By 2021, 15-year-old Marriam Yahaya had already spent two years in marriage with an 18-year-old boy.
“I believed that was love,” she says. “That is why I quit school to marry.”
However, the teen couple had no stable source of income.
They depended on piecework in neighbouring crop fields to fend for their needs.
Marriam’s parents discouraged her from the illicit marriage, but to no avail.
As hunger and poverty worsened, they often sought some money and foodstuffs from the boy’s parents.
This is a common tragedy faced by boys and girls in child marriages, which are rampant in Malawi.
Nearly half of girls in the country marry before their 18th birthday and a third become mothers before 19, according to the Malawi Demographic and Health Survey.
Marriam was withdrawn from marriage following persistent visits and pep talk by St Ignatius Primary School’s mother group in Mangochi District.
The concerned mothers told her it was not too late to return to school and put her dreams back on track.
She eventually yielded to their persuasions, with her mother threatening to withdraw parental support unless she returned to school.
“I didn’t believe that I needed to return to school, but I was afraid to face tough life without my parents’ support,” says Mariam, now 17.
Two years on, the girl, who dreams of becoming a nurse, is among top performers at St Ignatius Primary School.
“Having tasted life in marriage, I now know what I want to achieve and I have no time to waste,” she says.
Since she re-enrolled, Mariam has always scored top five positions during end-of-term examinations.
She wants to make her parents proud.
St Ignatius Mother Group chairperson Enifa Mawaya says the women are determined to keep children in school as the future of their community hinges on an educated generation.
The group supplies food to the school feeding programme.
It grows vegetables, maize and fruits in a communal and individual backyard gardens for sale.
The mothers sit in the food committee of the Homegrown School Feeding Programme funded by the World Food Programme (WFP).
They use part of the profits to support 15 needy boys and 17 girls with learning materials and uniforms.
These include former dropouts identified during follow-ups on children who miss classes.
“This year alone, we have withdrawn five girls from illegal marriages and convinced them to return to school. We are also paying school fees for 37 learners 15 of whom are boys and seventeen are girls.”
Mkumba Zone primary education adviser Redson Bwanali commends the mother groups for their determination to keep children in class and ensuring efficiency in the school feeding programme.
He says the homegrown school meals are not only helping tackle absenteeism and dropout rates but also economic malnutrition in surrounding villages where hunger is worsening.
“The gains of the community-led school feeding initiative are concentrated in communities around each school; thereby, maximising its benefits for learners from all fronts.”
WFP supports the school meals under the United Nations Joint Programme on Girls’ Education (JPGE) which it implements in partner with the Unicef and UNFPA.
The programme aims to tackle various challenges that affect girls’ education such as poor nutrition, inadequate protection against physical and sexual violence as well as limited access to sexual and reproductive health information and services.
WFP is supporting the homegrown school meals for 121 527 children in 76 schools across Mangochi District. About 61 000 of the learners are girls.
In this way, the programme provides nutritious meals to learners and increasing smallholder farmers’ productivity, crop storage, group marketing and income.
WFP country representative Paul Turnbull says the nutritious meals are instrumental in keeping children in school and training them to eat a diversity of foods, not just nsima and porridge from maize flour.
He says the country needs to diversify its crops and diet.
“Serving different foods in the school feeding programme is important for the children to get used to eating a large variety of foods. A diversified diet in Malawi is crucial, but it has to be backed up by production,” he said.
The Mother Groups are front and centre in the JPGE.
The volunteers support their children’s education and community development by advocating for girls’ education, mentoring students, organising awareness meetings and bridging communication between parents and teachers.
