International Women's Day

8th March 2017
 
This is a bit of a blast from the past.
 
In June 2016 we had 12 volunteers from Mary I Training College in Limerick with us in Malawi and they certainly made a huge impact on all our projects but especially while working in Katoto Primary School in Mzuzu.
 
We brought 12 laptops with us of all shapes and sizes and the picture shows Emma Cahalane and Grainne Murphy working with some of our girls, introducing them to typing first of all and then a bit more.
 
These girls have never even seen a computer before and none even have electricity in their homes.
 
This year we are enabling 184 girls to take up their places in Secondary Schools through the generosity of our donors.
 
Of course its International Women's Day, but does that have a real meaning, maybe.
 
If we were not supporting these young, bright girls, many would now be married off (read sold off) to men maybe 20 or 30 years older than them.
 
Does anyone really care?
 
Many Leaders and Politicians and Women's Rights pretenders of all shapes and sizes, will do major speeching, but little else. Its sad but true, and tomorrow they will continue doing it for themselves.
 
Maybe I can give you a glimpse of the lives of one of our 184 little ones and see how their world compares to yours. 
 
You can decide how our pretend Globalised World is doing.
 
She has both parents but there is a separation long time ago while she was too young  and she doesn’t know the name of her father. Her mother got married to another man who is not minding the child so she was raised by her Gogo (Grandmother) who has free land where she plants maize and beans for food .
They have a thatched house two hours walk 
 
And another:
 
She is living with her mother's sister. There are 3 children in her family but because her parents died when she was young, she doesn't know her sisters. They are living with separate relatives. Her mother’s sister is divorced so she is living alone and taking care of six children in all. She is just a subsistance farmer.  As a result it's difficult for her to continue her education because all of the things she needs in daily life come from her neighbours.

So she needs school materials, uniform, rain coat (because she has to walk a long distance and when it’s raining she gets wet and has no change of clothes