By Team Dayā member Davina Kent
In Nchetana, It takes a Village!
We have heard this saying so many times but as I reflect on our recent visit to Nchetana, Malawi to build a school for 5th and 6th graders, I keep coming back to this phrase as the best way to describe our experience. Ironically, Wikipedia states this saying is an African proverb that means an entire community must support our children to grow in a safe and healthy environment. Team Dayā and its approach for building schools manifests this ethos.
During our trip, the proverbial Village consisted of community members, the government education authorities and Team Dayā’s donors and volunteers. All of us have an important part to play to make education a reality. This theme of coming together extended to our daily activities including our gracious accommodation hosts, daily exercises with the community and of course our various labor activities including carrying bricks/sand/water, laying concrete or digging the school’s foundation. Everyone played their position on the team to ensure the children of the community will be able to read and write.
I actually didn’t realize that in one week we would actually build a significant portion of the school but we did! We finished the school and bathroom foundations before having to say goodbye. The construction will continue for the next eight weeks to complete the school. It is amazing what can be done when you have everyone following through with a mutual commitment to improve the community.
I felt so blessed that my 14-year-old daughter, Riley, joined me on this journey. She wasn’t just a guest on the journey. She played an important role in fundraising and got her hands dirty to build the school. She was the youngest participant in Team Dayā history and volunteered to speak at the ‘ground breaking’ ceremony.
With an audience of roughly 100, with a translator, speaking would be daunting for anyone. Riley took it in stride as she did with all the other experiences we gained during our visit to the community.
Our highlights were interacting with the children which included carrying the infants on our backs, playing soccer or games, taking photos, learning about their entrepreneurial ventures (broom making, agricultural sales, the local tea storefront), experiencing their English class, dancing / singing and learning their language – Chichewa.
It was amazing to see the difference that education from the first two school buildings (1st + 2nd and 3rd + 4th grades) – only built in the last few years – are already having on the community. The students have big aspirations to grow up to be teachers, soldiers, pilots, doctors and so on. They are all excited to go to school, to learn and then give back to their community.
We learned so much about our hosts with our daily culture talks, family talks and gender talks. We are more similar than different. We discussed topics like birth control, male/female roles in the home, literacy, diversity, education and health. They were all so excited to learn about us and we about them.
One of our funniest learnings was in my conversation with the head of education who asked where my husband was and I responded that he was home taking care of our dog. He had no idea why we would ever put a value on dogs and asked if we also had a goat since they are so valuable to their families.
We will miss dancing and singing with our new Malawian friends. We will never forget our gracious host family! If it wasn’t enough to host us, during our visit they endured a stray dog attempting to steal their goat (a key family financial source as explained above), their 12-year-old daughter Chenya overcoming a bout of malaria and the added job responsibility helping with the school build.
Our Fundraising Goals
We are thankful to all our donors that helped make this school a reality. Riley and I will continue to fundraise as we have not hit our goal of $10,000 each. We have $8,000 left to raise between the two of us, so we are still accepting donations. I promise you every dollar goes to good use – 100% to school building. Go to these links to donate:
We aren’t stopping our support of Team Dayā. The Rotary Club of Manhattan Beach was a big supporter of this project and have asked Riley to lead their international projects for their club at her high school, Mira Costa High School. In this role she will continue to raise awareness of Team Dayā and solicit support within our community.
Team Dayā is continuing their good work with the next school building scheduled for Nicaragua this November and Nepal in March 2024. The current vision reflects three schools in 2023 and another three in 2024.
If you are curious about joining a future school build, please contact Team Dayā’s Head of Recruiting Jaryd Knutsen.
