Lunch Time meeting - Duncan Mcdonald talking about the Malawi Project

On Thursday 18th October 2018 President Anne Sampson welcomed 20 Club Rotarians, Maureen wife of Rotarian Archie Lawrie, Duncan Macdonald from the Rotary Club of Inverness Culloden and Colin Mitchell from the Rotary Club off St Andrews to this lunch time meeting which was held at the Gilvenbank Hotel, Glenrothes. 

On reception, this week were Bill Wooton who said grace and Will Wishart.

President Anne Sampson mentioned The Past Presidents dinner which will take place at the Balgeddie Hotel next week on Friday the 26th October 2018. She also mentioned that this months Rotary Rag was available for collection.

Members brought along a selection of food stuffs which are urgently required by the food bank in Glenrothes and we hope to collect food on a weekly basis to support the excellent work being done by the food bank. 

Community Chair Wilna Roger once again mentioned that the Interactors from Glenrothes High School project of “Give a kid a coat” was being promoted Coats to be in by 31^st October 2018.

She also mentioned the High 5’s participation between Kirkcaldy Interactors and Rotary Club against the Glenrothes Interactors and Rotary Club which may go ahead this Wednesday 24^th October.

Our speaker this week was Duncan Macdonald from the Rotary Club of Inverness Culloden who gave us a talk on a Malawi project which his club are involved with and that we are looking to support. The original project they identified in 2009 covered 14 schools and orphanages. The Grant application was awarded two years later in 2011.The work which was completed covered, 10 water pumps, 9 wells, 80 toilets and satisfied the needs of 13,000 plus children and adults. The second phase project value was £48000.For this private contributions came to more than £13000; with the addition of the Global Grant. The Rotary Foundation grant being awarded in July this year and work, undertaken by the contractor PumpAid and supervised by Lilongwe Rotary club, started soon after. The current project consists of the digging of a well, installation of a pump and construction of two toilet blocks at each of 11 Community Based Childcare Centres (CBCCs).  These are in effect nursery classes for under 6s. Also, each toilet block has a hand washing facility as does the nearby classroom. The wells and pumps were all completed, and the toilet and hand-washing construction was well on its way when they visited. Near to each pump the community were required to fence off and construct a nutrition/vegetable garden for the children – PumpAid supplied them with seeds for tomatoes, rape seed, mustard plant and pak choi. Any excess vegetable production would be sold as part of the fund-raising required from each community. PumpAid have recently added to their water and sanitation package a mandatory training session for around 2 dozen members of the community.  No construction work would be undertaken unless the community agreed to this and to the provision of all bricks required for well and toilet construction.  These bricks are made locally at each village.

The training sessions are undertaken by Mchinji District officers from the departments responsible for health, agriculture and business development. The local adults – caregivers - who teach the nursery children are unpaid and typically have the children for about 3 hours each morning. An average of 100 children attend the CBCCs and are looked after by anything between 3 and 5 caregivers. The emphasis always is on using the toilet followed by hand washing– open-defecation is constantly being discouraged.  At the end of the morning class the children are fed a maize porridge – again, before eating, hand washing is mandatory.

The next project in 3 to 4 years’ time.   They ascertained that this would almost certainly be in the same District – about an hour and a half from Lilongwe – and involving the same type of project.

Brian Johnson gave the Rotary Vote of thanks.

This coming week on Thursday 25th October 2018 will be an evening meeting to be held at the Gilvenbank Hotel. please meet 6.15pm for starting at 6.30pm on reception will be Jack Dempsey, May Ford and Peter May. As this is Halloween weekend our evening meeting this week sees the return of our very own speaker Archie Lawrie, who will entertain us by giving us two spooky talks.

If you were interested in supporting the community and international projects get in touch by Private message on The Rotary Club of Glenrothes Facebook page. You will be made most welcome.