Welcome to the VVS Malawi MDG Project

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The Millennium Development Goals Project:

 

Verde Valley School was founded on five guiding principles: academic excellence, environmental stewardship, the power of physical labor, service to others, and world citizenship. 
While the school does not have an official motto, the following words of Margaret Mead have been repeated often as emblematic of the school’s purpose:

 “Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  



In 2005, The Millennium Development Goals Program was created by concerned students and faculty of VVS to align the school with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The UN MDGs are a call to action to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development. The VVS MDG Program strives to further the UN MDGs by taking action to educate ourselves, increase awareness, conduct meaningful projects for communities in need, and respect the relevance of these goals to our school values.  We believe that by accomplishing this mission, VVS will be doing its part to save the world one community at a time.  VVS is proud to have received a $50,000 grant in 2009, from the E.E. Ford Foundation to assist its students in living up to this altruistic vision of personal responsibility for public welfare. The Ford Foundation gave this grant only after VVS raised a $100,000 match for our MDG efforts worldwide.

For the past five years, VVS has been focusing much of its MDG work on Kamangilira village in Malawi.   In cooperation with the villagers, students develop projects and raise funds to support them. One of the ongoing fundraisers for MDG has been selling Goat Milk Soap that is made by students.  Students participate in all aspects of production, from milking the goats to the final distribution to local stores. All proceeds go directly back into our MDG program.  Each summer a group of students travels to Malawi to complete projects and learn firsthand what it means to grow up in a UN designated “red” (critically underdeveloped) nation.  Since 2007, VVS has:  

•    built three teacher’s houses at the primary school

•    installed a solar powered lighting system for the local elementary school

•    tutored students in English, math and the earth sciences

•    resurfaced dirt floors in classrooms with concrete

•    painted murals in classrooms

•    placed 20 girls into secondary school

•    distributed mosquito nets village-wide to help combat malaria 

•    repaired and built beds for the maternity ward of a local health clinic

•    distributed medical and educational supplies and sporting equipment

•    trained villagers in small animal husbandry practices to augment food supplies

This summer, the final phases of the large community center that VVS built last summer will be completed.  Concrete floors, doors and windows, solar lighting, furniture and a library will be installed.  

We are currently expanding the MDG Program to include a comprehensive four year VVS “NGO” curriculum.  This curriculum will teach students how to plan, fund, execute and assess service orientated projects or business ventures.  These critical skills and concrete tools will enable our students to serve more effectively and to continue to positively shape the world of tomorrow.  Our US based MDG workshops and speaker program is being expanded as well.