Day 20 | Garden Transplanting and Nutrition Project Collaboration

Today we first went to a meeting at the District Health Office (DHO) but many of the team members were occupied so the meeting was postponed. Therefore, we tried to get coffee, but there was a blackout so we headed over to Chiputula Primary School to help out in the garden. The garden is really growing fast. For transplantation, the headmaster invited a journalist and the Chiputula block leader (community leader), King, to join. The students and teachers taught us how to move the plants from the nursery to the main bed. We also helped water the plants and clear out the weeds. Afterwards, John, a professor from the University College Cork  came to see our work and the school. 

After helping in the garden, we went back to the dorm for lunch before heading to Mzuzu University for a tour by Baxter and John. They showed us all the departments, the library and dorms. In the library, we learned a lot about their online class services and saw a really interesting section called “Malawian section”, which contained publications about Malawi, such as daily newspapers and books published before World War I. Afterwards, we saw the construction of their new five-story library, which will become one of the largest libraries in Malawi. We also saw a very interesting remote campus, the Centre for Open and Distance Electronic Learning (CODeL), which has classrooms and services for the online students to use during their exam period. Since it was established in 2006, it has now grown to accommodate over 4,000 students. Five centers across Malawi were created to address the issue of limited access to tertiary education in Malawi. After the campus tour, we had another meeting to discuss the nutrition study and had a nice dinner at a local restaurant Umunthu.

All the photos were taken by SHANTU (Verbal consent was obtained before taking the pictures)

Highlights:

• Garden transplant 
• Tour of Mzuzu University
• Discussion on John and Baxter’s nutrition study