Sarah’s blog 8/3/25
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY #IWD2025
The themes for 2025 are – Accelerate Action for ALL women and girls: Rights, Equality & Empowerment.
For International Women’s Day, I’m going to share with you part of the story of one of the young women who has been supported for the last few years. Her life is hard and she is living in extreme poverty. There are lots of issues in this story, so it is very apt for International Women’s Day.
Maria had missed out on a lot of education due to her family circumstances. Being so poor, she had to work for a pittance to help buy food. Maria came to Levison and said that she wanted to be able to attend secondary school. Levison could see what a hard worker she was and so gave her some extra coaching so that she could pass her primary school leavers exams…which she did and was delighted.
We found a sponsor for Maria so she could attend secondary school free of charge and she progressed well, passing her national school exams at the end of s2 (final exams are at the end of s4).
Maria lives with her aunt and her younger sister and has a two hour walk to get to school. That in itself is a huge burden and exhausting and shows real commitment to getting an education.
However, Maria became pregnant. We do not know the full story. Maria will not talk about it, nor did she actually realise she was pregnant until one of the women who helps with the cooking noticed. Maria was supported to attend the health centre regularly and, because she was having a nutritious school lunch each day, she was in fairly good health whilst pregnant.
Maria had a very difficult birth. Her aunt stayed with her at the hospital. Patients have to have someone with them to help care for them and have to provide their own food. Conditions are very basic. So Maria and her aunt were supported with food during this time.
Thankfully, Maria gave birth to a healthy baby boy – Wakisa. Maria asked to return to school for the new term and her aunt agreed to look after Wakisa during the school day.
This has been really hard for Maria but she is dedicated to her son and has been trying to navigate being a new mum, a full-time student and living a distance from school in extreme poverty.
Her son, Wakisa, has been poorly on and off for a few months so Maria has either been at the local health centre with him, at home with him or sitting in class worrying about him. How could she think about her lessons when she was thinking about Wakisa and also worrying about how to make life better for her and her son and provide for him?
Maria has now made the decision to drop out of school as she was getting more and more behind with her work and she obviously wanted and needed to be with her son. As she has a good work ethic, Maria has been trying to find piece work in farmers’ fields to earn a pittance.
I cannot imagine how hard life is for Maria and so many young women like them. But they don’t give up. They keep trying to do the best for their family. They have no choice.
Maria is still sponsored at the moment even though she has dropped out of Bright Futures Secondary School. So that means she will get a monthly food parcel to help supplement any other food coming into their home. However, we need to give her a hand up not a hand out so she cannot be sponsored forever.
Little Wakisa has also just been sponsored, so he will also have a food parcel each month. So those are two good practical things that are happening for Maria and Wakisa, thanks to their sponsors.
Because we know Maria is such a hard worker we do want to support her to get back on her feet and feel like life isn’t so hopeless. If you would like to help Maria then please do email contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com
Let’s make a difference to young women like Maria so that they can bring up their families to have a better and brighter future with choices, chances and opportunities.
The village chiefs, during a recent conversation with Levison, said that by keeping girls in education it has lowered the teenage pregnancy rate greatly. Obviously, pregnancies will still happen and also because of long distances walked in very rural locations, girls and women are still very much at risk.
I am glad that things are improving for girls and women but there is a great deal more to do. I always say it is about teamwork, so if you’d like to be part of Maria’s team and make a difference on International Women’s Day #IWD2025 then let us know. contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com Thank you again to all our sponsors and everyone who supports our work. Thank you, Sarah x
