The Courier

On Wednesday 24 May local Rugby resident Sam Melia, from Bwengu Projects Malawi, visited the Crescent School to receive a cheque for £2,011.  The cheque was presented by Year 4 pupils, Nora and Akaal, in assembly in front of the whole school.

The Crescent School has been supporting the work of Bwengu Projects for over fifteen years now. In fact, the school was one of the charity’s first supporters back in 2007 when they donated books for use in school libraries. Each year the Year 4 children at the Crescent School study Africa and in particular Malawi and the work that Bwengu Projects does. Studying the challenges the people in Malawi face, helps the children to appreciate the similarities and differences in our societies.

At the end of their topic the children organise fundraising activities that the whole school participates in. Last year, for the first time, Crescent School successfully supported a whole project, raising £1,110 to enable the completion of a Nursery and Orphan Feeding Centre in Mleghu in Malawi. However, this year, the children have really surpassed themselves raising almost double that total, a whopping £2,011, which will be used to fund the much-needed refurbishment of Namatubi School in Chitipa, in the most northern part of Malawi

The Year 4s raised money in a number of enterprising ways including, a non uniform day and lots of guessing games. Their most successful fundraiser though was a sponsored silence, a challenge that their teachers very much enjoyed!

Bryony Forth, Deputy Head, commented,

“Supporting the Bwengu Project is always a highlight of my teaching year, something which I personally am very proud to be part of. The children always enjoy studying Bwengu and comparing 'A Village Less Economically Developed than Rugby' in their Geography lessons. Over the years, we must have raised over £15,000  for the charity, and helped pay for renovating schools, building a Women's Development Centre, providing sewing machines, classroom furniture, a teacher's salary and nearly 60,000 meals for orphans.

“The children worked incredibly hard this year organising lots of events. They have smashed their fundraising target, having raised a great total of £2,011. The money will be used to repair the buildings at Namatubi School including eight classrooms that are used by 857 5-14-year-olds who attend the school.”

Samantha Melia was overwhelmed, and commented,

“This is really wonderful. There are so many different people in need across the world and we are so grateful that every year the pupils at the Crescent help unlock the opportunity of education for the children of Malawi.”

Reception teacher, Mrs Pullen, has welcomed parents into school this week to share the children's learning journeys this past year. Our youngest pupils greeted their visitors excitedly and took great delight in proudly talking their parents through their journals.

The Learning Journals are a very special record of the children’s experiences, development and learning journey during their first year at Crescent School. Nurturing a love of learning is one of Crescent’s goals, and seeing the children talk with passion and enthusiasm about all that they’ve learned filled their teacher with pride.

They have all come such a long way since they started Reception back in September, thank you for helping us celebrate all their wonderful accomplishments.