Malawian visitor teaches pupils about fair play

FOR the past three and a half years, Maerdy Junior School has had a special guest teacher.

Lotan Matewere is originally from the African country Malawi and, through the local Christian organisation Sporting Marvels, he travelled to the Rhondda to work with a number of local schools, including teaching the Maerdy pupils basketball and about moral values in sport.

The school considered him an important resource and wanted to involve him in more activities, and so the decision was taken to begin studying his home country.

Teachers and children from Years 3 and 4 alike began researching to gather as much information about the small country as possible, including its location, culture and nature. It is located in southern Africa, bordering Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia and is a very mountainous area.

It is not much smaller than England and has a total population of about 14 million. However, it is a very poor country, one of the poorest in Africa.

Lotan was involved in the research and was on hand to give first hand information about his home land.

At harvest time it was decided to donate aid to the country. Schools in Malawi have recently been affected by flooding and Maerdy pupils were offered the chance to send their donation to help the Malawian children.

They agreed, and went on to collect £80, along with a large set of maths books.

They hope this will go a little way to help children less fortunate than themselves and everyone at the school wants to thank Lotan for his generosity with his time in helping the children with their projects.