The day after the big day

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When I arrive at the orphanage I discover that no children are here and that today is for the staff to complete things before the holiday. Communication has been tricky at times especially in regard to which days the orphanage will be fully open, closed, and half open with the feeding programme (now that the fund has paid for bags of maize).

Skills for work Centre

I take the opportunity of this quiet day to visit another project within the Orphan Care Malawi NGO work: a Vocational Skills Training Centre just down the road from the orphanage. As I walk down the road with one of the volunteers I walk past the King of the village who is having her breakfast outside her house and she smiles and waves as we pass by.

The Vocational Centre is a long hall-shaped building which is divided into about 5 rooms - the manager's office, sewing room (with about seven old fashioned sewing machines), car mechanics room, electrician training room, and a welding area. Everything is incredibly basic with only a few bits of equipment in each room, and the electrics are again bare wires into wall sockets - health and safety here is off the scale!!

There are currently 22 students enrolled at the Vocational Centre and I'm sad to hear that only two are female. Apparently there were more young women last year and they are not sure why there has been a drop in numbers. It is cause for concern as many women here lack skills for work and end up going into prostitution as there is no other way to earn money. Levels of unemployment are high and people struggle to get jobs; securing work is more to do with nepotism than anything else. (Many of the staff at the Hostel where I am staying dislike working there as they have to sell alcohol and be around drunk people which is against their religious beliefs but they cannot get other work, and rely on a future possibility of a cousin or sibling getting them into another job).

The Vocational Centre rooms are fairly small and in one room eight young men crowd around a piece of engine. Each room has a small blackboard with some notes and questions for the students to be working on.

Resources at the Vocational Centre are so low that the teachers cannot cover all the course requirements, accordingly students are not adequately prepared for the formal exams they take in the town, so the project manager tells me later that the Centre can only produce 'half-baked' workers.

At the back of the Vocational Centre I'm shown a small patch of land where they grown maize and a new fish pond just created two months ago. They have put in a stock of fish and must wait six months before they can start catching fish to eat. They are hoping that if the fish keep breeding they will have a sustained source of food they can take from twice a year.

As I walk back to the orphanage along the muddy road I see children playing with 'clay' cars they have made from the mud.

Back at the orphanage

The project manager informs me that the Reverend (who was away in London during my first week) is coming in shortly to meet with me. I had been keen to set up a meeting with him and the project manager to clarify what would be happening over the holiday period and how I can best use my time.

The three of us congregate in the Reverend's Chairman's office. The Reverend explains that the orphanage will not merely be running a feeding programme over the holidays but will remain fully open. I am a little concerned that this will unsettle staff who are ready to go on leave - but the Reverend says it is his dream for the centre to be open every day of the year, including weekends and holidays. He goes to say that he cannot be at home enjoying the holidays knowing the children are starving when there are bags of maize locked up in the centre. He also explains it is best to have the centre fully open so the children are cared for and have activities to do rather than just the feeding programme alone. I suggest some other things I can help with before I leave: a new welcome booklet for UK volunteers with practical info about the project and living in Blantryre, starting up a six-monthly e-newsletter and producing the first edition while I'm here, and painting a design on one of the hall walls. (For my work colleagues - ok ok I wouldn't normally advocate 'painting' but they like to have a wall picture by each volunteer so they can remember them - no teasing when I'm back please! lol).

For the rest of the day there is little to do without the children being there, and the staff sit around resting. Reading the local paper I am so excited to see an article about a mobile network company Celtel doing its CSR with an orphanage - giving gifts in kind such as tvs and toys and having a Christmas party with the children. This is the evidence I'd been looking for that this kind of support is possible here. A good positive to end the week.

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