It’s so important that organisations working in similar areas share ideas and resources, where possible. We have been pleased to get to know Maura’s Mission, another small Scottish charity which supports education in Malawi. Maura’s Mission is run by nurses and teachers who work with two schools in Malawi to identify the most academically gifted pupils from the poorest families in Malawi and then support them through school.
That is a slightly different approach than we take with MMF girls; we ask schools to identify the neediest girls for our support. However, we both support secondary school education and are committed to helping these children reach their potential. The schools Maura’s Mission supports are in the same geographical area as two of our schools so we have much in common in terms of the transport and communication challenges. We have enjoyed sharing our stories and information.
We manage our work locally through Mercy Sibande, our Malawi Manager. Mercy does termly visits to each of the schools which we support. We find this contact hugely valuable and are so pleased that Maura’s Mission have also engaged Mercy to do similar work for them. They will benefit from Mercy’s experience and expertise and we are glad to have this connection with the work of Maura’s Mission.
We can all learn from each other and we don’t need to waste our scarce resources inventing new ways of doing things when we can share information and connections like this.