The First Post

GOOD NEWS AND INTERESTING INFORMATION

boNGO Worldwide

July 31st, 2009

Hello to all our friends and family of boNGO out there across the globe and floating up there in outer space! This is boNGO Director David Leflar here to tell you about some real down-to-earth grassroots efforts going on here in Malawi.

Just this past week at the Umodzi-Mbame Community Based Organization our Model Preschool finished its final term of the year. The closing ceremony was very well attended by 78 parents representing the 80 registered schoolchildren, as well as members of the CBO Executive Committee and the School Committee, and our friend and partner Duncan from DAPP. The community support at the preschool has been consistently increasing over the years and we were pleased to hear in a speech from special guest and local village headman Amfumu Juma. 'This is not my structure or somebody’s, but its for all of us and its our own development here and am so happy to see you all here while our children are closing school today and be available for any development activity to take place here and support it.' This is very good news to hear from Amfumu Juma as this school started out with land-ownership issues within the local village and, after inviting Blantyre District Commissioner Charles Mkhanga to hear the case last November, in this village the development is one step closer to being in the hands and minds of its community. As we continue our partnership with this community, the host of boNGO's Model Preschool and Teacher-Training Center, we rely on our friends and family around the world to help us and all our partner communities to pursue a vision of a sustainable world full of joy. Click here for some ways in which you can help support!

The kids may be on school break but its time for 50 teachers to participate in our annual Early Childhood Development (ECD) Training in partnership with UNICEF and the Office of Social Welfare in Malawi. As we are working hard to gain financial support from UNICEF Malawi for this training and it's follow-up Monitoring and Evaluation, our Program Director Justin Namizinga and I are busy organizing all the necessary materials to make this training our biggest and most expansive yet. For the fourth consecutive year, this two-week training will bring the fundamental principles of Early Childhood Development to active community teachers and childcare givers, all of whom have full classes of children but no formal training. These teachers come from our ever-expanding catchment area of Community Based Childcare Centers stretching out from the Umodzi-Mbame Model Childcare Center, now including teachers from two new districts outside of Blantyre! The training is based on boNGO's ECD Manual which is throughout the year consistently revised and practiced by our corps of active trained teachers as well as being further adapted to local culture and available materials. This training has long been made possible through the financial support of our initial grant to come to Malawi, though for the past year boNGO has viably been operating from the support of the international donor community: the people around the world who recognize the inequalities of human life on earth, and the true disadvantages imposed by the 'have's' upon the 'have-not's': this is of course you, our friends and family in every corner of the globe, who is working to resolve this injustice in our lives through honest words and genuine deeds. Please click here to make a financial contribution to boNGO!

To be sure, development begins in your own home, in your own community. Set an example, be a good role-model. Help those who are suffering needlessly, so that they may be able to help themselves. Look deeper into how your life, your family, your community, and your country are governed and maintained. If you don't like what you see, get involved and help make a difference!