Scottish Catholic Observer

St Margaret’s High have spent a number of years working in Malawi, buying land for villagers, funding orphanages and sending pupils and staff to the African country to help those less fortunate.

As thanks for their efforts, Sr Anna Tommasi, an Italian nun who works in the country, Moyo Meja, a former prisoner, and Rebecca Misiri, a headteacher in the Malawian town of Mulanje, came to the school to speak to children and give lessons.

Singled-out for praise was S6 pupil Lauren Strain who, during a visit to Malawi last June, paid for a lawyer for an unjustly convicted woman, resulting in her release from prison. The Malawian woman had been jailed after her son died from an infected wound received during a fight with his brother. Locked up in a run-down prison for her son’s death, the woman gave birth to a girl on Christmas day. After hearing her story, then S5 pupil Lauren paid £40 for a lawyer and within a few days the Malawian mother was released along with her newborn child, who lived her first day outside of a prison cell.

Sr Tommasi, who runs her prison missionary in the Shire Highlands region of Malawi, extended her thanks to St Margaret’s for their contributions to her projects.

Pupils were then given an RE lecture by the nun, while former prisoner Mr Meja taught a Modern Studies class, speaking about those suffering in the horrific conditions in Malawian prisons and on the importance of Faith and hope.

Andrew McKay, an English teacher at St Margaret’s who accompanied the children on their trip to Malawi, said the school’s fundraising is all down to the pupils themselves.

St Margaret’s pupils will return to Malawi next month to continue their charity work

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—This story ran in full in the May 23 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.