< Lancashire West Methodist Circuit Archives – Mamie Martin Fund

MMF photo exhibition doing ‘the rounds’

We are delighted that the photos of our work in Malawi are now in their fourth venue in Lancashire, England. Our partners there, the Lancashire West Methodist Circuit, are ensuring that as many people as possible get to hear about our work.

Our Lancashire West partnership supports six girls at secondary school in Karonga, North Malawi. Those girls will be going into their second year (of four) in October. The photos are currently being shown in Holmes Methodist Church. Three other churches are involved with Holmes in this particular exhibition, which runs until 5th September –

You can see the locations and further details of these churches on the Circuit’s website. A ‘Circuit’ in this context is a group of Methodist churches. Our partnership is with the group, rather than any individual church.

Thanks to Helen Hindle for creating this lovely display and sending us these images. Next stop for this exhibition will be Dalgety Bay in Fife, Scotland.

Trustee-Partner meetings in Karonga

While our Scottish Trustee, Alan Laverock, was caught up in the Omicron crisis and had to leave Malawi, our new Malawian Trustee, Remmie Kamanga, stepped up to the mark and visited our partner, the Diocese of Karonga, with Mercy, our manager in Malawi, last week.

Acting Education Secretary, Mr Thomas Nyondo with, Remmie and Mercy

We set up the partnership with the Diocese in 2019. We are supporting six ‘Alison2’ girls in Karonga and those girls start Form 3 next month. We will support additional girls starting in 2022 and until they finish their secondary education. Six of these will be supported at St Mary’s Karonga by Lancashire West Methodist Circuit and a further 4 by our new ‘Katy’s Fund’. Six other ‘Katy girls’ will be at Kaseye Girls’ Secondary School in Chitipa, a new school for us and one which is in the far north of Malawi, close to the Tanzanian border. It is also a Diocese of Karonga school and a welcome expansion of our partnership with the Diocese.

Mr Nyirongo and Dr Nyirenda, Deputy Heads at St Mary’s, Karonga meet with Mercy and Remmie

The Trustee visit was important in terms of strengthening our partnership and confirming our shared values. The girls we support are chosen by the schools on the basis of need, not academic ability or any other attribute. We are lucky in having Remmie on our Board; he brings long experience of education in Malawi at a number of levels.