Background To The Project - How It All Started

In August 2001 Gina travelled to Malawi in Southern Africa as an Africa & Asia Venture (AV) (www.aventure.co.uk) volunteer teacher. She spent three months working in a boys and girls primary school in a small village.

On discovering a small nursery school was being run in the village, Gina made a life changing decision.

Located in Southern Malawi, Chikhulupiriro Nursery School was established and run voluntarily by a local primary school teacher, Mr. Matope. It provided young Malawian children with an early start to their school life. There were 25 small children at the school and the main activities included reading, singing, dancing and learning English. Teaching took place in a small room behind Mr. Matope's house.

"Living in the same village as the nursery school for three months was a wonderful experience and it was a real joy to work with the children. I will never forget teaching the children how to hold a crayon and draw their first picture."

"It was on November 6th 2001 at the 'thank you' lunch hosted by Mr. Matope when I decided on my next goal in life - to raise the necessary funds to build a properly equipped nursery school for the children of Chilumpha village." Gina returned to England in late December 2001 and set about work on the nursery school project.