How Project Kindy Started
How did Project Kindy start? Hi I’m Donna and it’s a delight to share our story with you. Project Kindy began towards the end of 2011 when my beautiful friend, Sr Mel Dwyer, visited me on a break from her education mission work in Malawi, Africa. Something shifted inside me when she told me about a Canossian kindergarten for 40 children of subsistence farming families that was at risk of closing due to their inability to pay the $4/month fee. I was looking for a way to sink my teeth more deeply into charity and was drawn to the simplicity of directly providing food for 40 children at $4/month.
I emailed friends and family to see if anyone would like to join me in donating and we sent our first gift in December 2012. The 40 children quickly turned to 120 children and the Canossian Sisters were very happy to see these little ones eating plenty of food and enjoying their songs, lessons and play time.
Little did I know that some years before this, a nun had begun a ministry to orphans and very poor children in the surrounding villages where she would meet them there under a tree or on a rock to provide them with food and some kindergarten education. It had not lasted, though, because there were no funds to sustain it. In 2013, the sisters asked if they could reopen these and grow them to reach more children. Soon enough we were supporting 9 community-run kindergartens with many in the bush and only three having some sort of classroom and access to a well.
In 2018 another two villages saw the community-run model and were inspired to request their own kindergartens, which brought us to 11. In 2025, we accepted the requests of two more villages and we now support 13 kindergartens with over 1100 children and 80 staff and we hope the number of community-run kindergartens continues to grow sustainably over time.
We work closely with the Canossian Sisters and they in turn work closely with the local communities to raise the standard of service and ensure the sustainability of the project in a variety of ways:
- every kindergarten has a weather-proof building constructed with two classrooms
- every kindergarten has a decent well
- the teachers, governance chairpersons and cooks are paid for their work
- training and support is provided for the three groups of staff, which gives them confidence, knowledge and skills
- lunch, materials and transport are provided
We became a registered charity in October 2016, and were approved as a Deductible Gift Recipient by the ATO in August 2020. In 2025 we became an incorporated association with a new name, Project Kindy Inc., a new ABN and were approved again as a Deductible Gift Recipient in June 2025.
I’ve visited the kindergartens in person in 2017 and 2024 and our committee looks forward to hosting Malawi Visits from 2026!
From the very beginning this has been a transparent, grassroots and dignifying project where we all work together for a shared goal – to ensure these little children have a great start to life. Join in the work – for the JOY of it!
Donna Power
Founding President
