THE Cowdenbeath community has rallied round the flood stricken families of Beath High School’s former sister school, Mendulo, in Malawi.

Everyone at Beath, pupils and staff, were shocked to hear of the problems being endured by their colleagues in Africa as the rainy season has turned into one of record breaking proportions leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Beath rector, Douglas Young, said this week that when staff and pupils heard that their colleagues and friends at Mendulo School were in one of the worst affected areas, there was a will to try and do something to help.

Malawi has suffered dreadful flooding - it is their rainy season which usually means fairly heavy rains for a few weeks but this year, over one month’s rain fell in under two days and then it kept on raining heavily for another 10 days or so.

The south of the country was inundated with 276 people killed or missing and 230,000 made homeless.

Crops of maize have been destroyed, villages obliterated, homes swept away and livestock killed.

On Tuesday 10th February Beath held a dress down day where pupils could make a donation, with a promise that the school would send all the money out to Chonde in Malawi which is connected to Mendulo School.

Said Mr Young, “We are delighted to announce that over £1000 was brought in that day. I contacted colleagues Chonde and they subsequently spoke to the village elder and chief who set up a Village Committee so that Beath had a structure to work with.  “The newly formed Relief Committee in the village of Chonde set about identifying what materials would help most and who was most in need - those in camps who had lost everything were, unsurprisingly, top of the list”.

Wasting no time, on the evening of Tuesday 10th February Mr Young sent out to Malawi the £1000 brought in by the pupils.

By Saturday 14th February Chonde Relief Committee had purchased rice, beans, blankets and water buckets and distributed them to 100 families. As can be seen from the left photograph the work pupils put in place so very quickly, is making a difference.

Concluded Mr Young, “The £1000, which is a LOT of money out there, is also now in the local economy where it will be reaching far wider by now than just Chonde.

“Discussions between Beath’s Malawi Committee and the Chonde Village Committee continue and we are waiting to hear from them what support they would like next. The Beath school community, for our part, are planning a concert and possibly more events in the near future. While this has been a dreadful time for our friends in Chonde it is wonderful to see just how much the Cowdenbeath community cares”.

Beath’s rector Douglas Young said this week, “All the happenings in Malawi is probably news to most readers as this information simply didn’t reach the UK media.

“The rain has stopped now and life is beginning to return to some sort of normality although UNICEF is now concerned about possible outbreaks of cholera, dysentery and malaria as well as the increased risk of malnutrition.

“In addition many are living in camps with little or no shelter. There are also grave concerns about food supply now, and in the months ahead. With their crops and costly fertiliser washed away, as subsistence farmers this means they will have nothing to eat and nothing to sell or trade with. They will, as our friend over there, Maevie Choponda, put it rather starkly, simply starve to death”.

He added, “The £1000 from a hastily arranged dress down day is just a mark of our community’s generosity. It is also amazing to think that only four days after we collected in that money it was well spent with materials distributed to those most in need. We would like to thank everyone for for their support.”