Empowering girls with education

In most cases, when a girl gets pregnant, it marks the end of her education. But sometimes, a pregnancy can be a good lesson. One such girl is 19-year-old Cecilia Ngwira, from Kachere Village, T/A Wasambo in Karonga.

Cecilia was at Thunduti Primary School in Karonga. After failing to get selected to a Malawi Government secondary school, she went to live with her uncle in Mzuzu so that she would enrol at a private secondary school.

All went well in Form One. But come Form Two she got a boyfriend, and later fell pregnant.

“I was disappointed because I did not expect that I would fall pregnant. I thought I was very young,” she said.

One thing that she knew, though, was that she needed school. However, her uncle had a different view.

“My uncle wanted me to marry the boy who made me pregnant. He rejected me but my uncle insisted that I should still go there. Because of this, I decided to go back home in Karonga,” she says.

Cecilia’s father has two wives; the first has seven children while she is the only child of the second. This means her father’s support is minimal, since he is a poor subsistence farmer.

Fortunately, her mother received her well and, together, they struggled to take care of the pregnancy. She later gave birth to a baby boy. After three years, something unexpected happened. The parents of the boy who made her pregnant visited her in Karonga.

“They took my child and from that time, he has been staying with them,” Cecilia says.

Then she wanted to go back to school, but considering her family’s poverty, it was One day, people from the Red Cross passed by her area.

The organisation was looking for poor people and orphans whom they could support.

“When I heard about Red Cross, I gathered courage and went to meet them. I explained my case,” she said.

The Red Cross were impressed by her desire to return to school and pledged to support her education. Now, the 19-year-old is in Form Two at Fulirwa Community Day Secondary School.

The charity organisation is providing for her school fees, uniform, shoes, books and other school materials. There are no boarding facilities at Fulirwa and Cecilia has to do self-boarding.

“We are also giving her maize because she needs food. What we want is for her to focus on school,” said Elliot Nazombe, Red Cross assistant district project officer for Karonga.

Apart from supporting vulnerable groups, Red Cross also helps people that are hit by disasters like floods or earthquakes, according to Nazombe.

The organisation is also involved in water and sanitation, community health, child care and support and community capacity building.

In Karonga, Red Cross works in T/A Wasambo’s area and targets 44 villages and 7 900 households. One thing that cannot be denied is that when someone has been out of school for a while, it becomes difficult to catch up.

What is Cecilia’s performance so far? McLean Ngwira, head teacher at Fulirwa is satisfied with her performance.

“Her performance is encouraging and I am hopeful that she will pass Junior Certificate of Education (JCE)” Ngwira says.

Cecilia, who dreams of becoming a nurse, feels lucky that she has not been discriminated by her school mates for being a mother.

“Everything is going on well. But I would advise girls who have dropped out of school due to pregnancy to gather their courage and return to school,” she says. She has vowed to focus on her education, saying:

“I have learnt my lesson. I will never be stupid to get pregnant in school again,” she says.