Plymouth Educator’s Project AIDS African Kids: Fund-Raisers Help Malawi School
By Joel Thurtell, Detroit Free Press
Oct. 28–For every teacher at New Morning School in Plymouth Township, there are 12 students. When you add parent-aides, you can get an adult-to-student ratio of 1:4.
Compare that with Malawi, where the Chichiri Primary School in the town of Blantyre has 60 students per teacher. Malawi, which has 13 million inhabitants, is one of the poorest countries in the world. It is in southern Africa, landlocked by Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania.
Kelly Krawczyk, development director at New Morning School, looked at the numbers and decided to do something. She had an idea for a program called “Hands Across the World: Africa.” Students, staff and parents will learn about the people who teach in or attend Chichiri school, and they’ll raise money to help the school. If enough money is raised, folks from New Morning might travel there in 2008.
The Chichiri school has electricity, which works intermittently, only in its office. There’s running water but no flush toilets; students and staff use outhouses. The school lacks basics such as chairs and desks.
QUESTION: What is New Morning School?
ANSWER: New Morning School is the only pre-K through grade eight parent-cooperative school in the state of Michigan.
Q: What is the “plight” of Africans that you mention?
A: Well, over 300 million Africans live on less than a dollar a day. Over 185 million suffer from malnutrition. Five million children under the age of 5 die every year. Eleven million children are orphans. Diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB are rampant. There is lack of clean water and sanitation. The bottom line is people are dying and we can help prevent it.
Q: Why would we want to help Africans when people at home are hurting?
A: Things are difficult for many in Michigan right now due to the effects of the local economy. … However, we are not faced with the issues of survival that people in Africa deal with every day. Those of us living in the developed world have the capability and the moral obligation to help eradicate global poverty.
Q: How can New Morning help?
A: We have planned several mini fund-raisers over the course of the year that will raise money to benefit our partner school …Chichiri Primary School.
Q: You mention fund-raising — what will the money be used for?
A: So far, we have five enterprising students who have funded a brand-new laptop and accessories (flash drive and webcam) that will be shipped to Chichiri Primary School at the end of November. This will help scale our pen-pal program up to Internet communication, hopefully via live webcam. When we travel to Chichiri Primary School, we have discussed procuring items such as desks, chairs and school supplies. Some students go without a meal all day long; we would love to be able to help initiate a school feeding program.
For more information, contact Kelly Krawczyk at 734-420-3331. Contact JOEL THURTELL at 248-351-3296 or thurtell@freepress.com.
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