By Henock Banda, MCM Academy School Director [November 5, 2014]
Since the start of MCM Academy over a year ago the children have been introduced too many new concepts which are sometimes difficult to comprehend simply by means of lecture or visual aids. Therefore to provide real life learning experiences for the children we organized an “educational visit” to Blantyre city.
The children had five stopovers not counting places they simply watched from the windows of the bus; including the Kamuzu stadium. In the course of the journey, teachers took time to show other important sites in the city and answer questions.
- The first stopover was at Lirangwe Police Station where children were had an opportunity to peep into a police cell and be briefed by the officer in charge and the road traffic director.
- At Shoprite marketplace children tried ice cream after learning to use a spoon. Interestingly, 99% of the children had never tasted ice cream and felt it was too cold to eat.
- A professor at Malawi Polytechnic University encouraged the children to work extra harder in class so that they could study at this university in the future. They were fascinated by the robots that were right in front of them.
- At the Chileka Airport they were fortunate to see a large jet and two domestic airplanes land and take off, and the work associated with an airport job.
- The last stopover was at Mlambe hospital, where the CEO graciously showed the children parts of the hospital. The children were briefed on the roles of the nurses and what it takes to become a nurse or a medical doctor.
The six hours learning experience left a life time impact in the children. We hope to arrange additional journeys for these children and those in the older grades to give them a vision for what lies outside of their villages and to help them create goals for their futures.