Takulandilani - Welcome

Malawi Education Project aims to be a catalyst for community-led learning initiatives in Malawi. Education as our umbrella term for skills development in any form; from vocational training to formal education we aim to be instrumental in making education accessible to all, particularly marginalised groups.

Local Initiative Global Support

Malawi Education Project (MEP) was founded in 2005, as a non-profit organisation that transported surplus books from the UK to schools in Malawi. However, in response to community feedback from the pilot programmes and critical research, MEP realised the limitations of this approach and transformed significantly to become the charity it is today.

The community we currently work with is geographically defined as Chembe village (Cape Maclear) on the southern tip of Lake Malawi. The library that was built in 2006 is run by one of the founders, Brighten Ndawala. It is based in Cape Maclear Primary School, which is the only primary school in the area. The direct beneficiaries of our current project are the pupils of this primary school, as it is not accessible to the wider community.

Within the region there are children who are not currently attending school, workers who would benefit from vocational training and families who may benefit from family learning projects.

We work in partnership with community members, academic writing service, international NGOs and the Malawian government to help identify and break down barriers to education that the members of Chembe village are facing. Our approach focuses on community participation; we work with the community to uncover their priority needs to access learning opportunities. The community takes the initiative and chooses the form and nature of  MEP’s work.

This opens our remit to include learning of any nature, whether it’s vocational training, health awareness course or books in schools. Our overall aim is to become fully operational in Malawi so that UK operations will function solely as a funding arm and support network for MEP in Malawi by the end of 2011.