Girls from the five districts in which ActionAid International Malawi works in the Southern Region participated in a two day girls’ conference in Blantyre from 15th -17th October 2010. There were 51 girls from primary schools and two from secondary schools. These were from Nsanje, Phalombe, Neno, Chiradzulu and Machinga.The purpose of the conference was to encourage the girls to stay in school and aim at attaining the highest levels of education. In Malawi the dropout rate is high with girls having only a 27% completion rate.
The girls were therefore given talks on leadership, assertiveness, self esteem, hygiene, HIV and AIDS and violence against girls. They were also exposed to role models; women of different professions. They were also taken on exposure visits to the Blantyre Print, Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ) and Radio station and Southern Bottlers Malawi Ltd where they witnessed how beverages are made. At all these places they met with female managers who encouraged them to work hard and explained how they themselves worked hard at school to get to where they are today, the obstacles they met and how they overcame them.
The theme of the conference was ‘change begins with me’. The girls agreed at the end of the conference that for them to progress in life they need to change their attitude towards education, believe in themselves and influence others to see girls’ education in a different light.
The girls were very inspired by the visits and the talks given to them by the women. One of the girls Tadala Gama from Phalombe Primary school said that she was very inspired by the young journalists that she met at MIJ and that she will work extra hard at school to achieve her ambition of becoming a nurse. To her she has seen for herself that women can also be managers in organizations therefore she will share what she has leant at this conference with her friends in Phalombe and inspire them to work hard and be achievers like the role models that they were exposed to.
These girls will be followed up for the next five years to see how they are progressing in their education and what the impact of their having participated in the conference has been. A national conference has been planned to take place in December during the school holidays and some of these girls will also participate in that conference.
This was a great conference and currently fruits are being seen as many girls are helping fellow girls to remain in school with support of mother groups.The national girls took place and some case studies were documented and to be shared.
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