The Echo Project is a grassroots project based in the UK and Malawi, Africa aimed at easing the burden of health care workers, teachers and families in a rural subsistence farming and fishing community along the northern shores of Lake Malawi.
Along with sending volunteers to assist in the community clinic and primary school, our School Sponsorship Program pays the fees for every secondary school in the village (sadly, only 35 out of 3,500!)
For the past eight years we have been self-funding as a community cooperative tourism project but have decided this year to focus exclusively on charity work and housing volunteers.
We are now looking at new projects that the volunteers can facilitate in the village such as:
An Environmental Club which teaches local students about over fishing in the lake and deforestation in the local area. We hope to produce a pamphlet as the final project that can be distributed to other schools in the region.
An Organic Farming Club which will eventually grow the ingredients needed for homeopathic mosquito repellant to sell on an income-generating basis.
A Nutrition & Cooking Club which will teach math and reading skills along with exploring the possibilities of more sustainable cooking methods (such as solar box stoves) and eventually produce a cookbook highlighting local ingredients and specialties also to be sold on an income generating basis to help fund future projects.
A Library to be built in an unused broom closet at the school stocked with donated books.
As the volunteers are in Africa (with no electricity, running water or telephone service) and I am a one-woman operation in an Edinburgh kitchen, we would be thrilled with any assistance we could get from teachers, students, home schoolers,etc.
Although our human power and resources are extremely limited, we know there is endless information and possibly even lesson plans out there about things such as building solar cookers, composting, permaculture garden planning, erosion, fish eco-systems, deforestation, etc.
So perhaps someone is interested in getting involved by using this as a research project with your students to help us gather information?
Or as a project to collect book donations — especially dictionaries — for the library?
Or you know of any club or organization that might be interested in sponsoring a student?
Although it won’t eliminate poverty, this direct action, non-bureaucratic initiative is helping families who often must choose between eating and sending their children to school!
If you are interested in getting involved, we’d love to hear from you:
[email protected]
Thanks and all the best,
Kristin