Sunday, November 28, 2010


MALIMA NEWSLETTER


NOVEMBER, 2010

Yet another school year has started at The Malima Primary School in Gouria, Cameroon. It is a very special year in that it marks the tenth anniversary of this wonderful little institution that has brought such extraordinary change to the village of Gouria. When Malima Primary was opened very few of the village children were receiving any education at all, and now approximately 99% of Gouria’s children are taking a good sound elementary education for granted, which is as it should be, of course.

The Malima Project now support a total of 120 children in secondary education, spread through three secondary schools. There are 200 children attending Malima Primary School, and eighty children are in our pre-school, even though they may not actually attend Malima.

We are very proud to see so many of our ex-primary students continuing their secondary education, to the extent that it is a normal transition. Not all who enter keep up their studies with some of the girls leaving to get married and start their families, only to later want to come back into the system. This is causing some problems and will have to be resolved, but considering that ten years ago it was rare to see a girl in secondary education we do want to be encouraging.

One of the girls has expressed a strong interest in medical studies. We have lived for this day, and she is very serious about becoming the first resident (traditional) doctor in the village. That it is happening within only ten years and is a very exciting development. We wish her the very best of luck!

Ten years ago we inadvertently asked one of the children what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he looked at us with puzzled eyes. The best he could think of was that it would be sufficient to be alive. Ambition was a word that was unknown, because unlike children in the developed world, children in Gouria had no dreams of the future. They lived just for the day.

We were asked to help bring education to the village, and this we have done. The question of a future for each child would have to be left to each individual. Whether a student wants to continue into University studies or to exit formal learning early, the choice must be their own. However, with education they will certainly be better prepared because education is liberation.

We congratulate The Malima Primary School on its tenth anniversary, and we look forward to celebrating its twentieth.

The Malima Project

Friday, October 15, 2010

NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 2010


FROM GOURIA, CAMEROON
NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 2010

This summer Anna Reilly (a Cambridge House Year 2 teacher and long-term member of The Malima Project), together with her 16-year-old daughter Luisa, visited Malima Primary School in the village of Gouria, in the Far North of Cameroon, West Africa. This is Luisa’s initial report:

Waking up to Two Realities
When you finally get back home, after being in the village of Gouria, you ask yourself if the village still exists. It feels more like a dream than a memory. When you wake up in the morning and see the rays of sunlight coming through your window, you wonder if it is under those same powerful rays that so many people in the village are working non-stop for an average of 8 or 9 hours in their fields. When you finally sit down to watch the television at night, you wonder if the villagers you met and lived with are really already asleep, surrounded by darkness, since most of the village doesn’t have mains electricity.
When you return to your normal life, it’s difficult to comprehend that most people in rural Africa (especially the women) have to work so hard all day, just to survive. During the dry season, the majority of girls or women have to make a daily trek to bring home water. In Gouria, this starts before dawn and can end around midday. It’s a task that, for us, is as easy as turning a tap on and off.
What do we consider to be essential in the life of a child here in Europe? We consider the right to an education, to hygiene, to health-care, to a balanced diet as the basics. So what happens when a place exists where children don’t have these same rights? This is the reason behind The Malima Project. Malima Primary School is a place where children can learn and forget about their daily hardships. The school is now in it’s 10th year and is a successful, accepted part of community life. You, as sponsors, are providing the children with a positive education, not only changing their lives in the present but also preparing them for a better and brighter future. It really is a dream coming true.

Copyright (c) 2010 Luisa Reilly
Eugene Carmichael

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Malima Primary School/ The Malima Project Annual Report

EL PROYECTO MALIMA
THE MALIMA PROJECT
CIF: G97910012
C/- General Pastor, 36, 46183 L’Eliana
Aptdo 168,46183, L’Eliana
(Valencia)


ANNUAL REPORT
For the period September 1, 2008 to August 31, 2009
13th NOVEMBER, 2009

The year for The Malima Project Charity has been one of success, but not without problems. We have continued to function in the normal manner of raising funds to support Malima Primary School. It was our hope that during this past year the final building to house two classes might have been completed. This did not happen, although we did open dialogue with two new potential contributors.

One of these is in Cameroon, and time will tell what comes of our initial contact. For the time being we would like to keep the name confidential until we have their authorizaton to do otherwise.

The one thing that is absolutely clear is that we have to add another method of fundraising as the idea of education has caught fire with the children in Cameroon. As a consequence costs of maintaining the children in both primary and secondary is skyrocketing. Now, those in secondary are talking of going into university and working in the professions.

We have been associated with the village of Gouria for ten years, and looking over what has changed since we came on the scene truly takes our breath away. The village has gone from being a place where only about 25% of children were receiving a regular education to 99% plus today. There is health care, electricity, a village borehole with year-round water, Malima is the very best primary school in the extreme north, and there are secondary schools in the near proximity. Malima Primary School has been featured on the travel program, Lonely Planet, and the Cameroonian government is now taking a little interest in doing its share to educate its citizens.

The village now has a fledgling economy with shops, and motorcycles providing a link to the outside world, as does the mobile telephone network. Electricity, made possible through a generous grant from Graham and Lynne Hunt of Valencia Property has changed everything that is fundamental about the village, and has provided a giant leap toward the 21st century.

This year we are in the midst of selling lottery tickets for Malima for the Loteria de Navidad for the second time. We are grateful to a suggestion from one our school dads who has acted as facilitator. Naturally, Malima has bought tickets for itself and we hope to be winners in some substantial way, which might go some distance toward solving our immediate financial needs.

We have an outstanding receivable from Western Union this year in that a payment of 1,500 euros that was sent to Cameroon was paid to a third party by Western Union. They seem to accept the mistake is theirs and we are now awaiting settlement of the receivable.

We look forward to the next twenty years with enthusiasm and hope. The fact that our students now have ambitions and dreams is a wonderful thing. That was completely absent ten years ago.


El Proyecto Malima/ The Malima Project