A TAVISTOCK teenager who has single-handedly instigated the building of a nursery school for desperately poor children and families in Malawi is appealing to Times readers for help to complete the project.

Mia Thomas, 19, a former Tavistock College student, is spending a year in Nsanje, doing voluntary work at the local hospital and teaching children in two schools.

Nsanje is one of the poorest region's in one of Africa's poorest countries. Mia teaches at the government primary school in Nymadzere where classes can include as many as 90 children.

But it is the village school at Lundu where Mia was determined to do something to help improve life for the children.

She said: 'Village life is where you see true poverty. Village children are stick-thin.

'We teach them — about 80 in total but it differs from day to day — in the shade under a tree. They had a classroom but it fell down.

'They are so poor, probably living with a constant hunger and their toys consist of any cardboard boxes they can find in the rubbish heaps, and yet they are happy.

'They play together and look after each other with a care that is seen so rarely in playgrounds at home.'

Mia said one of the most important things about the school was whenever the charity, an NGO, the Tiphedzane Community Support Group, had enough money, it would provide a meal for the children.

Mia said: 'This is often the only proper meal they have in a day, and provides a lifeline for the children and their families.

'Sometimes when the parents have died the grandparents take the children in and often they are too old to farm or work or are sick themselves, so the children go hungry.

'Last week, there was no money to buy maize flour for the children. Seeing them walking home holding their unused plates was heartbreaking.

'The really upsetting thing is that £1 could go such a long way towards providing these children with this vital meal, and keep them coming to school.'

Mia has managed to raise enough money through friends and family to build a simple schoolroom at Lundu. She met village chiefs, carpenters and bricklayers and after getting quotes for bricks and cement, nails, timber, doorframes, whitewash and labour, work on the school started earlier this year.

She said: 'The community and chief are wholeheartedly behind the project and it's an incredibly exciting thing to be involved in.'

In addition, Mia has managed to re-instate two feeding programmes in the area.

Mia's parents recently returned from a trip to see their daughter in Malawi.

Her mother, Kath Thomas, said: 'I have never experienced so much kindness and generosity from people with so little

'Building of the nursery school that she raised money for is well under way.  This school will enable the children of the community, many of whom are orphans, to start their education, frees the mothers to go back to education — most women have never gone beyond primary school— and gives the children a vital meal, often the only one they get a day. 

'Until the schoolroom is built the children continue to be taught under a tree and, in the rainy season, and believe me, it certainly rains, there is no school.'

Kath said Mia was desperate to finish the school properly, and to expand the feeding programmes in the villages.

'There is still a need for furniture, pens, paper, blackboard, books etc. and they want to build and equip a small kitchen area next to the building for the cooking to be done in.

'Mia would be so delighted if any further help was available for this school.'

Times reader who would like to support the project can contact Kath Thomas on 01822 613375. Cheques can also be handed in at the Times offices in Brook Street, Tavistock, and made payable to Mia Thomas. Sorry, but cash donations cannot be accepted.