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| Here I am with some of the students at Lilongwe Girl's School and their Deputy Head Mrs Ngozo |
On my first visit to Malawi something wonderful
happened. As part of ABE’s Corporate
Social Responsibility programme, we donated 150 bags of Maize to schools in
Malawi this December. I was given the
honour of presenting the donation to Lilongwe Girls’ School. I was expecting to meet Dr Abraham Sineta,
the Education Division Manager for Central West Division and indeed I did
so. Dr Sineta was very gracious and
received the donation on behalf of the schools.
What I was not expecting was that all the young ladies of
Lilongwe Girls’ School would give us a joyous welcome by greeting us in united
song – a sound so beautiful it resonated around the school like a choir of
angels. It was the most exhilarating
feeling to walk through 450 girls singing at the top of their voices. The sound
set my pulse racing and I knew I would never forget this moment.
I climbed the steps on the stage and surveyed the scene in
front of me. I saw hundreds of young,
eager faces, all waiting for the speakers to enthral them. They greeted their deputy head mistress Mrs
Ngozo in traditional school girl fashion – “Gooood Mor-ning Missus N-gozo’ they
chanted in unison. Mrs Ngozo thanked ABE
for the donation and said that it would be helpful in stretching the school’s
limited resources. Then without further
ado she introduced me.
I stood up and went towards the front of the stage. Lots of
the girls were shushing and hushing their friends so that everyone could hear
me. I took a deep breath and said ‘Hello
girls!’ Smiling back at me was a sea of
excited faces, their eyes wide open and glistening. “I want to tell you a
secret. Malawi is ABE’s favourite place. Do you want to know why?” I asked?
“Yes!” they all cried, laughing and nodding their heads.
“It is because Malawi has the best students in the world,” I
said, “And not only do you have the best students in the world, but out of
those best students, the girls are doing better than the boys!”
This is a phenomenon we have noticed recently at ABE. Out of
our prize winning papers, 2/3rds are submitted by girls. Clearly we are delighted by the girls’
performance but we want our boys to perform just as well, so we need them to
study hard.
“You young ladies have the potential to achieve anything you
want,” I told the girls, “all you need to do is work hard, believe in
yourselves and know that you deserve to do well. You are the business women of
the future and I look forward to seeing you on the world stage when you’re
grown up.”
The girls were incredibly kind to me and gave me a fantastic
round of applause. Then, I handed over to my colleague Pride Sinkala who talked
to them about becoming entrepreneurs.
“Don’t focus on getting a job, “ he said, “Think about
creating jobs.”
Pride explained that entrepreneurs can start small. He gave them a suggestion of par-boiling
beans and packaging them in pretty jars, so that time-pressed mothers could
produce meals more quickly for their hungry offspring. The girls were really
inspired by his speech and many of them gathered around him afterwards for more
ideas.
After Pride spoke we heard from Harlod Banda, our
representative in Malawi. Harlod discussed the many benefits of studying ABE –
namely that our qualifications equip learners with the skills they need to
succeed in the workplace. He said he hoped that many of the Lilongwe girls
would progress onto ABE qualifications.
Then it was my turn to make the presentation to Dr Sineta. He talked
about how important education is, and made the good point that in order to
study successfully, young people need to be well fed so they can concentrate
properly.
After all the speeches we walked down the steps from the
stage and back through the girls. They
were so positive, welcoming, warm and generous with their applause. What a privilege it was to be among them. Mrs Ngozo then showed us around the school
and introduced us to the staff. We also
met some of the young ladies whose lives were impacted by disability. They were
working quietly and diligently on their studies, and were perfectly gracious to
us despite our intrusion.
Finally, I had my picture taken with Mrs Ngozo and some of
the students. We had a discussion with the head girl about writing a good
business case and I told her about the one-page version which my colleague
Maria Koukou recommended (shown below).
Visiting the school made me excited about what those young
ladies will go on to achieve. I would like to thank them for the warm welcome
they gave us and wish them the very best for the future.
By Kate Winter, January 2016
