Please watch a 6-minute film covering the early education in Malawi and development of the Mango center.

boNGO works on the development of a new Model Childcare Center called Mango in the Kantimbanya village, T/A Somba. The project is carried out in close cooperation with the local organization Tiyende Pamodzi CBO  (Let’s Go Together) that initiated the Mango center in 2002. Mango has always depended on the work of the village volunteers, having no proper building, lacking teaching materials and toys. .

Why was Mango chosen to become a Model Center:

• hardworking attitude and longterm commitment of the teachers
• active and self-help approach of the local volunteers
• good cooperation with the village headman
• suitable location for reaching surrounding centers

The construction of the school block started in September 2010, and was finished in June 2011. In August 2011 seventy children were enrolled and the Mango center was opened. Eight people from the surrounding villages were carefully chosen to be employed at the center as teachers/caregivers. During the first two years of the center’s operation, the teachers and committee members will be undergoing an intense training and monitoring program that will make of Mango a Model Childcare Center - providing high quality education and serving as a training facility and inspiration for teachers from other centers - like the Model Childcare Center Umodzi-Mbame.

boNGO is looking for well-wishers interested in funding operation of the center. Monthly expenses are: $200 (salaries) and $150 (food and other small items like paper, chalk, firewood ....).

Community participation

It is of extreme importance that the local people consider the new center as their own and take a responsibility for it. The community is therefore fully participating in the development of the centre and the volunteers in cooperation with the village headmen have provided:

-       land (10 000 m2)

-       bricks, stones and quarry-stone (video)

-       voluntary labor to support the construction

The building was funded by The Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Lusaka.

New borehole

In June 2010 a borehole for drinking water was drilled at the Mango Center. It has been enabling for smoother building works and apart from the children it will be used by the whole community, contributing to better hygienic conditions. A five-member committee was made from within the villagers, who were trained to maintain the borehole. The project was financed by a Swiss foundation Ostschweizer Helfen Ostschweizern. Video from opening of the borehole and photo-gallery.