"Warm Heart of Africa" Malawi Summer Camp
A high school principal in Malawi, raised in poverty, managed to complete his college degree despite many hardships. With passion, perseverance, and limited amount of resources, he opened schools to bring the opportunity of education to children who would otherwise be forced to drop out of school.
Many Malawian children, walk over one and a half hours to school every day, with another one and a half hours going back. Their dreams do not falter in the face of poverty; they would be the doctors, nurses, businessman and teachers of the future.
With a will in mind, the founders of the “Warm Heart of Africa Foundation” arrived after 20 hours worth of flights and transfers, five heavy suitcases along with them.
Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world, ranking #170 among 188 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index list. 70%+ of the population lives on a daily expense of less than $1.90. 90% of the country has no electricity. Education remains a big challenge. Overcrowded classrooms and scarcity of teachers result in drop-out rates as high as 70% in elementary schools. It is not uncommon for teenage girls to become victims of early marriage.
Mercy High School (https://mercycaremalawi.com) is serving students from Grades 9-12. There is another afterschool program supporting 150 elementary school students on the verge of dropping out of school. These students come from families that live on less than $1 per day and don’t see any hope in education.
The founder of MHS, Peter Gamula, the hardships of his past has made him a determined educator who devotes his whole to improving the state of education in Malawi.
In August of 2019, WHoA and MHS partnered up to create an educational summer camp program. WHoA donated 10 laptops to MHS and 160 books to Project Readit – a mobile library initiative. Every laptop and book were donated by parents from Vancouver, Canada and Hangzhou, China, and St. John’s Academy.
The summer camp covers three parts: public speaking, computer basics, and creative arts.
This summer camp is led by two teenage students, 15-year old Jeffrey from Seaquam Secondary School in Canada and 13-year old Jenny from Yungu School in Hangzhou, China. Under the guidance of Catherine and Frank – two founders of WHoA – they spent four months making plans for the summer camp and preparing for all of the teaching material.
As first-time instructors, teaching students of their own age in Africa was both exciting and nerve-racking. After adjusting their teaching plan and rehearsing many times, they finally faced a class of thirty-eight high school students. Students called them “My neighbor”. What a challenging yet rewarding experience!
Students from MHS never failed to surprise either!
Even with no previous public speaking experience, the MHS students spoke from their heart. Their free expression of themselves revealed their optimistic, outgoing, and sincere personalities. After only several days of training, they wowed the audience during on showcase on the final day of the camp.
In one student’s speech, the student said, “I always wanted to become a pilot since I was little. But my teacher told me that our nation is too poor to own enough airplanes for us to fly. Therefore I have made up my mind to become a businessman so to develop our nation’s economy.” One of the girls said she wanted to become a singer, and her beautiful song at the end of her speech won a big round of applause from the audience.
In the computer basics class, Jeffrey found that most students only used one finger to type on the keyboard. For the vast majority of the students, it was their first time ever touching a computer! The final project was to create a PowerPoint document demonstrating a creative solution to a problem. In under a week’s worth of training, their computer and PowerPoints presentation skills amazed everyone.
In the art class, Jenny wrote down the Picasso’s long, full name and asked if anybody had heard Picasso’s story through his art career. To her surprise, none of the students had ever heard about Picasso! Peter said the students never had art classes, due to the high cost of art supplies.
However, to everyone’s amazement, the students expressly demonstrated their artistic talents though the creation of Picasso inspired portraits. Jeffrey and Jenny noted that they “see huge potential in those students!”
Just like every child around the world, children in Malawi have potential to become amazing people. Their earnest efforts in their studies reflect the goals and dreams they set out for themselves. Only with the opportunity of education, comes a greater chance in realizing those goals and dreams.
In one visit, the WHOA team came to know Laundani, a college student aspiring to become an educator. Sitting out of run-down, shoddy house, they heard Laundani’s story about his difficulties growing up in poverty, his family and his never-give-up. Laundani is one of the college students that Peter financially support. His dream is to return to his hometown and become an educator, to help more children change their lives.
At Chatata Elementary School, the team met a principal that oversees 2500 students. He was constantly worried about a shortage of funding and a lack of teachers. The school can barely survive on the meager 1000 in USD the government provides them per year. Many students can’t even afford the $2 tuition for every semester. Hunger drives students to leave school before the school day ends. The accumulated student turn-over rate towards the end of graduation can be as high as 70% and only appears to rise annually.
Reading is another challenge. There are only three state-owned libraries across Malawi. The majority of students don’t have access to books other than their textbooks. Wako, the founder of the Readit program, wanted to build a library on wheels, one that can travel to schools and villages.
The 160 books donated to the Readit program were coming from two sources – generous audience who showed up at the “Warm Heart of Africa Speaking Contest” held by WHoA and Future V Institute in June, and, Wendy Pye Publishing, one of the biggest children’s book publishers in New Zealand.
Wako was thrilled when receive those 160 books – “It helps me to be closer to my dream”.
WHoA also donated a $900 lunch fund for 150 students at MHS.
Peter was telling the students, “they travelled such a long way and brought those laptops to you. Now it’s up to you. How are you going to use them? How are you going to fight for your future?”
Peter’s another focus is to develop a new high school in a village 50 kilometers away from Lilongwe, and he Did open this September! Local students of the area can now save hours worth of commute time by going to the new school. Distance has long been one of the main causes for student dropout.
This trip has greatly impacted every member of the foundation. Although the children of Malawi may lack the textbooks and pencils, they definitely aren’t lacking in dreams!
Found your Warm Heart of Africa Club at your school. Campaign for fundraising activities and get more people involved; Advocate support for Malawian students on social media and Youtube channels, making the public aware of what the team is doing;
Support the WHoA public speaking contests, raise money, used laptops, books, etc. ; One-on-one student sponsorship for talented and diligent students like Laundani to help them have a better chance to go to college.
Upon our departure Peter watched us and said, “Please come back!”
We will!
With more people!
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