Madonna’s charity to build 10 more schools in Malawi: More than just hot air?

Tuesday 31st, January 2012 / 15:00 Written by

 Last year Madonna and her charity Raising Malawi still cancelled their ambitious plans of building a girls academy for at least 400 girls. Now Raising Malawi announced the provision of 300.000$ for the building of 10 new schools in Malawi.
 
The news is a surprise. Last year Madonna still had to cancel the building of a girls academy because of allegations of mismanagement. Besides that, difficulties with the land title and a lack of accountability both in Malawi and the U.S. made the charity cancel their plans.
 
To the public’s surprise Raising Malawi now announced their future plans for Malawi: It is planned to fund the building of ten more schools. These schools are supposed to serve for more than 1.000 boys and girls while at least half of the children should be girls. The non-governmental organization BuildOn will serve as partner organization and will be carrying out the construction of the schools.
 
To the Associated Press Madonna said:

This remains a very big priority in my life and I am excited that with the help of BuildOn we can maintain our ongoing commitment to move forward efficiently.

She further said:

I have learned a great deal over the last few years and feel confident that we can reach our goals to educate children in Malawi, especially young girls, in a much more practical way.

 
The partner NGO BuilOn is already active in Malawi for 20 years and built already more than 50 schools. According to a spokeswoman of the organization the schools are supposed to be “community-owned” and run by local communities.
The work on the first school should start in March in Kasungu district while the last school is supposed to be finished by June 2013.
 
It remains to be seen if Madonna and her charity can this time put their ambitious announcements into action or if they are again so much hot air.

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About the author

Fields of work: Environment, Fisheries, History, Countries: Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Zimbabwe Part of eufrika.org since: January 2011

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