Making an impact: Teacher training & adult literacy in the warm heart of Africa

As the plane touched down in Lilongwe, tears welled in my eyes. It truly felt like I was coming home. There’s something totally unique about this country. Having been to six other African countries, nothing quite compares. I’d love you to see and ‘feel’ it one day as the true magnificence of Malawi is hard to put into words.

Having previously volunteered in the south of the country in my summer holidays, as well as Zambia, I knew just how rewarding it could be. As a primary teacher, I wanted to work with teachers for a longer period and during term time, sharing skills and empowering them in any way I could.

My Headteacher agreed that I could have 10 weeks of unpaid leave and then the planning began. I stumbled across ‘RIPPLE Africa’ and had a strong feeling that this was the right charity for me. On arrival, I realised my instinct was correct and I could instantly see that the charity really was living out its ethos of ‘Offering a hand up not a hand out’.

From the moment I arrived, I felt at home. The staff, other volunteers and entire community welcomed me with open arms and a warm smile. I began my placement helping the adult literacy classes with the planning and delivery of lessons, as well as helping to make resources for them such as comprehension question cards to accompany sets of books. I learnt a lot during this period and developed a lovely rapport with the two teachers. Even when the Primary and Pre-schools started back in mid-September, I still regularly popped by to see them both and talk through ideas for their classes.

I also spent time learning about the different facets of this wonderful charity. I helped conduct a survey to find out the effectiveness of the sweet potato scheme happening at the pre-schools as well as assisting at the tree nursery to bud, graft and water plants there. I was also lucky to spend a day gaining insight into the fisheries project and attended a meeting with chiefs and villagers as well as the RIPPLE Africa fishery team. RIPPLE Africa are empowering communities far and wide – whether it be helping to protect the fish stock on Lake Malawi, plant trees to replace those burnt for firewood and land clearing, roll out brick stoves so that less wood is used for cooking or supporting physios to treat children and adults who need rehabilitation.

Promoting professional development

At the local Pre-school, I sung alphabet songs, read picture books, used puppets and painted with the children. It was a huge amount of fun and the teachers there were nothing but enthusiastic and friendly. I miss their smiling faces every day. At the Primary School, I helped Standards 6, 7 and 8 in English lessons – both delivering content and assisting the teachers with marking, resource making and English grammar/vocabulary. I created interactive displays in the Standard 8 classroom, introduced ‘Hotseating’ (whereby I am in the role of a character of a story and the children ask questions) in Standard 7, helped with classroom/behaviour management ideas and aided comprehension skills via different uses of questioning across all year groups.

A highlight was delivering a 2.5-hour training workshop for the Primary staff on phonics, critical thinking, questioning, comprehension – including the concept of ‘Book Talk’. I think the staff enjoyed it and many said afterwards they were excited to adopt some of the ideas I demonstrated.
 

Sustainability

I learnt a lot about sustainability during my time with RIPPLE Africa as the charity truly personifies this. The charity has 150 Malawian staff and the main aim is to empower communities and create jobs. The role of the volunteer is to find out what these communities need to achieve even more and start from there. I spent a lot of time asking questions to the Headteachers and staff and finding out what I could assist them most with. It boils down to a question of equity versus equality – fairness and not always giving people the same thing but giving them what they need in order to improve the quality of their situation.
 

Having been back in Europe for 3 months now, I still miss all of the new friends I made during my placement; the sound of Lake Malawi easing me to sleep; the weather and light mornings; the sense of community so evident in rural Africa; the ability to single task and be more ‘mindful’; watching the monkeys swing from trees as I shower; the delicious daily food cooked by the superb RIPPLE staff but most of all the sheer infectious joy and energy displayed by the children I worked with.

I’ll be back for sure. Thank you RIPPLE Africa for a truly life-changing experience – it exceeded all of my expectations. You really are making such a difference to so many people. I will continue to be one of your most avid supporters.

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Emma is a lead teacher for Year 1 at The British School in the Netherlands. You too can have a life-changing experience and become a volunteer for RIPPLE Africa by having a look at the wealth of information on www.rippleafrica.org. Your school can also ‘twin’ with one of the six primary schools or secondary school the charity supports in the Nkhata Bay district of Northern Malawi. For further details, see the website or email Nikki Luxford, Volunteer and Project Co-ordinator at nikki@rippleafrica.org