Embangweni

Embangweni Secondary School for Deaf Children is situated with the Embangweni Mission, established as Loudon Mission in 1902, where there is a Church, a hospital, the Donald Fraser Guesthouse and a number of schools.

Owned and run by the CCAP (Central Church of Africa Presbyterian), this school strives to provide a good secondary education for its girls and boys over six years. It is hampered by a number of factors including:

• teachers are allocated here and ‘pick up sign language from the pupils’
• some families abandon their children once they are placed at school and provide no money for transport home or other needs
• the school has limited building space. It currently borrows two classrooms from the nearby primary school.

This is a boarding school for boys and girls. There are currently (2019) 76 pupils with a 50/50 gender split in Forms 1 and 3 but fewer girls in the other classes, for all the reasons which militate against all girls’ education in Malawi. Specifically:

• Forms 1 and 3: 12 students in each class at 50/50;
• Form 2 , there are 11 boys and 6 girls;
• Form 4 there are 6 boys and 2 girls,
• Form 5 there are 10 boys and 3 girls and
• Form 6 there are 10 boys and 4 girls

The Mamie Martin Fund supports six girls at this school. One has been an MMF girl since she started her secondary education, two are ‘Alison Girls’, supported by the Scottish Government and three are ‘Thompson Girls’, supported through a fund which celebrates the memory of Jack and Phyllis Thompson.  We hope that you enjoy the video above which shows the Thompson girls chatting about their families and school.