Mr Robinson Heading to Malawi

For over 30 years, Saint Kentigern and World Vision New Zealand (WVNZ) have partnered together to transform the lives of children living in poverty.  This has been a strong partnership and the funds raised by our students each year during the 40 Hour Famine have made a significant impact in World Vision communities around the world. Saint Kentigern has been recognised as the top fundraising school in the country on a number of occasions.

During 2014, WVNZ will begin developing an exciting new ‘community-to-community’ engagement model to foster a deeper and more impactful relationship between schools and World Vision communities.

World Vision has invited Saint Kentigern to be the first school to pilot this new model with a focus on three project areas covering Nutrition, Education and Leadership. 

To this end, months of planning will come to fruition next week when Mr Mark Robinson, who co-ordinates the many and varied service activities at the College, will travel to Malawi with World Vision as part of a scoping trip to identify community to community partnership opportunities. This trip will enable him to meet the focus community in Malawi that Saint Kentigern plans to partner with for our new special project. He will also have the opportunity to visit other area development programmes where similar World Vision projects have already been successful. 

By visiting the local Malawi communities Mr Robinson hopes to gain insight and local understanding to help determine how Saint Kentigern can best develop a programme that provides financial aid.

Mr Robinson is following in the footsteps of Old Collegian, Letitia Puni. During her last year at College, Letitia was named as World Vision Youth Ambassador for 2014. Letitia travelled to Malawi earlier in the year and we hope to bring you news of her trip soon. Meanwhile, we wish Mr Robinson a safe and exciting trip! 

World Vision proposes the following projects for consideration:

Education: Promote literacy in school going children through deliberate reading initiatives.

Nutrition: Awareness activities for school children on how good nutrition can impact on their academic performance at school.  Activities can include the establishment of school based fruit and crop gardens, with the harvests then going towards school feeding programmes. Subjects such as expressive arts, agriculture, life skills will be linked to the project activities. 

Leadership: Promote physical education towards academic excellence for learners.