Caring Milton Keynes company brightens up school that's backed by Madonna

A city care company has donated more than 400 brightly coloured polo shirts to an African school that is backed by Madonna.

PJ Care heard about the Jacaranda Foundation and School, a charity which provides free care, and primary and secondary education to orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi.

The children have a dance school, which was funded by Madonna’s charity Raising Malawi and was opened by the superstar in 2021.

Madonna also funds the school’s after school arts programme, while singer songwriter Annemarie Quinn is the school’s Arts Programme Director.

Annemarie has performed a number of times for residents at PJ Care homes, which runs the Bluebirds and Mallard House care centres in MK. Both are home to people with progressive conditions such as young onset dementia and Huntington’s disease.

The polo shirts, in an array of colours, were part of the uniform for PJ staff. But the Covid pandemic saw them move to wearing scrubs, which were provided on the door and laundered in-house to minimise the spread of infection.

The polo shirts have now returned but new colours mean the old ones needed a new home.

“We had 14 different colour shirts which made it confusing for staff, residents and families to identify who they needed to speak to,” said Chairman, Neil Russell. “We’ve simplified things and now have just dark blue for nursing staff and light blue for everyone else. We didn’t want so many shirts to go to waste and we weren’t sure what to do with them. We have ties with charities in Malawi, where a number of our nurses have joined us from, and this was a good opportunity to give something back.”

PJ Care is also supporting the Nikkitus Institute Foundation (NIF) in Malawi, in recognition of their help in recruiting nurses to work in the company’s care centres. NIF provides care, education and mental health support for disadvantaged young people.

“Our residents benefit greatly from the nurses who choose to come here and we very much wanted to give back to the community in Malawi,” said Neil. “It’s great to know that our funding supports young people’s futures.”