Extreme Poverty and Bursaries
Bursaries are one part of a holistic programme of support to Madanjala School. In the last 18 months we have supplied the school text books, bikes, a teachers lap top, desks, girls change room and electricity.
Each month Oscar visits and reviews the progress (and needs) of our schools and meets with teachers and community leaders to make sure that the support we provide is effective. Oscar also helps with the needs assessments of Pupils for our Bursary programme.
This is Naomi Joseph, a form one student at Madanjala Community Day Secondary School. Naomi is 16 and is the eldest child in a single parent household. Her father died 5 years ago and it’s a struggle for the family to get food, so the whole family engages in piece work for survival e.g. tilling crops and fetching water for other families.
In 2024, Oscar visited Naomi’s home and met her family and was shocked to see the level of poverty and an almost total lack of bedding and clothes. In 2023 Naomi had won a place at Madanjala CDSS but was unable to attend school because she didn’t have the funds for school fees.
Malawi Schools Trust is now providing a bursary for school fees (£15 per term) for Maureen and she is now able to attend classes daily and catch up with her education. Of course its still not easy for her, she must do odd jobs to pay for stationery and food and this detracts from her after school study. But we are providing notebooks and pens to students at Madanjala to help with this.
Naomi is one of 40 Pupils that are receiving Bursaries from Malawi Schools Trust. These are reviewed each term by the School so that the students with the greatest need, like Naomi, get support.
Oscar commented ” its really heart breaking to see extreme poverty in homes. Thankfully with our Bursary programme we are able to provide a chance for Naomi to complete her education and break the cycle of poverty in her family”