The picture shows Agness Khonje one of four students we are supporting.

Age:16 – Form:1

Her History:
She was selected from Kawulasi primary school
She lives with both parents
They are farmers
They grow maize and beans
They source money by selling these.

At 16 she is old to begin Secondary School and will only finish at 20 if she has the staying power to do so when girls are expected to be long married and have 2 or 3 children.

On 15th September Wells for Zoë visited Choma Community Day Secondary School CDSS about 34km from Mzuzu city and met Mrs LG Khoza the deputy headmaster of this school. She was very impressed with us coming and offering to support some pupils from their school.

“These girls really need support because they travel a very long distance, and only four form one students have reported as of now because of the same problem.”

This school has seven teachers and it has a capacity of 200 students. But over the years it has had less attendance than that because most students travel long distances. This year the local community decided to build a hostel so that the students could reside on the premises. The hostel will have 10 rooms and is not yet finished. The students are supposed to bring their own food and the school have plans for employing a cook to help them.

The four girls were interviewed to check if the have the requirements and all of them were picked. We met their parents later the same week and they were also delighted and they promised to support.

We will stick with these four strong young women and try and meet their needs which are many. Their school fees are about 10 Euros per term. But we may even have to support the whole family to ensure her attendance!

This is a very positive community and have made a great start to helping themselves, so we will do what we can.