Luxembourg, Clinique St Zithe, 10 February 2010

More than 410 school children in Malawi in southeast Africa no longer have to sit on the floor in class, thanks to a donation from the Lions Club Erasmus in Luxembourg. It’s not uncommon for a Malawi classroom to hold 100 pupils. “They will now sit on benches at proper tables, which is wonderful,” said Sister Brigitte Schneiders, who received the 5,500 € cheque at the Zitha hospital on Wednesday night from the hands of the Club’s vice-president, Petra Berndt.

“Malawi is a small, poor country so it is only fitting that Luxembourg, a small, rich country should provide help,” said Sister Brigitte who belongs to the Luxembourg Tertiary Carmelites and whose order has helped the people of Malawi for over 50 years now, building permanent and mobile hospitals, a training center, sanitation systems and digging wells. “This donation by Lions Club Erasmus will help finance the refurbishing of the four oldest classrooms in the primary school of the Ganya mission station in Malawi.”

The 5,500 € donation is part of the Lions Club Erasmus Coins-For-Kids program which began in 2001 when old European currencies were replaced by the Euro. Since then nearly 100,000 € has been collected in the familiar Coins-For-Kids tins and collecting continues today with thousands of small but sometimes large Euro coins. Lions members gather to count the donated coins and then decide on a suitable charity involving kids in need.

In the case of Sister Brigitte’s Malawi project, local artisans and students’ parents teamed up to renovate the oldest four classrooms of the school. In addition to refurbishing works, they made their own bricks and cement blocks, repaired window screens, painted walls and made new chairs and tables for the classrooms. “With the new furniture, the classroom will still hold 100 pupils. They’ll just be sitting very close together.”

For more information on the Malawi projects of Sister Brigitte, go to www.zitha.lu