Beehive School has come up with a list of things that they need aside from money for the new building. The money raised on this site will go to the building of the new school, unless you specify something else. Here is a list of the some things the school needs. You can easily specify what the money should be spent on in the ‘comments’ section on the donation page. These are in order of priority of importance.

Books – for teachers and pupils. Want to buy books from Anglia Books, a UK company with a Malawian franchise, and CGP a UK company with great books for pupils and for teachers reference.
Basic resources like pens, crayons, notebooks, paints etc
Desks, chairs and shelves
Clocks
Musical instruments
Maths/science equipment
More computers + printers
Photocopier

There’s more, but we don’t want to dream too much…little by little as they say in Mzuzu, Pang’ono pang’ono…

Thanks to the Scotts Valley Rotary Club for donating money for books on our wishlist.  We bought:
Classworks Numeracy Teachers Resource Book (6 books levels 1-6)
Classworks Literacy Teachers Resource Book (7 books levels R-6)
Teaching Children to Learn
Teaching Children to Think
There’s No Need to Shout!: The Primary Teacher’s Guide to Successful Behaviour Management

Check out our new website! It still has all the same information, but also has information about the construction (including proposal, plans and cost) and photos (thanks to smugmug generously hosting the albums for free)

Thank you to Stanford African Students Association for donating $100 towards BeeHive School.  The money will be used towards the cost of the new buildings.  We presented at one of their meetings, and got a lot of good advice and contacts about how to help and improve the school!

Thank you to Alicia Clum, Charles Lee, Brian Hachtmann and Danielle Sheehan for running in The Human Race on May 10th, 2008. We had a booth to educate people about Malawi and tell them about BeeHive School. See photos of the runners and booth here >

Special thanks to Angela Ortega, Alicia Winquist and Katy Harrison for setting up the booth and doing science activities with the children.

Golden Gate University’s International Law Student Association held a bake sale for BeeHive School and raised $145 for us by selling brownies and other treats.  Thank you very much to Jim Benitol and the other students for volunteering their time, we know you are busy with work, exams and papers and BeeHive School really appreciates you guys!

Thanks to generous donations from Brad Lichtenstein, an alum of MIT, and Gari Clifford, a professor at MIT, BeeHive School has two more computers! Gari got the laptop with the help of the Laboratory for Computational Physiology at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology who has kindly supported MIT’s involvement with BeeHive School. The laptops have already reached BeeHive School in the care of Justin Cannon, an MIT student who is working on a project to bring “Internet” to BeeHive School – you can read more about their project here. The students at BeeHive School are enjoying using the educational games on all the laptops we have donated, but currently there are only six computers shared among 187 students. This means that students get a little less than half an hour of computer time a week. If you have a functional laptop you would like to donate, please contact info AT beehiveschool DOT com – a donation would make a big difference.

A big thank you to Brad Lichtenstein (left) and Gari Clifford (right) for donating the laptops. (Photos of the laptops in the school to come!)

As part of our effort to raise funds for the new buildings, we have entered BeeHive School as a non-profit in The Human Race, a race on May 10th in Shoreline Park, Mountain View. If you would like to walk, run, or stroll in this event, please look here or email us at info AT beehiveschool DOT com.

Despite the heat, dust, limited space and resources, the teachers and students have been doing very well. Beehive School is preparing for a spelling bee! It will be the first spelling bee at the school, so everyone is getting very excited. The school has broken into four houses – Lions, Cheetahs, Leopards, and Tigers, and are getting ready for sports day.

A new temporary classroom is about to be built, along with another pit latrine. Although these will help the ever-expanding school, the school still has to turn away students. The school is getting a really good name and a lot of people want their children to attend, but Beehive wants to keep the class size to under 30 students per class.

The Land:

The land Beehive School has acquired is called “plot no C 19 in Katoto 2 area”. Beehive has a 99 year lease on the land. The plot is big – roughly 150 x 170m. It is next to a little stream, which could help with the building and science/nature projects. Below is a rough sketch. North is up, road runs along this line, up to Mzuzu downtown, down to a village called Kaboko. More details will come after the land is surveyed and plot markers have been placed in the corners.

The image below is a satellite picture of the area, and roughly where the plot is in relation to the town. Click here to interact with the area on google maps.

Building Plans:

Niall Dorey’s good friend in England, Rowan Haysom, is an excellent architect and has very kindly offered to design the school free of charge! He is South African, but practices architecture at a firm in the UK. We will have more details about the land and school design soon!