Pupils hope to pick up award for Malawi work
ST Roch’s Secondary School in Glasgow has been nominated for Scotland Malawi Partnership’s first ever School Partnership Awards.
This accolade is to be awarded to schools who demonstrate exemplary practice in supporting development in Malawi as well as making people more aware of global education in Scotland and the challenges people face in the developing world.
St Roch’s Secondary’s partnership with Malawi has grown over the years and in that time the students and staff have been committed to raising funds to school and feed 398 people in a primary school in the East African country.
Depute headteacher Tommy Donnelly said: “It’s the first ever Scotland Malawi Partnership Awards and for us it would really be an affirmation of the work that we’re doing within the school and how that’s helping to promote a lot of our school values such as tolerance and the understanding of other people.
“The partnership has very much helped pull together various aspects of our school community.
“Our school motto is ‘Alios Adiuva’ which means ‘help others’. For us it’s very much brought a real focus to the work we do as a collective.”
Last week, 18 members of staff within the school from all levels, including support staff, teachers, deputes and head teacher, participated in a five-day porridge challenge, which meant they only ate porridge and drank water to raise money for Malawi in conjunction with Mary’s Meals.
St Roch’s Secondary also have a Malawi 2020 group, and 10 older students are going out to Malawi in June, along with three members of staff, to deepen young people’s understanding of life there.
Innovator and entrepreneur William Kamkwamba – who is the inspiration for Netflix film The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – will be handing out the awards during the awards ceremony.
St Roch’s Secondary opens its doors to young people from all walks of life, including those with learning and hearing difficulties, and Donnelly explained that meeting Kamkwamba will have an impact on their young people.
He said: “Obviously this would be something that would be special for us.
“He’s been described as an ‘inspiring story’, so he’s quite a big deal.
“It will be special just for some of the young people getting the opportunity to meet him.
“It’s someone who overcame adversity and who managed to overcome really challenging circumstances to produce something inspirational for the people around him.”
The ceremony is taking place at 1pm today at the City Chambers in Edinburgh.