Last Saturday, on International Credit Union Day, the Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOs – a.k.a. Credit Unions) in Malawi came together to create awareness and celebrate the successes of the SACCO movement. On Saturday, over 100 SACCO members from the central region walked through the streets of Lilongwe from MUSCCO House to Biwi primary school, wearing shirts, dresses and chitenjies of ICU Day cloth and carrying signs with the names of their SACCOs. Every year on ICU Day, the SACCOs celebrate by making a donation. Last year, they donated an oxygen machine to one of the hospitals in the city, and this year, the Central region SACCOs celebrated ICU Day by making a donation of new boys’ and girls’ toilet blocks to Biwi Primary School.
The new toilet blocks were small cement buildings, with nothing more than a hole in the ground, and no running water. Visiting this school seemed to put things into perspective – the school was a series of classroom buildings, with no glass in the windows (it had obviously all been broken) and only a few of the classrooms had desks. There were no supplies in the classroom – no books, or pictures or children’s artwork – all the things we associate with primary schools at home. I don’t know whether to be amazed that children are able to learn here – and that they are happy to have the chance to even GO to school - or whether to be appalled by the fact that this is what they have to put up with. No parent, teacher or student in Canada or the West would put up with these kinds of facilities, so why do we think that it is okay for the Malawian kids to? In Malawi, primary school provided free by the government. If the government is meant to support the schools, then why must schools rely on charitable donations from outside sources for something as basic as a toilet block? Saturday was a big celebration, with speeches, music and dancing – yet something as basic as toilet blocks should be such as given that people should not even think about celebrating them! Imagine in Canada a huge celebration because the school finally got toilets... Some food for thought.
Of course there was no indication of a sour note whatsoever, and everyone was really pleased at all that had been done. The day was quite enjoyable, and we all gathered around the toilet block while the Principle Secretary of Industry and Trade did the honours of pulling back the ICU cloth to reveal the (huge) donation plaque. After that were some more speeches in Chichewa, (which I can only assume were about SACCOs and toilets) and then there were a few groups, including the Biwi primary school choir who did some songs and dance numbers. There was even a clown duo who did a little skit and song and then centred ME out of the crowd (not hard to do, being obviously the only mzungu) and sang it all over again in English just for me! I even got a little round of applause at the end. Haha.
Check out some photos of me sporting my SACCO chitenje, and the super cute little kids who were excited about the mzungu and the toilets...
Vi and Me, decked out in SACCO chitenjies
The new toilets
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