Gule Wamkulu takes pupils back to school
At Nankhande Primary School in Dedza District, Gule Wamkulu is seen leading children to class at the start of every term.
Traditional leaders in the fishing community along Lake Malawi are using the mystical ‘big dance’ of the Chewa people to ensure every child learns.
“Gule Wamkulu is our way of life,” says group village head (GVH) Jero, born Susan Nestala. “Chiefs unleash it come happiness or sorrow. Now it sees to it that no child is seen out of school.”
The child-friendly masks go door to door, searching for learners and warmly leading little ones by hand.
GVH Jero turned to the time-honoured traditional masks in September 2023 when over 500 learners disappeared from school within two weeks.
She recalls: “Due to high money circulation in the fishing vicinity, most learners were going to the lake and parents didn’t seem to care about their children’s education.
”When headteacher Benson Kodo approached me, I engaged the 23 village heads in my community to preach against the trend during public events such as religious gatherings and funerals, but absenteeism continued.
This prompted every village head to contribute K1 000 and GVHs K6 000 for releasing Gule Wamkulu to go and take children to school.”
To stir debate, Kodo used Kankha interactive skills popularised by the Story Workshop and Development Communication Trust under the United Nations Joint Programme for Girls Education implemented by Unicef, UNFPA and World Food Programme.
The Gule Wamkulu initiative raised enrolment from 210 to 889 within three weeks, much to the delight of Jero. They brought back 142 girls and 147 boys who had dropped out.
The GVH states: “We have closed the port to learners during school hours when boys could be seen fishing or selling fish while girls exchanged their bodies with money, fish and other gifts.
“Some girls were having their sex debuts before their 10th birthday and others becoming mothers before 13.”
This mirrors community leaders’ determination to eliminate setbacks that fuel absenteeism, teen pregnancies, child marriages and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
Sophlet Soko, 15, hails Gule Wamkulu for taking her back to school after dropping out of Standard Five due to poverty in 2022.
“Two Gule Wamkulu found me washing plates and told me to wear my uniform and follow them to school. I obeyed reluctantly, but it saved my dream of becoming a teacher. Now, I go to school without waiting for Gule Wamkulu to drag me to class,” says the Standard Six learner.
Kodo commends community leadership for restoring education standards at the lakeside school.
“We enrolled about 750 children a week after my arrival on September 62023, but only 200 remained in two weeks. I met community leaders to discuss the problem using Kankha skills from a day-long training held at Golomoti,” he says.
Using interactive games such as Walking a Narrow Bridge, the headteacher stimulated community influencers to discuss practices that pushed learners into the lake infested with crocodiles, snakes and hippos.
Kodo narrates: “The drowning children were the dropouts and the beasts with open jaws the factors that destroy their future.
“I thank GVH Jero for working hard to correct the situation. Now only one to three children miss classes in classrooms that were once half empty. As a result of this success story, our elders only release Gule Wamkulu in the opening week of the term.”
Looking forward, a visibly delighted GVH Jero envisages improved school attendance and performance nurturing future leaders and role models to develop the area.
