A Visit to FOCHTA’s New Mikombe Rural Library
by Dr Leopold Budhendwa
I visited the Mikombe Rural Library last weekend with the Board Chair Steven Labana and some other members. First of all, let me congratulate FOCHTA for the great milestone, the Mikombe Library. Frankly speaking, our sponsor friend Mrs Tam would be proud as I myself felt when I visited this wonderful realization.
We could see that it does serve the students, their teachers and the community. It makes a big difference, as does to FOCHTA. We discussed with the chair person of the Mikombe community and the principal of the school, and they have good ideas on the use of this new library.
The inauguration will be done soon after the closing of the school year in late July even though students have been making full use of it to read and to study. I found the place to be clean and well kept. The books are all labelled and well kept. The librarian seems to be very committed and knowledgeable, even if there is still room for capacity building by giving him some further training. I’m very sure that Mrs May Tam, the person who donated that money to FOCHTA for this project will be very happy to see this. We think that the opening ceremony of this library will be a great event to open the mind of many people in Thyolo.
Note: Dr Leopold was one of three co-founders of FOCHTA. After he stopped working for MSF in Malawi, he went to work in a neighbouring African country for a number of years. Recently, he obtained a job working for GOAL Malawi, so is now back into the fold of FOCHTA serving as our technical advisor.