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HOW IT ALL STARTED
16 years ago, as a 19-year old Estonian, I worked in Malawi for six months as a Development Instructor and happened to share a house with a wonderful Malawian family - Clanford, Lilly and 12 year old Dalitso. During that time Clanford and Lilly's beautiful baby girl Sade was born. Now 16 years later, I live in the UK and have a 7 year old daughter Lumi. I am so happy to say that I am still in contact with Clanford and his family (who now have added 3 more girls to their family - Onike, Funny and Favour and Dalitso has grown into a good hearted man who's dream has always been to help others by opening a school. From our discussion of how to improve the life of girls in Malawi, the idea of creating a school for girls in Malawi was born.
Looking for the name for the school and the organisation came easy. Using Clanford's and my daughters names (Sade and Lumi) had a nice ring to it but also symbolises the connection of people from different parts of the world working together.
In Malawi, only primary school is free for all children so we decided to focus developing the project that focuses on free secondary education for girls. Clanford, who previously has worked for 15 years under Save the Children on improving lives of women and children, has a good understanding of the needs and struggles of women and girls in Malawi and has a lot of experience working in the charity sector.
BUILDING A TEAM
It is hard to achive things in this life, without a good team of people around you, especcially when you want to achieve a real change, so I have been so lucky to find wonderful people here in the UK who believe in our project and are excited to be part of leaving a legacy of strong girls. Only few weeks after the school idea was born, Renata Watts joined the project and has been an incredible help with anything from ideas for the porject, writing the constitution, being a positive force for things to move forward and helping to find more team memebers.
Few weeks ago we were so excited to get confirmation from Benjamin Ashford and Elizabeth Agar that they would like to join us in this journey, and now our trustees team is complete. They both bring along great sets of skills that are invalouable for making Sade Lumi Education and Sade Lumi International School project a success.
I am so excited for the the times ahead and what we can all achieve together!
Teele Dunkley