Education Malawi Project #4898

BeeHive School nurturing future Malawian leaders

by A Self-Help Assistance Program (ASAP)

BeeHive School nurturing future Malawian leaders

Project Report | Mar 1, 2016
Construction For The Secondary School Has Begun!

By Eva Markiewicz | Volunteer Coordinator

BeeHive School - Secondary School Construction #1

Hi Wonderful Supporters!

We hope this email finds you well. We are making steady progress across the board and the most exciting update is that construction of the secondary school has officiall begun!

BUILDING DEVELOPMENT:

We have officially broken ground on construction of the Secondary School, which the entire community sorely needs and parents have been rallying for for years. Work on the foundation has started, but heavy rains have slowed progress.

If money permits we are going to start stock piling bricks, but are in need of more of them to complete construction of the walls up to window level. The good news building-wise is that we have managed to pay of our debt for the iron sheets for the hall...this is over a year late. As many of you can recall, we were hit with a terrible storm that ripped the roofs off of our primary school and we needed to rebuild immediately or shut down the school. Generously, the local roofers gave us roofing materials on credit with little to no interest and we were able to get the school back up and running in record time. But this did set us back by a year and created substantial damage - especially to the library. We lost nearly all the books that we had slowly accumulated through generous donations over the past ten years. Our volunteers are looking into book donation programs to repopulate the library.

We have started building the trusses to get the roof on the hall, but the rain and lack of capital are our enemy and the brick walls are starting to erode and we really need to find a way to protect them or complete construction.

ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT:

We have three new wonderful teachers who have almost finished their probation period. We are very excited to have them join the BeeHive Community, as they are really top notch. And finding and training good teachers is at the core of our school's mission.

All the teachers are doing a really great job and we have been careful to keep the classes small and manageable. It can be difficult right now to keep class sizes small because we really need capital to build the secondary school, but we make a point of choosing to keep the class sizes small despite this economic pressure because the key to a good education is small class sizes and more one on one time for each students with the teachers.

MENTAL MATH COMPETITION:

We are trying to organize a mental maths competition this term, but we are having trouble getting support for this endeavor, as there isn't isn't much money floating around in Mzuzu or Malawi these days for these sorts of endeavors.

COMPUTER TRAINING:

Computer training is a priority this term, but we can't currently afford to employ a full tile IT teachers. We really need more of the teachers to be trained on the computers - maybe we can find some volunteers or a foreign teacher to come do a sabbatical here. The good news is all the teachers are excited to learn about the computers, but we need someone to train them. We are also working on finding more open source curriculum to improve the current content in the computer lab.

Wishing everyone the very best! Thank you for your support - we couldn't do this without you.

BeeHive School - Secondary School Construction #2

BeeHive School - Secondary School Construction #3

BeeHive School - Secondary School Construction #4

Niall's Wife Who Works At BeeHive & Is Our "Shero"

BeeHive School - Secondary School Construction #5

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Oct 29, 2015
Ready, Set, Go!

By Katy Downey | Volunteer Coordinator

Dear Champions of BeeHive School,

We hope this message finds you well. Before we start on our update, I'd like to take a moment to express our unwavering gratitude. Thank you for being part of our community and empowering our bright eyed and wonderful students. Our work would not be possible without your kindness and generosity.

The new term has started and BeeHive is off to a great start! The school welcomed three new teachers and a lot of new students.

The computer lab is still functioning perfectly, after over a year after being installed. We have changed two power cables, one keyboard, one mouse, and one laptop battery...and that's all! It has survived a hurricane, water damage, and 150 grubby fingers on a daily basis.

The computer curriculum has also been improving, teachers have made excellent progress in their use of the IT lab and delivery of lessons. The students are becoming experts in computer use, and it is having such a positive effect on the curriculum. This term we are going to work on more use of the lab for things like word processing of English compositions, and printing out of resources.

A limited internet connection has been set up at the school. The older grades, standards 5 and 6, have supervised access where they can do research. The teachers have been trained on email and have set up accounts. We are working towards all teachers emailing the headmaster weekly lesson plans and communicating to the headmaster and parents through email.

And in other good new, BeeHive School was re-inspected for the license renewal by the Ministry of Education, and the school passed again, for another three years.

Wishing you all the best,

BeeHive School Empowering Young Girls

BeeHive Students Focused on Schoolwork

Questions & Ideas Abound As BeeHive Teacher Reads

The New Classrooms Are Treasured & Celebrated

BeeHive Teacher Enthralls Her Students

Links:

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Jun 29, 2015
Rebuilding After the Storm

By Eva Markiewicz | Volunteer

BeeHive School Malawi Reconstruction 1

We have good news to report! Thanks to your generosity and support we are back on track!

Reconstruction after the hurricane has gone well and we were able to repair much of the damage to the school. Unfortunately, we did not raise sufficient funds to replace the library books, so we will be looking for ways to replenish the school library in the future. If you know of any organizations that specialize in donating books to schools in Africa, please let us know by e-mailing info@beehiveschool.com.

The library and computer room block are fixed now, and we took the opportunity to extend the roof to cover the central courtyard to create more shade for the kids. We have paid for planks for roofing the hall, but not all have been delivered yet. We have also paid some deposits for the iron sheets for the hall, and the sheets are at the warehouse in Mzuzu but have not been delivered yet, because we are not ready for them. The new construction is strong and sturdy and designed to withstand future events like the hurricane/storm that hit us a few months ago.

In the coming months, we hope to focus on replenishing the library. We dried out the existing books as much as possible and some are still in use, but they are wrinkly and the pages stick together and tear easily. We are exploring getting a shipping container for a large shipment of donated books.

The kindle fires we got for the school alongside the computer lab are a huge success and there is always a rush among the kids to use them. Kids that had not formerly expressed an interest in reading are excitedly reading on the kindle fires.

Thank you all for supporting us and helping this hurricane be a hiccup along our path to create a great school and educational experience for the BeeHive students. You inspire us and fuel us to keep pushing past the obstacles and challenges that present themselves.

BeeHive School Malawi Reconstruction 2

BeeHive School Malawi Reconstruction 3

BeeHive School Malawi Reconstruction 4

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