Bakery powers young mothers

Outside a mud brick house at the heart of Kayula Village, Traditional Authority Mwenelupembe, children run around the compound, oblivious of the scorching heat typical of Karonga District at the northern tip of Malawi.

Under the shade of a boisterous mango tree, a group of young women chatter loudly and carefree, occasionally beckoning the toddlers not to stray away from the watchful eyes of the elders.

Meanwhile, several young women dart in and out of the smouldering house, gently wiping away the sweat from their brows and breathing in to compensate for the momentary loss of air.

Inside the building, Atupele Bulawula, 18, gestures as she directs the tour of the premises.

“So, this is a bakery where we prepare bread and scones that we sell to the community, especially at the market,” says the mother of two.

Bulawula  leads Lughano Care Group which runs the bakery. She says the group of 30 is strictly for young married mothers in their community.

Child marriage is rampant in Malawi. The 2017 constitutional amendment raising the age of marriage to 18 for both boys and girls was a significant milestone. However, child marriage persists, with 47 percent of girls still getting married before the age of 18, and nine percent before the age of 15.

When girls marry early, the health of their children suffers too as they are at higher risk of low birth weight, preterm delivery, and severe neonatal conditions, as well as being more likely to suffer from malnutrition and stunting throughout their childhood.

Bulawula says the young women were selected for the project because they got married when they were young and lacked knowledge about how to take care of their families’ dietary needs.

She is one of the two members from the group who were trained as mentors. They impart nutrition knowledge to their fellow members.

The bakery, she says, is one of the business ideas they came up with to provide nutritious food and sustain their livelihoods. The women also formed a village loans and savings group to save and grow their earnings from the bakery business.

According to Bulawula, the members were trained in how to prepare and maintain healthy diets for their families; hence they use proceeds from the bakery to support each member to supplement their diet.

“The bakery has really benefitted all of us. As we speak, all members own goats because after we shared the profits in August, every one of us bought a goat. We encourage our members to use the rest of the money to start small businesses that can help them with their day-to-day needs such as school fees and food,” she says.

Loraine Malongo, one of the members of the group, says she has learnt a lot from the group.

She notes that, aside from the bakery, the members were encouraged to own vegetable gardens to diversify their diets.

The mother of two, who got pregnant with her first child and was forced to marry at 12 years old, says the Afikepo nutrition programme, funded by the European Union (EU), has helped her find her feet.

“I was young when I got pregnant and my parents were really poor so I had no options but to go and live with my boyfriend. So, I have been married since, raising my first child with very little experience,” she says.

Malongo says the experience with her second child, a one-year-old daughter has been different.

“Because of the skills that I have acquired from the Afikepo project, I now know what it takes to raise a child and the dietary requirements that are needed to ensure that one gives birth to a healthy baby,” she says.

Malongo notes that there is a huge difference between the health of her first child and that of her second child.

“The second one is much healthier with very few health challenges. With my first child, I had so many complications and the child struggled in the first few years. I believe that was because I did not feed him the right food to help him grow well,” she says.

One of the achievements from the bakery business is that the women have become independent, giving them enough funds to provide diversified diets for their children, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) district officer Mbilika Simwaba.

Afikepo is a Government of Malawi nutrition programme implemented by the FAO and Unicef with funding from the EU.

It represents a ground-breaking multi-sectoral effort integrating agriculture, health, and nutrition initiatives to enhance nutrition and food security in Malawi.n