By Franco Praise Mwachande Jnr

Malawi Girl Guide Association (MAGGA), a non-profitable organization under their initiative called Youth Exchange South to South (YESS) on Friday, April 6 went on an education tour at Dzenza Primary School in Traditional Authority Chitukura, Lilongwe with an aim of motivating girls to focus on their education.

YESS Programs Coordinator, Alinafe Mahimanya,  said they decided to take a tour in order to motivate and inspire girls to find lasting solutions to cases of child-marriages which is said to be at increase in the area.

“Seeing is believing so we decided to organize this tour to encourage our Dzenza girl guide unit. We use this opportunity to urge them to utilize this initiative to work hard in school and to remind them about dangers of early marriages,” she said.

According to Mahimanya, they expect a vital change out of this initiative because they would like to see issues of early marriages become history.

“We believe to empower girls like these to realize that they have full potential as responsible citizens of the country. Our strategy as an organization is to allow girls speak out on issues affecting them such as forced marriages, gender based violence just mentioning a few.”

Through this initiative, the organisation is using various strategies including bringing role models from various countries as a way of motivating girls to rise against issues that negatively affect their lives.

One of the role models during the tour, Sandrine Bayisingize from Rwanda, expressed gratitude to the organisers saying it is clear the initiative will benefit the targeted girls to achieve their goals in life.

 “It’s a pity to note that cases of early marriages, Gender Based Violence (GBV’s) continue to rise despite efforts being made to curb them,” she said.

One of the Dzenza girl guide member Mabel Likalawe, expressed gratitude to the organisers of the tour saying it has enlightened her because she was hopeless but as of now she knows where to report when she is victimised.