Thondwe

Thongwe is a small community near the city of Zomba in southern Malawi, in the Shire Highlands.

Description
Thongwe has a poor population. In 2018 the local member of parliament Charles Tikhiwa estimated that there were 154 000 people in the district requiring food. He made an appeal to the government. Irrigation schemes were being created but communities around Lake Chilwe were struggling.

Primary school
Thondwe Primary School has been open since 1924. In 2013 the school had over 1,700 students from year 1 to year 8. The large number of students means that some are taught in temporary grass roofed classrooms which leak when it rains. The school has encouraged its students by awarding text books. In the second term tests are set and the first fifteen in every class gets a pair of shoes. In 2013 they took to rewarding students with shoes in a scheme supported by the head teacher Gosten G. Makwinja.

Many of the students do not have shoes and these are an advantage where the only toilet is a one pit affair.

In 2017 the school opened a library which was funded by a group in Scotland who have also twinned local businesses with their counterparts who are opticians, cafe owners, hairdressers and a craft group. The twinning has resulted in loans that enable entrepreneurs and women in particular to launch businesses. The two communities have been working together since 2008.

In 2022 Tropical Storm Ana hit and the whole of Malawi was badly damaged. The replacement of some roofs in Thongwe was funded by the Scottish twinned community of Innerleithen who arranged for metal roofs to replace the damaged thatch roofs. Metal roofs have health benefits as they do not encourage malarial mosquitoes.