Stephanos hands over ECD centres in BT Rural

Stephanos Foundation has handed over three early childhood development (ECD) centres to three villages in Traditional Authority (T/A) Kuntaja in Blantyre.

Speaking at a handover ceremony in Mponda Village in group village head Mulima on Friday, Senior Chief Kuntaja hailed Stephanos Foundation for the centres of Mponda, Zakazaka and Chilaka.

He said the centres will play a critical role in pre-primary school education in the area.

“Pre-primary school learning is important as it prepares children for primary school. These years are very crucial in the development of a child. We are grateful for these facilities,” he said.

The chief encouraged his subjects to send their children to these learning centres for them to become useful citizens in future.

In her remarks, district social welfare officer for Blantyre Rural Trophina Limbani said the facilities will help create a good learning environment, adding that in the past, children faced many challenges as they were learning under a tree.

“During rainy or sunny season, classes were being interrupted. As a result, children were learning in churches or under trees. But now, these buildings will promote early learning in Blantyre Rural as they have created a good environment. “We have 1 000 learning centres in the district, but they have no permanent structures,” she said.

According to Stephanos counterpart programme manager Steven Binali, they constructed the learning centres to lessen challenges the communities were facing in their quest to attain quality pre-primary school education for their children.

“We are happy to handover these facilities which will help the children learn in a good environment. We did a survey and found out that there was a problem of learning infrastructure here. That is why we came up with these projects,” he said.