British schoolchildren use American website to help fund Malawi teachers

Children at a school in England have teamed up with an American crowdfunding website to help raise money towards teaching youngsters in Malawi.

The students at Kirk Hallam secondary school in Derbyshire discovered the sad statistics behind education in the African country, where less than a quarter go on to secondary school.

So they decided to do something to help and launched a crowdfunding campaign with CabinetHardware.org.

Its founder Dave Mason said: “The students did an amazing job. They put together a video and rallied their community.”

Communities in Malawi are expected to provide housing for their teachers. So the Kirk Hallam children organised Africa Education Aid to raise funds, beginning with building teacher accommodation.

In just over a year, the fund has raised £3100 ($5000) through events such as coffee mornings, baked good sales and bingo events. The goal is to help provide one home quickly and ultimately to build accommodation for three teachers at Jandalala Primary School, where there are 360 students and only six teachers. It costs about £1500 to build one home.

Ryan Parkes of Africa Education Aid said: “A new house will make a big difference. Only four out of 38 students who finished primary school went on to secondary and that isn’t good enough.

“The students cannot get the attention they need with 60 students in a class.”

CabinetHardware.org is a combination e-commerce site and crowdfunding platform. To learn more about Africa Education Aid and vote for this project, visit the Build a Teacher a House in Malawi page at CabinetHardware.org.