When Doreen Nkolokosa lost her father in 2024, grief was soon followed by a draining struggle to remain in school.
Her deceased father’s former employer pledged K100 000 towards her tuition fees. However, her mother, who was selling secondhand clothes door-to-door to meet her family needs, could not stretch her meagre earnings to cover the K50 000 shortfall.
The outstanding fees could be small change to well-off parents, but it was enough to force Nkolokosa to quit school in Form Three at Phereni Community Day Secondary School in Lilongwe.
“I kept thinking about going back to school, but there was nothing I could do. My mother was working hard to fend for us, but I just had to accept that things had changed after dad’s death,” says Nkolokosa, now 18.
She is among scores of the youth from the densely populated Mtandire Township and surrounding settlements in Lilongwe who attend a Safe Space Friday to discuss their shared challenges and explore possible solutions.
The initiative, founded by Tusekile Mwalwanda last May at Raine’s Clinic in the populous Mtandire Township in Lilongwe, offers an open environment for vulnerable young people, especially adolescent girls and young mothers, who have experienced abuse, neglect or teenage pregnancies.
The mentorship and psychosocial intervention have persuaded 30 girls who dropped out of primary schools to re-enrol. Similarly, 20 others, including four boys, have returned to secondary school while 21 others opted for vocational training.
Mwalwanda says Safe Space Friday did not begin as a pre-designed programme.
She states: “Honestly, it was just an idea in my head. I didn’t have all the answers to what young people are going through and I didn’t know exactly how I was going to make it happen.
“However, I knew one thing: I wanted to create a space where young people could feel seen, heard and safe.”
Mwalwanda’s initiative got underway when she hired maids to care for a pair of two-month-old babies while their mothers were attending classes.
However, Mwalwanda soon discovered that the mentorship inroads could not just end with conversations about making better choices.
“The Friday chats needed to lead somewhere. I wanted the youth to leave with something that could change their lives, something that could address practical needs that could undermine their progress,” she explains.
The awakening gave rise to efforts that motivate dropouts to return to school.
“I have always had a dream for the girl child, but I also believe deeply in creating spaces that include the boy child. Their struggles may be different, but both boys and girls need someone to believe in them,” Mwalwanda adds.
Mwalwanda thanks the Joyce Banda Foundation for paying K50 000 registration fees for all 20 young people who enrolled at Phereni Open Secondary School in the capital city.
She states: “The former president’s foundation has really helped the girls and boys return to school. Sometimes I commit to things without really knowing where funding would come from, so the Joyce Banda Foundation’s intervention was both timely and cherished.”
“When a young girl has a reason to wake up in the morning, a goal she is working to achieve, an education, a skill and a vision for her own future, she begins to see that her life can be so much more than simply becoming someone’s wife.”
According to the Malawi Demographic and Health Survey released in 2025, about two in five girls marry before their 18th birthday and one in three become mothers before reaching 19.
Nkolokosa’s dream of becoming a nurse appeared almost dashed, but re-enrolment has restored her hopes.
“I want to finish what I started,” she says. “I want my mother to see that the sacrifices she made for me were not wasted.”
Phereni Secondary School open distance learning coordinator Shepherd Kafotene says readmission policy gives girls who dropped out a second chance.
He says: “With the right support and commitment, these girls can pick up from where they stopped and work towards achieving the future they had once imagined.
Dropping out doesn’t have to mean the end of their education. We want them to know that the door is still open.”
