Preparing for Economic Independence

Central to the vision of Atsikana Pa Ulendo (Girls On The Move) Secondary School in Malawi is the goal of economic sustainability.  In the long term, APU needs to be able to operate independently, without requiring funding from elsewhere.

Our start up plan was to use donated funds to construct all of the buildings and facilities that are needed to run the school.  Initially, the cost of operating the school is being covered entirely by our sponsors who pay $1000 per year per student.

As APU’s facilities and reputation for offering a high quality education to students grew, we began attracting more and more private pay students. By APU’s fourth year of operation we were starting to attract private students to our school, starting us on the path to self-sustainability. This is largely due to the outstanding achievement of our students on their national exams, earning APU nation-wide attention and recognition from the Malawi Board of Education.

With the income generated by our private paying students as well as other school related income generating projects (maize mill, rental of school facilities, selling of produce from our farm), we know that we will be able to provide full scholarship to a minimum of 30% of our school population at any given time. As of 2021, this income is sufficient to fully support 120 scholarship students without any outside financial support.