Dear Seibo Supporters, In Malawi schools have reopened and over 15,000 children a day are now receiving a hot meal every day at school! The feeling of joy & relief is hard to describe. The last year tested us on all fronts but thanks to donors in the UK, Bulgaria & Japan we were able to respond to school closures with emergency take-home food packs. It wasn't easy and we did a lot of asking in the last year but now we just want to take a big deep breath and say THANK YOU to everyone who responded to our call to help the poorest of the poor. What the future holds we cannot tell but for today we just want to share the feeling of joy from Malawi- thank you!
FREE Nursery Places for Vulnerable Children
In April a meeting was held with community stakeholders in Chilomoni to allocate 20 available spaces to urban-based families with small children struggling to make ends meet. As many families were unaware schools had reopened we only had 16 applications of which 10 children were given an immediate offer bringing the number of children availing of free nursery on the 'Seibo Kids Programme' to over 80! The remaining places will be allocated at the next meeting having conducted an awareness drive in the community.
A Simple Thank You Goes a Long Way!
CBCC Challenge Competition Winners Unpaid volunteers at rural nurseries across Malawi are required to wake early to prepare a breakfast meal for nursery children in their community. This task often requires the volunteers to collect firewood on their way to work. Once breakfast is served they must then become Caregivers responsible for nursery teaching! Needless to say many volunteers lack motivation and some are even ridiculed in the community. In order to help rural nurseries find & retain volunteers Seibo Malawi implemented a competition-style challenge to reward volunteer attendance & good practice. A recent competition winner from Makapwa had this to say; “This is great that I have won, I was left alone to teach but kept on for the sake of the children but honestly there were days I was discouraged and felt like quitting like how my fellow teachers did. Now that I have received this it shows that my work is seen and appreciated. Those that laughed at me will not do so anymore”
Thank You for Supporting Seibo!
SEIBO MALAWI HIGHLIGHTS
Nursery Schools re-open slowly starting February. Over 1,000 children already enrolled in Seibo nurseries. Over 40 free nursery places for most vulnerable small children allocated by mid-February! By April another 10 x children were allocated free education for their nursery years on the 'Seibo Kids' Programme!
Rural Nurseries having been closed for over a year faced unique challenges to 'recruit' volunteer cooks & volunteers. Seibo through 'The CBCC Challenge' launch a competition to motivate all volunteers and reward best performing nursery partners.
By May 24th ALL schools in Malawi had reopened & Seibo are back providing a hot meal daily to over 15,000 children. We made it thanks to YOU!
CBCC Challenge
There are over 6,000 CBCCs in Malawi- rural nurseries that double up as feeding stations for the rural poor. Most of these CBCCs are staffed by volunteers for whom the only benefit is to share in the school meal they prepare for the children. Located in communities with high levels of poverty most of these CBCCs struggle for resources and are reliant on unpaid volunteers. Having been closed for over a year these CBCCs are now faced with finding new volunteers in addition to starting their Early Years teaching programmes all over again. To encourage CBCC volunteers and to improve teaching practices Seibo this year implemented a competition that rewards volunteer caregivers with gifts of sugar, soap or cloth wraps (see image to left) as well as partner CBCCs with resources such as learning charts, chairs, etc. Read more about the CBCC Challenge- HERE
