By Neil Armstrong
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| Kamala-Jean Gopie, standing, with chiefs of the area, addressing parents and children at the opening of a school that she built in their community. Photo contributed |
A chance meeting of a Jamaican Canadian philanthropist and a
young man from Malawi in a marketplace in South Africa has resulted in her
building a school in his community.
Kamala-Jean Gopie recently returned from Malosa, Malawi
where she opened a school on September 18 that she, with some help from her
friends, made possible.
Chief Lumbi, a few local chiefs, parents and children all
gathered for the occasion.
There are 90 kids registered to start their very first
classes – far exceeding her expectation of 40.
“It’s been very exciting that in less than six weeks this
school was built for under $5,000 CAD and it’s something that, clearly, I mean
I just saw the need, in terms of his little cousins and siblings, but there is
a greater need,” says Gopie a few days before flying to Malawi.
In March 2016, she met Chimwemwe Mussa, (whose first name in
the Chichewa language means ‘Happy’), 22, in a street market in Cape Town, South
Africa one day before she was to fly back to Toronto.
While her sister-in-law was shopping, Gopie sat on a bench
and engaged the young man selling in a stall beside her.
“I started to talk to him and just something about his
manner. When I came back and I told people about it, I said all I can tell you
is I just found him to be wholesome.”
He told her that he was from Malawi, his father was dead, he
had six siblings and he was working to try to take care of his family.
Happy told her that they were very poor and that he had gone
to a high school run by an NGO but hadn’t done well in grade 12. He really
wanted to be a teacher.
“And I think that was the clinker when he said to me I
really want to be a teacher but I couldn’t,” says Gopie, a retired teacher.
It took a month before she was able to find a way to get
some money to him in South Africa because he didn’t have a bank account.
She had sent $500 CAD so he could get back home because it
is a 4-day bus trip from Cape Town back to Malawi.
She told him to check about going back to school and he
found a couple of schools and finally decided on one where he could complete
his grade 12 education.
Gopie’s cousin, the director general for the Centre for
Disease Control work in South Africa, called the school to verify the information
and everything was confirmed.
She kept in touch with Happy who sent her a photograph of
his mother, grandmother and six siblings standing in front of their house.
He was the only one wearing shoes so Gopie sent some money
for him to buy shoes for his family.
The money was also used to buy two bags of maize because
they didn’t have any food. Maize is the staple food they eat and when cooked
they call it ‘Nsima.’
Happy also bought a bag of fertilizer for his grandmother to
use in her garden.
He went off to school in Blantyre, which is 100 kilometres
from his home, so he boarded there.
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| Happy is standing in front of the school where he and two assistants will teach ninety children. Photo contributed |
At the end of January/early February, Gopie made a decision
to visit Malawi to see what things are really like.
She visited Happy’s family and met about 13 children and found
out that only one of his siblings – his 14-year-old sister – goes to school.
His 18-year-old sister has a baby and the other four, 7 to 12 years old, did
not attend school.
Gopie had taken books so she sat on the ground with the kids
and read them stories and sang “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” and “I’m a
Little Teapot.”
I’m a teacher so you don’t lose that,” she said.
She returned to Toronto and was kind of troubled about the
children’s education.
There was a school but it was about 2 kilometres away -- a
long way to go for these 4-and 5-year-old kids.
In July, on her way back from a Calabar picnic in Markam,
Ontario she had a conversation with Diana Burke of the People Bridge Foundation
and mentioned that she would like to have a school for all these little kids.
Gopie emailed Happy to ask him what would it take to build a
school and he spoke to the chief of the community who thought it was a good
idea.
By late July, she sent him $500 CAD and the photographs came
showing her where they cleared one hectare of land donated by his family and
the cement and bricks that they bought.
She subsequently saw pictures of the walls going up and four
or five young men constructing the building.
Some more money resulted in the zinc being bought for the
roof, railings for the windows, and latrines being built.
In early September they completed the floor, put in the
frames for the windows, and finished the latrines.
Initially they were thinking of registration for 30-40 kids,
but their expectations were exceeded when 90 were registered.
Thinking about safety and the children being comfortable in
the school, they capped it at ninety.
On the trip to open the school, Gopie took two suitcases of
school supplies her friends gave her money to buy.
Happy did his national grade 12 exams in June/July and the
marks will be out in October/November.
If his marks are good he could be starting at the college of
education at the University of Malawi in Zomba next September.
Gopie had sent money which Happy used to buy a bicycle to
travel from home to school.
“What will happen this year he’s going to teach the kids
cause, of course, they come with no knowledge base. Whether they’re five or
they’re ten, they’ve never been to school. He speaks English but nobody else in
his family speaks it and in the town what they speak is Chichewa. So he’ll be
teaching them in Chichewa and then maybe a little bit of English.”
Having to teach 90 kids means Happy will have two assistants
– Bridge Kandi and Shamiida Aufi -- to help him in the classroom. He will teach
the children reading and writing in English.
Gopie’s intention is to support Happy and the school for
five years and then after that they’ll be on their own.
“If he gets into university then after four years he would
graduate, he’ll be a teacher and come back. He would be a qualified teacher and
then can manage things. So I’m quite excited, quite excited.”
Gopie paid the first $3,500 out of her pocket for the school
and People Bridge sent $1,000 from donations from her friends for the school.
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| Kamala-Jean Gopie with the children inside the new school. Photo contributed |
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| Mothers and their children attending the opening of the new school in their community. Photo contributed |
The association with People Bridge allows donors to receive receipts and the organization would become an agency.
Gopie said there are enough donations from her friends in
People Bridge to support the school, in terms of just salary for a couple of
years.
The People Bridge Charitable Foundation
is dedicated to reducing poverty and promoting good healthcare in communities
around the world while also being responsive to emergencies wherever they may
be.
“That’s my legacy -- that if there’s a school in Malosa, which would not have been there other
than that, then that’s my giving back,” says the ebullient philanthropist.
[This story has been published in the North American Weekly Gleaner, Oct. 5-11, 2017.]
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