teachers from schools across Scotland are heading for Malawi - the highest-ever number from north of the Border.
Catherine McKenna, 30, programme manager with the charity, said: "There has been a bigger focus on Scotland since we opened our new office in Edinburgh last year.
"The teachers won't be asked to take classes but will help improve the management of the school by comparing different methods of teaching and learning.
"We work in partnership with the education department in Malawi and the other countries we're involved with."
The charity is also looking to recruit teachers in October for next year's project.
Anyone interested should email Link Community Development at scotland@lcd.org.uk or visit www.lcd.org.uk
Monday, 7 May 2007
Visit brings perspective on reform
ALBANY -- The members of Parliament from Malawi, one of Africa's smallest and poorest countries, were at first too embarrassed to respond to a question about how much they're paid.
"You'd be laughing all the way back to your houses if I told you," Dr. George Nga Mtafu said.
A retired neurosurgeon who heads the opposition party and the reforms committee in Malawi's Parliament, Mtafu was speaking to a group of State University of New York officials in a wood-paneled, 13th-floor boardroom Friday afternoon.
The seven Parliament members, including Atupele Austin Muluzi, the son of former Malawi President Bakili Muluzi, were concluding a weeklong visit to Albany. They came to study New York state government in the hopes of taking back ideas to advance reform in their country's struggling, fledgling democracy.
In the Malawi National Assembly, commonly called the Parliament, there are 193 members and they're elected to five-year terms.
"We could both probably stand to learn a few things about reform," quipped Helen Desfosses, former president of the Albany Common Council and a UAlbany professor who teaches courses on African politics.
In Malawi, about two-thirds of the Parliament members were voted out in the last election.
It turns out the Malawians have a few things to learn from New York lawmakers, on that score at least.
"You practically have to die to lose your seat in the New York state Legislature," Desfosses noted.
The irony of Friday's salary question was not lost on Mtafu, head of the United Democratic Front, an opposition party that's openly feuding with Malawi's president, Bingu wa Mutharika, who quit UDF in a public row in 2005 over corruption allegations.
A few blocks up State Street hill, at the Capitol, a spirited debate is raging sotto voce among New York's lawmakers who want a raise above their $79,500 base pay (which typically exceeds $100,000 with bonuses for committee work) but fear angering their constituents.
In Malawi, members of Parliament earn 87,000 kwacha, about $500 in U.S. dollars.
That may amount to three times as much as a typical Malawian subsistence farmer earns growing maize and tobacco each year, but, as Mtafu put it, "It's peanuts."
Even worse than their low pay, perhaps, is the lack of respect elected officials are accorded in a country still struggling to find its footing as a democracy after breaking free from British imperial control in 1964.
Independence in Malawi was followed by a three-decade rule under tough, dictatorial President Hastings Kamuzu Banda. In 1994, the country adopted its first democratic constitution.
In practice, though, there is not a strong system of checks and balances in place and the executive branch still acts much like a dictatorship.
The most egregious usurpation of power by the president, according to the Parliament members, is in the matter of the budget. There is no public discussion, no input from lawmakers, no review or transparency.
"You'd be laughing all the way back to your houses if I told you," Dr. George Nga Mtafu said.
A retired neurosurgeon who heads the opposition party and the reforms committee in Malawi's Parliament, Mtafu was speaking to a group of State University of New York officials in a wood-paneled, 13th-floor boardroom Friday afternoon.
The seven Parliament members, including Atupele Austin Muluzi, the son of former Malawi President Bakili Muluzi, were concluding a weeklong visit to Albany. They came to study New York state government in the hopes of taking back ideas to advance reform in their country's struggling, fledgling democracy.
In the Malawi National Assembly, commonly called the Parliament, there are 193 members and they're elected to five-year terms.
"We could both probably stand to learn a few things about reform," quipped Helen Desfosses, former president of the Albany Common Council and a UAlbany professor who teaches courses on African politics.
In Malawi, about two-thirds of the Parliament members were voted out in the last election.
It turns out the Malawians have a few things to learn from New York lawmakers, on that score at least.
"You practically have to die to lose your seat in the New York state Legislature," Desfosses noted.
The irony of Friday's salary question was not lost on Mtafu, head of the United Democratic Front, an opposition party that's openly feuding with Malawi's president, Bingu wa Mutharika, who quit UDF in a public row in 2005 over corruption allegations.
A few blocks up State Street hill, at the Capitol, a spirited debate is raging sotto voce among New York's lawmakers who want a raise above their $79,500 base pay (which typically exceeds $100,000 with bonuses for committee work) but fear angering their constituents.
In Malawi, members of Parliament earn 87,000 kwacha, about $500 in U.S. dollars.
That may amount to three times as much as a typical Malawian subsistence farmer earns growing maize and tobacco each year, but, as Mtafu put it, "It's peanuts."
Even worse than their low pay, perhaps, is the lack of respect elected officials are accorded in a country still struggling to find its footing as a democracy after breaking free from British imperial control in 1964.
Independence in Malawi was followed by a three-decade rule under tough, dictatorial President Hastings Kamuzu Banda. In 1994, the country adopted its first democratic constitution.
In practice, though, there is not a strong system of checks and balances in place and the executive branch still acts much like a dictatorship.
The most egregious usurpation of power by the president, according to the Parliament members, is in the matter of the budget. There is no public discussion, no input from lawmakers, no review or transparency.
Living on a Dollar a Day in Malawi
Malawi is one of poorest countries in the world, and according to NPR.org, more than half of the population lives off less than £0.50/$1.00 per day. That’s 127 Malawian Kwacha.
A goon from The Something Awful Forums started a thread entitled Eating on a Dollar per Day, stating him and his room mate are going to live for a dollar a day for a month too taking advice from fellow goons on what to buy and what not to.
Because prices in Malawi are so low, and prices in the USA are lower than that of the UK, I kinda assumed it’s £1 a day in English exchange and tax prices and that got me thinking how we are so wasteful.
I think nothing of going into a shop and paying £1 for a pasty to “keep me going” until my evening meal. This is the entire daily budget for somebody living in Malawi or a poor part of the USA.
The Day’s Accounting
The daily balance sheet for the Phiri family:
Income
Cotton: $0.07/£0.04
Donations: $0.63/£0.32
Tomatoes: $0.01/£0.01
Bike taxi: $0.09/£0.05
Goats: $0.10/£0.05
Sugar cane: $0.04/£0.02
TOTAL: $0.94/£0.47
Expenses
Maize flour: $0.45/£0.23
Soap: $0.04/£0.02
Salt: $0.02/£0.01
School fees: $0.10/£0.05
Clothes: $0.08/£0.04
Paraffin (for lamps): $0.17/£0.09
Fertilizer: $0.04/£0.02
Fish: 35
TOTAL: $1.25/£0.63
How would you budget if you were given $30/£30 and told to make it last a month in your city?
I would get:
£1.00 Months supply of multi-vitamin
£2.00 2 x 3KG bags of pasta
£0.50 Salt
£1.00 Various spices
£5.00 Various budget chicken cuts
£2.00 Bananas and Apples
£3.00 3 x 1KB bags of brown rice
£1.00 Jar of peanut butter
£2.00 Cheap musli type cereal
£1.50 Plenty of powdered milk mix
£2.88 36 x Packets of ramen noodles
£6.00 Freakin’ huge sack of potatoes
£1.00 Few large cabbages
£0.30 Large bar of cheap chocolate
£0.80 A crapload of boullion for either
seasoning or making soup.
Opinions? Responses? Opinions?
Please donate to Malawi via Unicef by clicking the “Donate Now” button on the following URL:
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/malawi.html
africa, aid, charity, donate, food, goon, malawi, poorest countries in the world, somethingawful
A goon from The Something Awful Forums started a thread entitled Eating on a Dollar per Day, stating him and his room mate are going to live for a dollar a day for a month too taking advice from fellow goons on what to buy and what not to.
Because prices in Malawi are so low, and prices in the USA are lower than that of the UK, I kinda assumed it’s £1 a day in English exchange and tax prices and that got me thinking how we are so wasteful.
I think nothing of going into a shop and paying £1 for a pasty to “keep me going” until my evening meal. This is the entire daily budget for somebody living in Malawi or a poor part of the USA.
The Day’s Accounting
The daily balance sheet for the Phiri family:
Income
Cotton: $0.07/£0.04
Donations: $0.63/£0.32
Tomatoes: $0.01/£0.01
Bike taxi: $0.09/£0.05
Goats: $0.10/£0.05
Sugar cane: $0.04/£0.02
TOTAL: $0.94/£0.47
Expenses
Maize flour: $0.45/£0.23
Soap: $0.04/£0.02
Salt: $0.02/£0.01
School fees: $0.10/£0.05
Clothes: $0.08/£0.04
Paraffin (for lamps): $0.17/£0.09
Fertilizer: $0.04/£0.02
Fish: 35
TOTAL: $1.25/£0.63
How would you budget if you were given $30/£30 and told to make it last a month in your city?
I would get:
£1.00 Months supply of multi-vitamin
£2.00 2 x 3KG bags of pasta
£0.50 Salt
£1.00 Various spices
£5.00 Various budget chicken cuts
£2.00 Bananas and Apples
£3.00 3 x 1KB bags of brown rice
£1.00 Jar of peanut butter
£2.00 Cheap musli type cereal
£1.50 Plenty of powdered milk mix
£2.88 36 x Packets of ramen noodles
£6.00 Freakin’ huge sack of potatoes
£1.00 Few large cabbages
£0.30 Large bar of cheap chocolate
£0.80 A crapload of boullion for either
seasoning or making soup.
Opinions? Responses? Opinions?
Please donate to Malawi via Unicef by clicking the “Donate Now” button on the following URL:
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/malawi.html
africa, aid, charity, donate, food, goon, malawi, poorest countries in the world, somethingawful
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