In July 2011, 13 students from the Academy will be venturing to Malawi in south east Africa for a 19-day expedition as part of their studies.
Background
The main objective for the expedition is 'Culture & Community'. Here students will explore the culture of Malawi, their people and the environment they live in. Malawians are a curious people. To a Western mindset, this might be interpreted as unnecessarily staring at you or talking about you in front of you. Be prepared to be greeted by children yelling mzungu, mzungu! You’ll probably have to answer lots of questions about yourself. Even relatively mundane items like mechanical pencils can draw a crowd of onlookers!
Itinerary
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Travel to Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. Acclimatise to the culture and climate of this African city. The group will need to exchange money and arrange transport etc for the next phase of the expedition.
- Dzalanyama Community Project
- Travel to the Forest reserve to a local primary school.
- Here the group will spend 4-days, working in the primary school, carrying out essential maintainence work such as building offices, painting classrooms etc.
- Teaching and spending time with the local children.
- The group will be cooking for themselves.
- Trek Mount Mulanje.
- The group will trek over this granite massif using trails which climb to 3,000m above the African plains for 3-days!
- The group will be camping and will have to cook and clean up after themselves.
- Liwonde National Park
- a 2-day safari into the National Park to see first hand the elephants, lions and hippos that Africa is famous for.
- Lake Malawi
- Rest and relaxation on the shores of Lake Malawi
- Opportunities to go snorkeling or kayaking
- Return to Lilongwe before flying back to the UK
Fundraising
Students are fundraising together as much money as they can for the expedition. So far students are raising money through a tuck shop every Friday break at Cryer Street, bag packing at ASDA and a sponsored abseil down the Peel Monument in Bury!