Africa-Press – Malawi. Old Mutual Malawi (Blantyre) Foundation Trust has handedover a magnificent school block at Maliya Primary School in the area of Traditional Authority (T/A) Kuntaja in Blantyre, which the institution in partnership with Care Malawi constructed in response to the devastating 2023 Post-Cyclone Freddy Recovery Project.
After noticing the impact left by Cyclone Freddy in some areas in the country especially part of southern region, Old Mutual Malawi and Care Malawi signed an agreement which the two parties agreed to introduce a Post-Cyclone Freddy Recovery initiative in the southern region whose main objective was to rehabilitate and construct school infrastructures that included, school blocks, administration offices and toilets.
Speaking during the official handover ceremony of the school block whose construction work was started in December last year and it consists two classrooms and teachers office, Chairperson for Old Mutual Blantyre Foundation, Tawonga Manda highlighted that the institution understand the biggest impact that was caused by Cyclone Freddy which damaged a lot of infrastructures including schools hence after considering that education side was also deeply affected they decided to intervene by constructing school blocks in the most impacted places such as Maliya Primary School which was not spared cyclone inorder to ensure education is doing well in the country and provide a conducive learning environment to the pupils.
“We have done a number of initiatives since Cyclone Freddy occured and our first assistance was a donation of assorted items worth K60 million which was directed to the victims in various areas such as Zomba, Mulanje and Thyolo through Red Cross Malawi.
“But when we examined the full extent of Cyclone Freddy the management felt that we could do more than what was done, therefore we decided to look at places where cyclone hit hard and when we discovered that some primary schools were deeply impacted we thought of coming in as one way of promoting education and at the same time, giving back to the community,” said Manda.
Country Director for Care Malawi, Pamela Kuwali said as a developmental organization through the their collaboration with Old Mutual and the government they always focuses on building of strong, resilient and be able to withstand harsh weather conditions since they are being built in areas which are prone to cyclone.
“Our collaboration with Old Mutual as our fund providers has been strong and through the expertise we have, we made everything possible to ensure the school block is of good standard as you’ve seen which is also inline with the Malawi 2063 agenda because education is a major key to success,” said Kuwali.
In his remarks, Headmaster for Maliya Primary School, Lawrence Chodzi commended Old Mutual for constructing the classroom which he declscribed it as a timely support considering the challenges of congestion the school has been experiencing.
Chodzi said; “Our school has the enrollment of 700 learners and due to lack of adequate classrooms, we used to have about 200 pupils in one class which was against the required number of 100 to 160.
“This school block will really assist us in making sure that our learners are attending classes without challenges which will also improve their performances,”.
Apart from Maliya Primary School, Old Mutual in partnership with Care Malawi have also constructed three classroom blocks in Mulanje and Phalombe districts respectively.
The construction project of the four schools has costed Old Mutual a total of K360 million.
Currently, Old Mutual’s Foundation Trust is supporting a total of 361 students in various National Secondary Schools across Malawi.
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