Final Update from Jamie Proctor as Project Manager
- Jamie Proctor
- May 5, 2014
- 9 min read
Final Update from Jamie Proctor as Project Manager
Hello everyone involved with The Mlambe Project. This is a final update of my time as Mlambe Project Manager!
I arrived home from Malawi last week and I now finally have some time to update everyone fully on my time in Malawi as Mlambe Project Manager. I have now taken on a new role as Chair of Trustees- letting the executive side of the charity be taken forward by other enthusiastic graduates. I have worked on the project full time for one year and it has been a hard struggle getting the project where it is today, but seeing how much hope and tangible improvement the project is delivering has made it all worth while.
Our notable achievements are: bringing in a new building technique to Malawi which reduces costs by 85%, teaching this building technique so that people can create their own businesses, working with the community so that we have universal support, fundraising to be able to build 6 classrooms, keeping costs low so that we have negligible admin costs and creating a network of NGOs in Malawi who are sharing information. I really do believe that every pound donors have given us has gone so much further than conventional charities and I am so grateful you took a risk in funding a group of young innovative graduates. I thank everyone who has helped us get where we are today and wish the best luck to anyone taking the project forward. Indeed if you are interested in getting involved in the future please email info@themlambeproject.com.
The Waiting Game
We sent a car from the UK to Tanzania and had two volunteers in Dar Es Saalam to collect the car. Poor systems, Tanzanian beaurocracy, corruption and a good deal of bad luck meant that it was heavily delayed. Our volunteers Jack Maughan and Jimmy Willer valiantly waited for the car for 3 and a half weeks, before I arrived in Dar and had to wait a final week before collection. After 4 and a half weeks waiting we finally had the car in Malawi. As I was only in Malawi for 6 week, this was devastating news for me as project manager (considering I had spent over a year and a half working on the project in the UK). However we managed to get a lot done before the car arrived and once it arrived we really made use of the time. I can’t thank Jack and Jimmy enough for their dedication to a project they hadn’t even seen first hand. Jack is now at RMAS and I wish him the best of luck!
Jack on his return home. Thank you and good luck!
Whilst waiting for the car Aidan Mosely and Jamie Proctor kept themselves busy- preparing the site at Mlambe and building at other NGOs with the earthbags (see http://themlambeproject.com/2014/03/20/earthbag-building-begins/ and other updates). We also advertised for other volunteers. Once the car arrived we had a team of 6 going to Mlambe with 5 days to build, organise and work. I must stress at this point that the project was never to finish after this time- just that I would step down as Project Manager and Aidan Mosley would take over! It should also be noted that we will make a substantial profit by taking the car with us. This will allow more money to be spent at the Mlambe school and will make your donations go further!
The Building
When we arrived the community were ready to go. They had previously selected 8 ‘experts’ who were going to be trained in Earthbag building. These experts were selected by (and from) the Mlambe school committee, the parent teachers association, the mother’s committee and the local village chiefs. In addition to the 8 experts the local chiefs sent 20 villagers to volunteer each day. The experts had their expenses paid (as they are working 5 days a week, 8 hours a day!) and the villagers did it all off their own backs. So arriving, with our roof tent to sleep in and with a load of materials we began building.
Our temporary residence. This fantastic bit of kit slept 4 volunteers in comfort.
A big thank you to TK Sound and Vision (run by Tom Kelly) for donating the roof tent and roof rack. It allowed us to be at the site the whole time and get a lot done.
We decided with the school committee to first build a storage room / volunteer house. This would allow us to train the experts in the basics of the building method and give us an area to live and give the school committee and area keep all the donations/materials.
Our Foundations - Dug by the team but with special thanks to expert Daniel.
The filled foundations. Thankfully we managed to use some of the 150,000 bricks moulded by the community to sure up the inside of the foundations and to use for the floor.
One of the GIANT mounds of bricks made by the community.
They hand moulded over 150,000 bricks to encourage the government and NGOs to build another classroom block on the site. However to build with the bricks in a traditional way requires thousands of £ in cement (which we have saved with our new building method)- so we are looking for innovative ways of using all the bricks they have made- any more ideas? If you have a very good idea and want to personally make it happen we will ask you to pitch it to our trustees and we may be able to fund it!
In three days the building was really taking shape! We found the building was going faster than originally expected and also cheaper. Our budget for the small building came in at less than £500. Scaling this budget up means that we should be able to put up a school block (two classrooms) for just £3000. This means that our budget is currently running at just 1/7th of the standard price other NGOs pay. Making your funding go at least 7 times further (plus the added benefits of training a community in innovative building and all the other bits our volunteers are managing to do [read on to find out more]). Our building should also last longer, keep cool during the day and provide a good quality learning environment.
The First Building taking shape.
Stephen, the School Committee Secretary (and now site manager) is in the front of the photo pounding the earthbags into shape.
During the first two weeks of build it was a school holiday. This allowed us to use the existing classroom block to store our goods. It made it abundantly clear how inadequate the existing school block is for the 267 children who are enrolled at the Mlambe Junior Primary School. The school block was put up in the mid 2000′s and is already structurally unsound and a complete mess. I want to stress that this is not because of how the teachers and school committee have treated the building. Indeed, they have repaired it many times already. It was because it was built to a very low standard, with poor quality concrete, lack of roof trusses (just two for the whole building!) and a poor design. It is also infested with bats. So the smell is terrible and there is constant noises from the walls. It is just not somewhere children can learn- so classes are taught outside where possible. By teaching the community how to build with earthbags, they will be able to repair any future problems, but the life expectancy on our schools will be a lot longer than the one already there! Our building method should be incredibly durable in Malawi’s variable weather.
The classroom block we used to store our equipment.
The impact the project was going to have really spurred on Aidan and myself- to see exactly what your hard work and everyone donations are going to achieve.
You are able to see the way the bags start -big and round- before they are pounded into a hard brick shape.
In just 5 days we had managed to finish the walls. This is a great achievement in a place where loose timings and long delays are common place. Our delays came from the car but certainly not from the commitment of the team or the community. Now we have our car in Malawi we hope to make at least a £2000 profit when it is sold and continue building at this speed or faster!
The walls nearly finished!
In terms of building development- over the next month we hope to build a classroom block- giving 120 children a quality education space. We also hope to renovate the existing classroom block to make it usable. Going forward over the rest of the year- we will keep moving towards our aim of giving the Mlambe school 8 classrooms- a full size primary school.
Other Charitable Activities
As I have previously mentioned- we took a team of 6 volunteers to Mlambe. Aidan Mosely and Myself focussed on building. Concurrently we had Brad Vanstone and Sam Martin building a football pitch and Shona Catton and Elle Bruzas working with the local children.
The Football Pitch
Brad Vanstone and Sam Matins were set the task of creating a football pitch. To supplement the building Tim Herbert, from Brighton College Prep School, donated 50 football kits allowing Mlambe to have a proper football team for the first time.
The area which Brad and Sam had to turn into a pitch.
The whole area needed to be hoed up and the organic matter removed, before being ‘ploughed’, flattened and raked- a big task for 5 days! To put the pressure on we organised a big football game for the Saturday after we began- with Mlambe playing Nanthomba (the HELP Malawi school). Each day there were volunteers from the community who came to help create the pitch, including the children who wheeled wheels barrows all day. At the end of each day we had a training session for the Mlambe team on an increasing sized pitch.
The team hoeing - section by section.
Soon the pitch was hoed into a suitable area. We then used the car and a plank with nails through it to create a makeshift plough. I struggled to fit this into the risk assessment! However we did it at night, so that a huge crowd of children weren’t in the way.
Ploughing!
Before long the pitch was ready for the lines to be painted and goals to be put up and concreted in. All in time for our big game!
Putting Up the Goals.
After a long days work.
Before the big game- Both Squads at the Boabab Arena.
Mlambe 1 Nanthomba 0 - A picture of the ensuing pitch invasion
News of the pitch had spread fast and request for new games started coming in. Brad and Sam did an amazing job and this was the best football pitch I saw in both my visits to Malawi!
Requests started to come in.
Kids Club
Shona and Elle joined us to run some activities during the day for the children. Shona had run a children’s project in Uganda and you could really tell she had a lot of experiance. Throughout the week they played educational and fun games with the children. The games ranged from the educational games like hang man, to fun games like British bulldog, to helpful games like raking excess straw from the football pitch! Thank you so much to Elle and Shona, who were not phased by the basic living and were fantastic in helping us get the children on board and interacting with the community.
Shona Teaching one of her many educational games.
The kids showing their support for the donors!
Elle making order out of chaos!
Final Words
The final accounts for my time as Project Manager will be published shortly. I hope that you have enjoyed seeing what you have been a part of! The accounts explain exactly where your money has been spent, with receipts where possible. I always made sure that the money went as far as possible and this didn’t always mean taking the conventional route. Everything you can see in these pictures cost around £500 and I’m sure you will agree that you can’t get much better value than that. Aidan Mosely, the new Project Manager, is currently taking the project forward in Malawi with Tom Morris soon to join him. Brad Vanstone is fully registering the charity in the UK so we can claim gift aid in future. Brad hopes to return to Malawi with Saalim Koomar in August.
I would like to personally thank the HELP Malawi team. Wells Sakala, the country director, was always so kind to us and I consider him a great friend- he is alwasys looking out for Malawians and HELP Malawi are lucky to have such a charismatic director. Thank you for believing in us, Wells, and introducing us to the Mlambe community. Lemani really helped us whenever we needed it and I was so pleased he came to visit the school- I wish you the best of luck. Unfortunately I only saw Juvi a few times, but I wish him the best of luck with his scholarship programme. Other than HELP Malawi, our charity is the first outside help the Mlambe school and village has ever had. The help is thought through and so gratefully received that I am sure in just a few years the community will be able to sustain themselves we will not be needed any more- our ultimate goal.
Thank You Donors
Thanks Again,
Jamie Proctor
Comments