A Matter of Terminology: Singer Madonna Built Classrooms in Malawi, not Schools

In 2006, Madonna, together with Michael Berg founded Raising Malawi, a charitable institution that vowed to alleviate the hardships and extreme poverty endured by the more than one million orphans in the country.

For years there had been publicities and fund-raisers undertaken by Madonna and fellow celebrities to collect funds for Raising Malawi, whose one big project is to build an elite Academy for Girls, following in the footsteps of Oprah Winfrey. The singer is currently in Malawi with her two adopted children Mercy James and David Banda, visiting the school where David spent some time.

The Education Minister of Malawi, amidst the fanfare connected with the singer’s visit wants to clarify that the publicities about Madonna building schools in Malawi is erroneous. Ms. Eunice Kazembe wants it known that Madonna helped build ten classrooms in existing schools in the country. The singer did not build 10 schools. She said that there is a big difference between the two.

Education program for Malawi orphans

Pop singer Madonna was allowed by the Malawi court to adopt two orphans, a boy and a girl even if she wasn’t a resident because of the charitable support for the small landlocked country.

Initially, Raising Malawi was supposed to build a girls’ academy that would cost $15 million. However there were some controversy in the management of the project and the Global Philanthropy Group conducted an audit. There were questions on the salaries and benefits expenditure and the management’s culture and capability. The audit resulted in the resignation of the executive director of the charity in 2010. The project was also scrapped. The Malawi office of Raising Malawi was then headed by Anjimile Mtila-Oponyo, the sister of incumbent Malawi President, Joyce Banda. Miss Mtila-Oponyo now works for the Ministry of Education in Malawi.

Raising Malawi announced on January 2012 that it would be building 10 primary schools in partnership with BuildOn. This was projected to serve 1,000 children, with the primary support inclusive of learning materials, school uniforms and scholarships. Primary and secondary schools will be either renovated or constructed. On December 2012, it was announced that the 10 schools have been built.

War of Words

Ms. Eunice Kazembe wants to reiterate her country’s position – that pop singer Madonna helped build 10 classrooms, augmenting the number of classrooms in existing schools. She said they (publicists) should not announce that Madonna built 10 schools in Malawi.

On the other hand, Trevor Neilson, Global Philanthropy Group president, who is the current manager of  Raising Malawi played the controversial war of words by saying that the charity had spent $400,000 to build the 10 classrooms, which allowed 4,000 children to sit inside a classroom rather than take classes under the trees.

Ms. Kazembe also added that Malawi is grateful to Madonna for the assistance but she and her organization should also observe the country’s protocol, and that donors should also provide the Ministry of Education with their plans and progress as they have to provide the teachers.

They are still sore about the fact that the promised academy was scrapped and that the singer continues to change her mind.

Madonna has yet to meet with President Joyce Banda and Trevor Neilson had confirmed that there was no schedule of a meeting between Madonna and the President.