2008 Classroom Desks in Malawi  

ODFL bought 60 desks for the Kasimu village primary school in Malawi in Fall 2007.

The village had built a classroom but had no money left over for desks. Now they have them thanks to donations from students in the US.

Malawi is the fourth poorest country in the world.  More than 60% of its 12 million people live on less than $1 per day.  Many subsist on as little as 15 cents per day.  The only hope for the country to move out of this poverty is education. 

In 2007, the Kasimu Education Fund (KEF) approached ODFL about helping with a school they were building in the village of Manyesa.  The village has 1,090 students and only 7 teachers or a student/teacher ratio of 150 to 1.  Most of the students were going to school under a tree, when they could go at all. 

KEF had already begun building a school.  They had provided funding for the construction on the condition that locals make the bricks that would form the walls.  Well, local parents made 160,000 bricks so that their village might have a school.  It was built and commemorated in 2006. 

But they didn’t have any desks.  ODFL agreed to pay for the materials for the desks.  They are of simple design, of wood, and, like the bricks, were made by the local families.  The desks seat 60 students who, in relays, use the new two-room school throughout the day.

Seeing the progress and self-help the community had made, the government has agreed to increase the number of teachers.  The goal is to get it down from 150 to one to 50 to 1 in grades 1-5 and 30 to 1 in grades 6-8. 

ODFL has also committed to fund construction of a new high school in Kasimu in 2009, meaning that for the first time ever children in the district will have access to education beyond 8th grade.  American students and school who want to help with the project should contact ODFL and we’ll help you organize a fundraiser in your school.  

In 2008, ODFL purchased desks for the above Malawian children in their new school.