Faith Chitengere stands out in her Form Four computer class at Mpilisi Community Day Secondary School (CDSS) hub in Balaka District.
At 16, she developed an application from scratching programme that enhances learning and game playing.
Faith also answered the most questions during a UN Women media tour of some of the organisation’s projects in the Southern Region.
“The App brings images alongside voices to make learning, such as counting, easy.
“Through the class, we are also able to download books for studying, use Google for research, open and shut computers and access various programmes, lessons we don’t take for granted,” she said.
Faith is among 50 pupils at the school who attend a 30-minute after-school class for about four days each week to learn the computer.
She is part of Malawi Girls Can Code Too (MGCC2) project spearheaded by UN Women in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Gender.
Faith is also part of a second cohort and the first had 45 pupils, 28 girls, 17 boys.
UN Women organised a tour of some of their projects in the Southern Region, including MGCC2 hub at Mpilisi CDSS.
Having Internet means the school has electricity which the young pupil and the rest of the school community is proud to have as it enables them to study in the evenings with better security unlike previous years.
For most girls and young women in Malawi, especially in rural areas, access to technology remains a distant dream.
In rural communities, girls and young women often have little to no exposure to information, communication and technology (ICT,) limiting their ability to use technology to address gender inequalities or unlock new opportunities.
According to UN Women programme support consultant Nelia Galeta, the programme aims to bridge that digital gender gap.
“We solarised the school, developed a training manual, trained teachers and installed an Internet network to establish the computer hub. We target pupils in Form One and Three to exempt forms Two and Four as examination classes,” she said.
Galeta said the organisation envisions a digital gap among girls by 2030 and aims to promote more girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) careers.
“The programme is necessary to allow girls to consider ICT jobs because many openings will require such knowledge. We observed that many girls shun Stem subjects; hence, the classes are meant to attract them and explore their capabilities,” she said.
Galeta said the classes comprise 70 percent girls and 30 percent boys to fulfil its mandate of focusing on girls.
She said the project was implemented in April last year after an assessment of the school determined it needed power as a genesis for ICT programme implementation.
According to data, men are three times more likely to possess computer skills than women, with only 2 percent of women proficient compared to 7 percent of men.
The disparity is even more glaring in Stem fields, where only 25 percent of researchers in Malawi are women.
Mpilisi CDSS head teacher Jaffar Chibwana said with the electricity and the hub have decreased school droputs, especially among girls.
He observed that the pass rate has also increased from about 40 to 50 percent because of increased evening studies.
UN Women provided 25 tablets, wi-fi, 12 solar panels to the school.
UN Women deputy country representative Fatima Mohammed said the tour was part of their effort to develop a forward push strategy on gender equality and empowerment of women amid a global and regional pushback.
“The strategic objective of the push forward strategy is to keep the struggles of Malawian women and the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (Gewe) agenda
at the forefront of public debates and national and multilateral priorities,” she said.
Mohammed also said the tour aimed at fostering more informed dialogue with development partners, the private sector and the government, highlighting the need for aligned pathways to accelerate progress on Gewe across the humanitarian, peace and development nexus.
MGCC2 is implemented in 14 schools in Mzimba, Dowa and Balaka districts.
It provides training in coding, digital literacy, entrepreneurship, and other relevant skills.
The goal is to bridge the gender gap in technology and increase girls’ participation in the tech sector.
MGCC2 was borrowed from the African Girls Can Code Initiative (AGCCI).
According to africa.unwomen.org, AGCCI was commissioned by UN Women and the African Union Commission (AUC) in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The first phase was launched in 2018 supported by the Denmark Embassy in Ethiopia and completed in 2019, marking a list of great achievements.
The website adds that the initiative aims to train and empower a minimum of 2 000 young girls aged between 17-25 across Africa to become computer programmers, creators and designers, placing them on track to take up studies and careers in the information, communication and technology (ICT), education and coding sectors.
The initiative has two key strategies namely: 1) coding camps and 2) mainstreaming ICT, coding and gender into the national curricula.
It promotes the implementation of national media campaigns involving role models (e.g. women in ICT, female teachers in schools) and utilizes an online platform to enhance networking among the girls, trainers and mentors.
So far, 600 girls have been trained through the AGCCI coding camps nationally and regionally since inception.
Regional coding camps took place in Pretoria, South Africa (2019) and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (2018).
The coding camp participants came from various countries in Africa, including countries where UN Women has presence such as: Ethiopia, Burundi, Cote D’Ivoire, DRC, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, South Sudan, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
