Sixth Form students from Trinity School travelled to Malawi this summer to volunteer with local communities and see first-hand the impact of our longstanding partnership with Hope4Malawi and Chipwepwete Primary School.
Since 2015, the Trinity community has supported projects designed to improve access to education in rural Malawi. At the heart of the partnership is a feeding programme providing children at Chipwepwete with a free school lunch, helping to encourage school attendance and support learning. Over the years, fundraising has also helped provide new classrooms, a library, toilets, teacher accommodation, educational resources and wider infrastructure.
For our Lower and Upper Sixth students, the summer volunteering trip was a chance to understand what that partnership means on the ground. They planned and taught lessons at Chipwepwete, spent time playing and talking with students, met young people supported through education sponsorships and worked on practical community projects, including building fuel-efficient ovens and repairing wells in villages that had been without access to water for more than three months.
For Beyza, now in Upper Sixth, time spent with the children was a highlight. “It was really fun to learn and play their games, as well as teach them stuff that we played when we were younger,” she says. Meeting one of the students supported through Trinity and Hope4Malawi also made a lasting impression on Beyza. “It was really nice to meet her and learn about her life and ambitions, and also very humbling to realise the opportunities we have been given that she was not.”
Visiting Chipwepwete brought home the importance of a partnership Beyza had previously only heard about at school. “Seeing the actual school and talking to Vic about how the money has actually impacted the community really widened my eyes and helped me realise how important the partnership truly is.”
Head of French Miss Bodinier, who accompanied the trip, was equally struck by what students took from the experience. “One of the most rewarding aspects of the trip was seeing first-hand the impact that the charity has had on improving the lives of so many people, and recognising the powerful role that education can play in transforming communities and contributing to the future of a country.”
There was also time to experience more of Malawi itself. One of the things that surprised Beyza most was simply “how beautiful the country was”, while camping on safari gave her the chance to see its wildlife up close. “I’ve never been anywhere in Africa before, so it felt almost surreal to see the animals, especially since we got the chance to see them going about their natural lives and visiting the waterhole.”
The experience also brought the Trinity group together. “As at the time I was in Lower Sixth, I hadn’t met most of the others before,” says Beyza. “It was really fun to get to know them, and the group made the less exciting things like the bus rides and sitting after dinner fun memories.”
Reflecting on an unforgettable trip, Miss Bodinier added: “Most of all, we came away incredibly proud of our students and grateful for everything they taught us along the way.”
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A group of students will be sharing their experiences of the trip with the wider school during assemblies later this term.
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