100 ABSTRACTS - NUMBER 40 & FLOWER FRIDAY

When I pulled back the bedroom curtains, the rain was lashing down the window, so I abandoned my plan to take a photograph of a flower in the garden.  Apart from which, it’s blowing a hoolie out there, so I’m staying in! 

Plan B was to use the remainder of the flowers some lovely friends had brought round a couple of weeks ago, when I was feeling a bit down. They also brought a box of Quality Street, but they vanished on the same day, with a little help from Mr. HCB!  Well, you know my name is “Mrs HChocoholicB!"

Here then, for the 40th in my 100 Abstracts Challenge, is an amalgamation of two shots of the chrysanthemums, hardly fartnarkled, but taken using my SlowShutter app and then passed through Snapseed.  Both Mr. HCB and I liked the fact that it looked very delicate, and of course, it's Two for One again, this being Flower Friday.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you why I’m doing this - but I will anyway, in case anyone is reading my journal for the first time!  I am supporting the Mamie Martin Fund, which enables young women and girls to get a secondary education in North Malawi.  Without the help of this Fund, many girls just would not get any schooling.  Here is another inspiring story from someone who has been fortunate enough to benefit from the Mamie Martin Fund:

ANNIE NKHOMA - Annie is the first born of a family of four and experienced difficulties in fees payment at Karonga Girls Secondary School right at the start of her secondary years. Her father is a piecework builder (casual labour) and her mother has a small business selling tomatoes at the market.  She is now completing her BSc in Soil Science at LUANAR in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Annie is so grateful for the MMF and SOKO support that has allowed her to reach this far with her education. Her home is in Karonga so her trips to and from LUANAR involve a 10-hour overnight bus trip each way and then an hour’s minibus ride to the campus. ‘It is a tiresome journey’, she admits.  (I wonder how many of our young people would be prepared to go to these lengths to complete their university education?)

Eventually Annie would like to get a job in her field with the Malawian Government or an NGO in Malawi. She believes that through her career some change will be seen in her community because she will act as a role model to younger girls and women who, due to poverty, think that they cannot reach far in their education levels.

I hope that after a year of disrupted schooling young people in the UK will think seriously about their education and realise how fortunate they are compared to those girls in North Malawi and many other countries, for whom education is not a given. 

I have known many teachers who would fit these categories, as you will see from one of my early Blips, but the two I remember and think of most often are the ones who inspired and encouraged me - Mervyn Comrie and George Whiteley!

“The mediocre teacher tells.
     The good teacher explains.
          The superior teacher demonstrates.
               The great teacher inspires.”
William Arthur Ward

If you want to make a difference in the lives of young women like Annie and the others I have mentioned recently, please look at my JustGiving page: 

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MaureenIles