Lack of bursaries derailing early marriages’ fight

By Grecium Gama

Mulanje district social welfare office has bemoaned lack of education sponsorship to teenagers rescued from the marriage that it is derailing the fight against early marriages in the district.

In an interview, district social welfare officer for the district, Martha Mkisi, said when the children are rescued from the early marriages are left in hands of their parents who are in dire poverty which led them to go into the early marriages as a result they do not return to schools.

However, Mkisi said girls are the ones who get more sponsorships over boys and that out of four organisations that are rendering support to needy students only Mnyamata Foundation is supporting male learners with school necessities.

“For this academic year, we have received 27 girls and 52 boys who are lacking secondary school support. So, we appealing to other well-wishers to come and assist these children with school fees of which most of them are from community day secondary schools,” she said.

In a separate interview, Mnyamata Foundation public relations officer Bright Kapalepale said they have the vision to support students from both secondary and tertiary levels but they have insufficient funds.

Kapalepale said due to the increase in primary and secondary school dropouts their foundation has organised a fundraising cycling event slated to be held on 1st October this year targeting to raise Five Million Malawi kwacha to be used to support the needy students.

“Currently we don’t have funds to support boys who are on verge of dropping out from school, so we are coming to appealing to the general public to support us through this event,” said Kapalepale.