Much-travelled Jim’s great Malawi legacy

A NORTH BERWICK ex-pat who has played a key role in fighting illiteracy and disease in Southern Africa has helped build an incredible 3,500 new classrooms in Malawi in just five years!

Much-travelled Jim Craigie, 64, plans to retire to Nelspruit, close to South Africa’s Kruger National Park, when his current assignment as construction manager for the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in poverty-stricken Malawi ends next year.

Since he arrived in the landlocked African state in 2004, he has supervised the building of more than 3,500 new school classrooms, at an average of 15 per week, providing space for an estimated 250,000 children.

And he has also come up with a solution to the chronic shortage of girls’ toilets in the schools – by devising special female urinals.

Until Mr Craigie’s intervention, absenteeism among schoolgirls had rocketed, as many stayed at home rather than risk having to go to the toilet outside.

A survey had found that many schools had only one toilet for more than 100 children, and that these were often badly

built, unsanitary and liable to be vandalised. Girls blamed the long queues for the toilets for missed lessons.

Speaking from the Malawian town of M’buka on Tuesday, Mr Craigie told the Courier of his immense sense of personal achievement.

He explained: “The urinals were easy to build, and could be constructed by the schools themselves, using local materials.

“Children were taught good habits such as washing their hands after using the toilet, before preparing or eating food, and after cleaning away babies’ faeces – simple measures that can prevent fatal illnesses like cholera and diarrhoea.

“But the most satisfying part of the schools projects I’ve been involved with is that they are helping Malawi’s private sector to grow as a result of the UK Government’s aid projects.”

Mr Craigie and his Newcastle-born wife Isabel stayed in Brodie Avenue before the wanderlust set in 31 years ago.

His foreign postings have also included Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia.

The former North Berwick High School rugby captain has had his fair share of hair-raising experiences, including watching with hand on heart as labourers risked their lives for £4 a day wading across a swollen crocodile-infested river to deliver building materials to a remote construction site.

“It was the rainy season and when our vehicles could not make it there was no way I was going to swim across,” he admitted.

“It just shows you how desperate some people are to earn a living. We later agreed to pay the workers danger money by paying them £4 a day for up to 10 crossings – still a huge salary in Malawian terms.”

Mr and Mrs Craigie have two sons and a grandchild in Malawi and Swaziland.

The couple visit North Berwick annually to catch up with his brother Ian, who stays in Old Abbey Road, and sister Moira, of St Baldred’s Road.

“We’ve just bought a delightful house in South Africa for my retirement, as we love the sunshine too much!”, he laughed.