A giving hand foundation (AGHF)

1. High illiteracy levels among women, high school drop out rates and low enrollment levels  for girls due to early pregnancies and early marriages. Harmful cultural practices promotes these.

NSO (2019) report indicates that 35% of the girls in Dowa, 22% in Lilongwe and 33% in Salima who enroll in school do not complete the 12 years of their primary and secondary school cycles.

2. Solutions proposed include:
  Introduction of adult literacy classes, awareness campaigns on the existence of readmission policy that allows girls to go back to school after delivery, Awareness campaigns on the dangers of some other harmful cultural practices, Inviting some well educated ladies for career talks in schools, Introduction of sholarships for girls to promote high translation rates to secondary school and Universities.

3. Adult literacy classes will enable women to access information on several aspects like healthy, Agriculture and family planning.

Malawi in general as a country experiences such challenges as high illiteracy levels among women, high school drop out rates and
low enrollment levels  for girls due to early pregnancies and early
marriages.

NSO (2019) report indicates that 35% of the girls in Dowa, 22% in Lilongwe and 33% in Salima who enroll in school do not complete the 12 years of their primary and secondary school cycles.

Contributing factors include: poverty, parents prefer to pay fees for a boy child unlike girls because they are supposed to get married in future and all their needs are met by the husband. At the same time due to poverty girls end up dating or getting married to adult men for financial support and this affects their education and health life.

Harmful cultural practices such as chokolo(bride price), Kusasa fumbi and fisi are rampant in the concerned districts of Lilongwe, Dedza and Salima. These exposes the girl child to HIV/AIDs.

  Introduction of adult literacy classes will enable women to access information on several aspects like healthy, Agriculture
Awareness campaigns on the existence of readmission policy that allows girls to go back to school after delivery and this promotes high school completion rates for girls.

Awareness campaigns on the dangers of some other harmful cultural practices will protect girls from premature sex with adult men and reduce their exposure to HIV/AIDs.

Inviting some well educated ladies for career talks in schools will motivate girls to continue their studies with keen interest.

Introduction of scholarships for girls to promote high translation rates to secondary school and Universities. This will allow brilliant girls from under privileged families to complete their studies and break the poverty cycles

 Adult literacy classes will enable
women to access information on several aspects like healthy, Agriculture
and family planning.

The project mainly targets school going girls in the age ranges of 10-18. According to psychologist, within this age range girls are more exposed to peer pressure and this leads them into problems such as school drop out, early pregnancies, drug abuse and others.

The project also targets women because the challenges girls are experiencing today have been there ever since and obviously those girls have now graduated into the illiterate women whom we have today.

Their needs have been understood through the project team direct interaction with them and the project will engage the targeted population throughout the project cycle. After sensitization meetings with them,They will participate in planning that also includes budgeting, implementation as well monitoring the project progress. In simple terms, communities will be the main actors in the whole project, and the project staff will mainly take a supervisory role.

In the selected districts of Lilongwe, Salima and Dedza, Girls are the most victims of cultural practices, child labor due to a lot of involvement in income generating activities particularly Tobacco growing and fishing activities. Besides these other households are also very  poor to fund the education of their children particularly the girl child, hence the need for the suggested interventions which in the long run will bail out the girl.