Written by CorpsAfrica/Malawi Volunteer Ms. Bertha Mukhuna

“Dare to seize all the opportunities on your path.” — Lailah Gifty Akita

It is now close to two months since my country has had confirmed cases of COVID-19. The pandemic has negatively impacted a lot of activities at my site. For example, many community members depend on operating bicycle taxis as a source of income and because most people are not traveling like they used to, the income of these bicycle operators has decreased.

Among the negative impacts, the community’s major concern is the school-going kids. Even though the closure of schools as one of the preventive measures for the spread COVID-19 was initially welcomed by most people in my community, with time there have been several problems that have risen, especially due to the fact that it is uncertain when the schools will re-open. Parents and guardians are concerned with their kids just playing all day. Most of the kids in our community have resorted to going to watch movies at local cinemas. Since nothing can be done to re-open the schools, we have decided to re-open the inactive library that was built by one of our development partner organizations. It will be a place where students will be coming to read and borrow books and get mentored. We will be giving the students an opportunity to still be active in their school activities rather than just playing around all day every day.