Teaching in All Saints SDSS, Mtunthama by Pauline Arkle
September 21, 2004 by Vicky
I taught daily for a month during July/August 2004. You could say it was a busman’s holiday since teaching maths is what I do for my living! The lesson with Form 4 (57 students) started at 8 am and lasted nearly 2 hours, followed by Form 2. (75 students). Forms 1 and 3 were on holiday, being non-exam classes.
Both classes had good attendance and enjoyed the Maths lessons. In Secondary schools in Malawi education has to be paid for. (100 Kwatcha – about 50 pence per week). Some students receive sponsorship through Medic Malawi. Those who cannot pay drop out, save up, and then repeat the year. Those who do not pass the end of year exams will repeat the year, if finances permit. Unlike the UK, the classes have similar ability but not age. Form 4 students ages ranged from 15 to 22+ years.
Maths level was Higher GCSE and A level standard. Students passing exams in October (when the school year ends) can be awarded MSC (Malawi Secondary Certificate). Enough credits will get them a place in college or university. All students were eager to learn, knowing an education is a privilege and is the key to success.
Equipment is basic; most students still used log books. Calculators are expensive (£20 in Lilongwe for one costing about a fiver in UK) so few students have them although the exam board now permits their use in examinations. Several students shared pencils and rulers, though I gave every student a pen at the start. Only one student pretended to have lost it to try to get another! I didn’t fall for that! Textbooks were not available. Malawi students are brilliant at mental arithmetic and can carry out complicated procedures, e.g. cancelling down fractions, with the greatest of ease. Many UK students never develop these skills.
It was a really enjoyable and fulfilling experience and such a contrast to UK schools. It was especially good renewing contact with the staff and some students I taught last year.
Newsletter: September 2004
September 1, 2004 by Vicky
St. Andrew’s Hospital, now officially designated a Rural Health Centre, goes from strength to strength. The Outpatients’ Dept. is treating between 40 and 70 patients a day, mainly for malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia, accidents and an increasing number for meningitis. Admissions are running at 3 to 4 a day, usually with serious conditions of the above ailments, but also with upper respiratory infections. Many young children are admitted with severe anaemia.
A Medical Assistant has been appointed. Not only is he able to diagnose and treat most illnesses, but he is also a Dental Technician; thus we are now able to offer some dental services to patients, which is a great step forward as there were no dental facilities in the Mtunthama area.
The Maternity Unit runs ante-natal clinics twice a week, with 50 to 70 expectant mothers attending each clinic, and deliveries are between 2 and 5 a day, though the current record is 8 babies born during just one night!
The NRU (Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit) is now the only Unit of its kind operating in the whole of the Kasungu District. Much help is coming from UNICEF, Action against Hunger, CHAM, and Norwegian Church Aid. Between them, these organisations are assisting with the provision of maize flour, cooking oil, milk, blankets, mosquito nets and some medical supplies. This of course takes some of the pressure off Medic Malawi and allows us to extend the programme. We now have two Homecraft workers who teach nutrition, hygiene, child care and so on. Once a week there is a “demonstration meal”. Mothers are taught about nutritious foods, their children are given a meal in the NRU, and then they take home with them sufficient food for the child(ren) for one well balanced meal each day for the next week. This not only ensures food for the child, but encourages the mothers to return the following week for the child(ren) to be checked and fed. Twice a week there are under-5 immunisation programmes in the fight against measles, polio and TB.
At the end of July we purchased a second ambulance, and this will allow us to set up Outreach Clinics. These clinics will operate once or twice a month, taking medical care to those living in areas where it would otherwise be unavailable. In addition, we hope to be able to establish effective follow-up programmes for children who have been discharged from the NRU.
The Medical Laboratory is now complete, and basic equipment has been purchased to allow for testing for malaria and bilharzia. As funds allow(!) the level of equipment will be improved enabling a higher level of quick and accurate diagnosis of a wider range of ailments. No longer will patients need to be referred to Kasungu Hospital for testing. This will save time and thus ensure more rapid treatment.
All the water supplied to the Hospital comes from the bore-hole which was sunk last year. The water is pumped to holding tanks from where it flows by gravity to the Hospital. This ensures a guaranteed supply of pure water, no matter what happens to the national grid. There have been problems, however, with the provision of a generator, and sadly we have had to take the contractor to court for breach of contract. We await the outcome of the case.
As yet we have not been able to obtain funding to build an Operating Theatre. This is, of course, a big project requiring something in the region of £25,000, as well as the costs of equipment. Currently, though the medical staff have all the skills to carry out surgical procedures they do not have the necessary facilities and so have to refer patients to Kasungu Hospital, which entails a road journey of 30 kilometres. Probably the most common surgical procedure would be Caesarean section, but many other procedures could be undertaken if only we had the facilities.
Education is the key to the future of Malawi. In purely health care terms, 40% of women who die in childbirth would survive if they delivered in Hospital. There is still a dependence upon the Traditional Birth Attendant in the villages, and in cases of haemorrhage, for example, by the time the problem is apparent it is too late to move the patient to Hospital, and so she dies. The family of a woman who was the victim of a stroke refused to allow her to be treated in St. Andrew’s on the grounds that her parents had suffered strokes and so members of the family must be fated to die in that way – the family insisted on taking her back to the village to die without treatment. A little girl bitten by a puff adder was taken to the witch doctor. Only after 12 days, when it was apparent that the witch doctor’s treatment was ineffectual, was the girl brought to St. Andrew’s. By that time the snake-bite had become infected, her foot was gangrenous and it was necessary to amputate three toes. Later she was transferred to Lilongwe Central Hospital where the rest of her foot was amputated. At least she survived. These examples emphasise the need to extend the health education programmes, and to take them out into the villages. We already have the work done by the Homecare workers; a demonstration garden to show people how to grow crops more effectively; we are assisting in an irrigation project to permit the growing of more than one crop of maize a year; the beginnings of the Outreach clinics and follow up programmes for the under-5 clinics; we aim to set up over the next twelve months a poultry unit for eggs and meat and a dairy goat unit which will serve both as a source of food and an agricultural training unit, so that people will learn how to make the most of these resources.
A Primary school has been established. The Government Primary School in Mtunthama has up to 100 children in each class (that is NOT a misprint!). The new school has no more than 10 children in each class, though this will of course increase, but the aim is to ensure real care for the children with quality teaching, and so class numbers will be limited. The fees are currently £45 a year. A number of the children are orphans, brought up by extended family or foster parents in the village and helped by the Mothers’ Union. By raising funds from their sewing/knitting projects , the Mothers’ Union subsidise the costs of bringing up the orphans, thus allowing them to grow up in a family environment. If you would like to sponsor a child at Primary School for £45 a year, please let us know.
The St. Faith’s Kindergarten is thriving, with about 40 children, half of whom are orphans, attending each day. They play, learn songs and rhymes in Chichewa and English, and are fed(!). A recent donation from a lady in Dawlish has bought toys, including a tricycle, paid for tea, milk and sugar for the children, and enabled the helpers to be paid. (They are meant to be paid a nominal sum, but whilst funds were not available they simply worked as volunteers.)
Increasingly people from UK are seeking to spend time at St. Andrew’s. All pay their own fares and living costs. One girl worked for three months in the NRU and Secondary School; a group of 11 young people went for a fortnight in July, working in the Hospital, the Secondary School and the Kindergarten, and during their time built a store for maize so that we have supplies ready for the onset of the inevitable food shortage later in the year. A Maths teacher has just returned from a month’s teaching. Another small group, including a trainee paediatric nurse, is there for about five weeks working in the Hospital, the school and the NRU.
What began as a relatively small project with about 10 staff in August 2001 is now a thriving Hospital unit with a staff of over 40, a programme for the care of orphans within the community, Primary and Secondary Schools and a Kindergarten. Costs increase, further expansion and development are essential to serve the community, but with your continued help Medic Malawi can go forward to meet those needs.
Thank you for your support.