Sarah’s blog 11/10/26
There shouldn’t be any need for an International Day of the Girl Child. Year after year charities and organisations highlight the issues girls all over the world face.
Is anything improving? Is anyone listening?
For the girls we help to support, yes some things are changing for the better; however much still needs to be done;
- Vulnerable girls (and boys) sponsors are benefiting from free secondary education. However more sponsors are needed to help us provide free education to more students at Bright Futures Secondary School.
- The period poverty project is enabling girls to learn how to sew reusable sanitary pads. This ensures girls have access to school all month like the boys do. Why should they have to hide at home until they have finished menstruating! Girls deserve equality.
- We responded to the request to provide whistles to try to keep girls safe from being attacked and raped on the way to and from school. Girls who live closer to school can walk in groups but it’s those who are further away that are more at risk. Why should they have to wear a whistle in the hope it keeps them safe? Girls and women are the ones walking long distances to fetch water. Why should they be worrying about safety as well as the laborious jobs they have to do?
- Despite it being illegal, girls are still being married off too young. Levison and team have prevented several girls being married as young as age 11. By appealing for a sponsor for at risk girls, there is some food going into their homes each month. Families are tempted by the dowry they receive when girls get married. If they have several mouths to feed, and as there is a food crisis and cost of living crisis in Malawi, maybe they feel this is the only choice they had open to them? We need to ensure families know they can ask for help.
- We will do everything we can to support our friends in Malawi try to ensure no girl in their village and surrounding area is married off too soon. Their futures are being remapped by not having a choice in their early marriage. Having children whilst they are still children themselves can result in death for mother and baby or damage to their bodies. Will you help us help them?
Girls have the ability to change Malawi’s future. By educating them and giving them opportunities and choices and chances they wouldn’t otherwise have had, they can earn a better living for themselves and their families, thus breaking the cycle of extreme poverty. These girls need a helping hand for this to happen. All of us have the ability to help them.
Girls at Bright Futures Secondary School are learning all the subjects that the boys are. They are taking part in sports and learning how to grow crops. Girls are also learning to care for chickens and pigs at the small farm on campus. Carpentry and sewing classes are also providing skills for life.
Will you help us on International Day of the Girl Child? Will you become a sponsor for one of our S1 students please? It’s £25 per month and you can sponsor as an individual or a group of friends or a business. It’s not much to us, less than £1 per day, but it would mean the world to one of these vulnerable girls. contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com
Next year, on International Day of the Girl Child, I wonder what we will have achieved in the coming year? I wonder how many girls will be matched with a new sponsor to support their secondary education. Join us on this journey to ensure girls are protected from exploitation and early marriage and dying in childbirth and are able to complete their education and their childhood. I am invested in these girls and a better and brighter future for each of them. I hope you are too. Thank you for reading, Sarah x
