At the beginning of May we launched an emergency fundraising appeal to support the teachers and staff of Ganet's Adventure School during the COVID-19 outbreak.
COVID-19 is having a severe impact in Malawi. Malawi was already struggling economically even before the pandemic struck due to drought and around 70% of the population live below the poverty line. Recently, there have been protests in response to the lockdown and there are only around 20 ventilators and 25 intensive care beds in public hospitals in the whole of Malawi, serving 17 million people.
Ganet's Adventure School is a primary school located in a village close to Nkhata Bay in northern Malawi. It was founded in 2004 by widowed mother of four Gertrude Banda, in response to lack of preschool care for children in the community.
The COVID-19 lockdown has, however, meant that the school has been forced to temporarily close and the school is now unable to pay its teachers and support staff as it receives no government funding. Our initial target was to fund 75% of the teachers income until the end of August, however the immediate success and ambition of our team at Think Malawi, led us to increase this so we would be able to cover 100% of their salaries, fund important repairs to the school, contribute to the school's operating costs and provide funds for soaps and hygiene products to help protect the school's community against COVID-19.
Thanks to the fantastic support we have received from our donors, we have achieved our fundraising target of £1,500 (£1,596 in fact, plus £394 of GiftAid). On top of this the Alleyn's Parent's Association of Alleyn's School in Dulwich have very kindly agreed to match the £1,500 target, boosting our fundraising appeal total to £3,490. With a further £450 of re-allocated funds (previously donated by the APA) and £1,000 from our reserves our overall total to support Ganet's in this difficult time is £4,940.
Thanks again to everyone who shared and donated, you have really made a difference to Ganet's School and all those within it's community!