I’m designing a small multifunction building to house both a nursery school and offices for a community-based AIDS services organization in Golomoti. The building will also function as a community center when the school is not in session.

MANET+ (Malawi Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS) is coordinating the project, and it will be built next fall by a group of engineering students from Canada (www.gcius.ca).

GOLOMOTI

Golomoti is a small village in Dedza district, close to the southern tip of the lake. It used to be an stop for the railway, back when Malawi used its rail lines for passenger transport. The center of Golomoti has now shifted to the main road that connects Salima to Monkey Bay. The old center has the feeling of an inhabited ghost town.

NURSERY SCHOOL

The nursery school is run by volunteer teachers (above). They teach about 260 kids between 2 and 5 years old. The school is open Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 11 am. Classes are currently held under a large tree. Students are sometimes taught all together as one group and sometimes split into smaller groups.

The typical weekly curriculum is as follows:

Monday: Calendar (days of the week), Gospel songs

Tuesday: Sculpting with clay, Hygiene

Wednesday: Alphabet

Thursday: Poems (English and Chichewa), English words, Counting

Friday: Songs

Prayers are taught everyday

GASO

GASO (Golomati Active AIDS Support Organization) coordinates 200 volunteers in Golomoti to provide services and support to HIV-positive individuals and their children. They currently rent two small rooms (3 meters by 2 meters each) in the building shown here.

PLAYING IN GOLOMOTI

The site will also have a playground. The nursery school teachers gave us a list of ways that kids play in Golomoti:

• Fish-fish (jumprope)

• Bao (a Malawian board game)

• Draft (Checkers)

• Fly (Cross between monkey-in-the-middle and dodgeball)

They also said that the kids would really enjoy having seesaws and swings. I haven’t seen to many jungle gyms around Malawi, but it would be easy to make a fun jungle gym out of blue gum branches.

THE SITE

The traditional authority in the village has donated a large empty plot of land for the building.

There are two structures on the building right now.

The first one is a run-down building without a roof. It would certainly need quite a bit of restoration and repair, but the walls are solidly built. It could house the offices of GASO. It might be a good idea to separate the GASO offices from the nursery school, which will get quite loud (with 260 kids singing, running, and playing).

OTHER FUNCTIONS

When the school is not in session, the building will also be a meeting space for different groups, such as:

• PLHIV (Persons Living with HIV) support group (40 people)

• Traditional authority meetings (30 people)

• GASO volunteer meetings (up to 200 people)

• Adult education classes in literacy and accounting (variable number of participants)