Donating, volunteering and joining in...

Check out the website at microloanfoundation.org.uk for stories about some of our groups, upcoming events, volunteering opportunities and loads of ways to get involved.

Learning Chichewa.....

I have managed my first joke in Chichewa – when someone asked, “How is your house?” (a standard daily greeting) I replied, “Sindegoodseewa, konyomba Mangaland” – roughly, I have no idea, my house is in the UK. Maybe you had to be there! Chichewa is definitely the most difficult language I have ever tried to learn but my new colleagues are working hard to teach me as much as possible, and laughing hysterically when I make a mistake. My favourite riposte is, “sizzha sangalassa!” Or, we are not amused!

Getting to work



The training centre at Microloan Foundation Malawi Head Ofiice, Kasungu.



Staff training is about to get started at the Microloan Foundation Malawi, with the pilot group all ready to go with ‘dealing with emails’ and ‘time management’. The pilot group will give feedback on this first draft of the training programme, and will hopefully become trainers themselves to teach the third round of training for each module.



Sunrise at Kasungu National Park



The dry season in Kasungu continues to be sunny, and I saw hippos and antelope at Kasungu National park. In spite of taking a watchful guard with a gun on our trip up Black Rock, we didn’t see any lions or leopards, but the great view and stunning sunset back at the lodge more than made up for it.



The view over Kasungu National Park from Black Rock



First few weeks in Kasungu....

Have arrived in Kasungu and got settled into the Microloan Foundation head office. My role here as Training Development Manager involves developing, piloting, rewriting and facilitating training for loan officers, branch managers and some office staff. We hope to start on the 17th with a pilot group to try out 'dealing with emails and dealing with in-trays', which may be even more fun than it sounds.
Really excited to have joined the team, who are doing amazing things here in Africa (check out the Microloan website at microloanfoundation.org.uk to see more!) and finding my way around town, meeting the neighbours and exploring the shops.

Meeting the neighbours in Kasungu

This week I have been looking for a team house, looking through the training modules written by the lovely people at Deloitte, London and starting to write training workbooks. Tomorrow we go to the national park to meet the elephants!