What’s New with Margret and Katukula Village
As a village team member of Katukula village, we invite you to check back often to follow the successes and challenges of Margret and other members of the Katukula village as they begin to work with CARE through the Join My Village program. Here’s what’s happening now:
April/May, 2010
April and May have brought many reasons for celebration for the Join My Village communities in Kasungu. The tobacco and maize harvests have been good, there is once again enough food for everyone and the local markets are bustling with new business. Similar to the crops that were planted many months ago and have finally yielded valuable results, the seeds of change planted by the Join My Village program are also starting to bear fruit in a multitude of ways.
With the distribution of 160 girls’ secondary school scholarships, children are studying harder in anticipation of securing their own scholarship in the future. According to Lufina James, member of one of the Village Savings & Loan Association (VSLA) groups in Nguluwe, “Students are more eager to go to class. Parents who were not that keen on school are now keen.” All of this excitement is only heightened by the new construction of teachers’ houses across several of the villages. Communities know that a new teacher’s house guarantees at least one new instructor for their local school – a much needed resource when some teachers are currently instructing over one hundred children per class.
People are finally seeing the results of their committed saving through the VSLA groups and new businesses are popping up across the villages. Katrina Mwale, mzati in Tembwe village, said that evidence of the diligence of VSLA groups who stuck out the lean months is everywhere. “There are so many businesses – samosas (fried pastries filled with meat or vegetables), beer, doughnuts, sugar cane and others too. It's because of Join My Village.”
To celebrate the amazing changes taking place in the Join My Village communities, we brought all ten mzatis together in Kasungu to share their stories of challenge and success, learn from each other and celebrate all they have worked so hard to accomplish this first year of the program. Margret Banda, 8th grader and mzati of Katukula village, probably put it best when she commented on her first trip to Kasungu, “If I have been to Kasungu, I know I can do anything.”
Through this first year of Join My Village, we have indeed seen that anything and everything is possible – and we have only just begun.
Updates from Katukula Village
- For the final semester before high school entrance exams, Margret's 8th grade class went into high gear. Classes started as early as 6am and went on until 4pm. Living with her mom, Margret has been able to focus on her school work and says she is climbing back toward the top of her class. She feels ready for exams. “These days I am performing well.”
- Though none of her own relatives have joined a Village Savings & Loan Association (VSLA) group yet, Margret says she can see the difference the groups have made in Katukula. “I have seen that people have grocery stores in the village. There is even a grocery at school now.”
- Margret was thrilled to attend the Join My Village mzati gathering in Kasungu. It was her first time in a big town and it made her feel special. “If I have been to Kasungu, I know I can do anything.”
February/March, 2010
Villages in Kasungu are feeding their guests again. In Malawi, if a village can feed visitors, it does. So, when the plates of nsima and greens with beans and drumsticks stopped this December, we knew it was likely people in the villages were not eating themselves. But, on visits in February and March, villages were once again welcoming guests with local treats. The signs that things are getting better are everywhere. Riverbeds that were dry have filled to bursting. The maize is ripe in the fields. Nutritious pumpkins and squash crowd at the stalks of the tobacco plants. Tobacco hangs to dry in every available shelter: from the ceilings of clinics, classrooms and is strung from the thatch of bedrooms. Though tobacco auctions haven't opened, it can be sold locally to buy small necessities like salt, soap and beans, and there is paying work to be found picking and stitching and drying the leaves. As the cash begins to flow, the small businesses set up by VSLA members are prospering. The members themselves are investing more.
Across Kasungu, communities continue to increase their trust in the Join My Village team. One reason is that the VSLA groups are starting to see results – their savings have grown and their businesses are bringing in new money. Another is that over 110 girls' high school scholarships were distributed in January and February.
The scholarships had a far greater impact than anyone at Join My Village had anticipated. Primary schools saw scores of girls returning to class. Many had not seen the point of finishing primary school, which is free in Malawi, when they knew that their families could not pay for high school.
Hope has indeed returned to the Join My Village communities, and the seeds of change that have been planted over the past nine months are growing strong roots for a promising future.
- Girls Education
- 113 secondary school scholarships distributed to girls across all of the villages (5 of the girls are from Katukula village)
- 15 group village schools have received new reference materials, including English Dictionaries, English Grammar books, World Maps and Blackboard Rulers
- 8 new female teachers’ houses have been planned and materials secured, with a planned completion of June
- Village Savings and Loan Association Groups
- 55 Village Savings & Loans Association Groups have saved a total of $4,707 (over 700,000 Kwacha)!
- This averages out to $6 per person, which is nearly 5% of the average Malawian’s annual income of $160
- In Katukula, there are four groups with a total of 49 members and savings to date of $514
Updates from Katukula Village
- Headmaster James George Biani says he can see the difference the Join My Village scholarships have made in his classroom. “Those who didn't think they had a chance of going because of fees are very happy,” he says. “They are very motivated.”
- Beatrice Mkweza's daughter, Maureen, dropped out of high school two years ago. She helped her widowed mother on the farm in the hopes that the family would earn enough to send her back to school but they never did. “She was so worried and she kept on asking, ‘What will I do with my life?’” Beatrice says. In December, Maureen was chosen for a Join My Village scholarship. Now she has an answer to her own question. “When it comes to a job, her preference is to work for CARE,” her mom says.
- Margret's first term of the eighth grade was tough. She suffered from Malaria and missed classes for several days. Her exams were multiple-choice, a new and intimidating form for her. Eventually she failed both Math and English. Despite all these drawbacks, Margret says she will make sure she passes her final examinations and gets selected to a secondary school.
- Seeing some girls receiving scholarships from Join My Village has inspired Margret to work hard. Her family is behind her. Margret thinks she won’t even be allowed to help with the harvest because her parents want her to study, “My grandmother keeps saying, 'CARE has done well,' and my mother says the same and they keep telling me to work hard almost every day” says Margret.
- Margret loves being a mzati. “I feel luck, CARE staff come to our school just to chat with me” she says.
January, 2010
- On December 7th, Margret reported to school for her first day of eighth grade. The eighth grade is crucial for students in Malawi, and particularly girls. Their scores on high school entrance exams will determine whether they can continue on to high school. Though children are allowed to repeat the eighth grade, many girls, often under pressure from their families, drop out and get married instead. A high score could be Margret's ticket to the town life and medical career she dreams of. “I'm feeling great,” she says. “My grades are better. Before I was busy playing netball. Now I've tried harder.”
- Margret is looking forward to going to school. “On Christmas we come to the school and we start dancing and singing,” she says. “Then we play netball and hopscotch.”
- In spite of her successes in school, and her high hopes of going to boarding school, it will be a challenge to pay Margret's secondary school fees a year from now. With the Join My Village program, Margret and her family have hope that her hard work and good grades may pay off in a scholarship to secondary school.
- Indeed, it's been a tough few months for Katukula's VSLA groups. The seven groups have dwindled to three due to CARE’s inability to get back to the village as a result of the national fuel crisis. CARE's Field Officer in Katukula, Amos Moses, says reviving these groups is a priority. “The training went well,” he says. “The only way to fix the problem it is to go back and see. Once the fuel situation normalizes, I will be back to monitor them regularly.” As people see VSLA members begin to succeed and prosper, Amos says, they will revive their efforts. “It is a long term project and it is new to people,” he says. “Sometimes they have to see to believe. Momentum will pick up.”
December, 2009
The hungry season, which lasts from December until February or March, is a precarious time for people in Kasungu's villages. In years like this one, when the last harvest was scant, grain stores are exhausted by December and new crops will not be ready until March, or sometimes later. All too often, simply focusing on survival trumps plans for the future. Because so many people rely solely upon agriculture, crucial things like education, a roof to keep the rain out and good health – a mother's best intentions – are subject to the whimsy of annual weather systems.
This is exactly the vicious cycle that Join My Village was designed to help break. By introducing the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) model, villagers (in particular women) have a new opportunity to diversify their incomes by learning how to save their money, earn interest, borrow from their groups and start new businesses that do not rely solely on farming. By enabling women to earn an income for their families, and have a new-found voice in the household’s financial decisions, history has shown that more children, especially girls, have the opportunity to complete their primary educations and often continue onto secondary school. Coupled with the secondary school scholarships to be funded through Join My Village, the program provides a powerful one-two punch to loosen the grip that the “hungry season” has traditionally had on these villages.
Tufwe Mwafulirwa, a veteran VSLA trainer with CARE, has seen groups in rural Malawi grow their savings from nothing to as much as 600,000 Kwacha ($4,166.67) as women establish durable businesses. “This is the peak period in Malawi when money is in the field,” Tufwe says. “But it will pick up (referring to VSLA activities). By May you will really start to see a result.”
November, 2009
- The people of Katukula have molded 180,000 thousand bricks for work they plan to do on the school. It's enough bricks to build several teachers’ houses.
- Men and women formed seven village savings and loan groups in August but they just began saving in October, when CARE returned to complete their training.
- Margret's grandmother, Tikondwenje Lice, is still working in the fields, though she is losing her sight. In the mornings before school, Margret spends a few hours helping her dig furrows for next year's crops.
- Margret and some other girls from her school carried bricks to earn enough money for a ball to play netball after class. After school they play for hours. “I am spending more time with other kids,” she says. “I feel good.”
- Margret has fallen to tenth place in her class. She knows she can bring her grades up by sacrificing some of her afterschool netball playing. She cannot give up the time she spends helping her grandma in the fields before school, but it is hard to give up time with her friends.
October, 2009
- Margret's idea of a doctor's work is not mere fantasy. She has watched her grandmother, an herbalist, struggle to treat some of Katukula's more complicated cases. “If people get sick they go to the hospital. But, if they see that the medicine at the hospital can't help them, then they go to my grandmother.” Margret's grandmother sees her herbs as a compliment to medicine – she is teaching Margret about the herbs but she supports her granddaughter's dream of studying medicine.
- Margret has never traveled more than a few kilometers from Katukula for market days in nearby Nkhota. She is eager to travel and wants to go to a boarding school in the district's capital, Kasungu, more than 50 miles away. A small town by American standards, Kasungu is a metropolis to Margret's eye – there are banks, sidewalks full of hawkers, office buildings, a hospital and a fast flat road to the Malawian capital, Lilongwe.
- When their parents don't have money, some girls do odd jobs, called “ganyu” in Chichewa. Starting as early as October, when food supplies begin to run out, people scour the land in search of ganyu. Margret tried it once. “I drew water when they were making beer so they gave me 50 Kwacha (or 35 cents). It was just one day – each trip to the well was ten Kwacha. It was five trips.” She spent the windfall carefully. “I used it to buy matches for 20 Kwacha and I bought two pens with the rest.”
- Like many kids who succeed in school, Margret is lucky enough to get some help from outside the classroom. Her older sister, who is married and lives close to Margret, made it through the eleventh grade. When Margret is stumped, she goes to her sister's house. “At home, after I finish my housework, I go to my sister's house and she helps me.”
- Parents in Katukula depend on the fickle tobacco market to pay their children's school fees. When the market is bad or when harvests are meager, kids drop out of school. But CARE's agriculture experts say it doesn't have to be so. The village's ample water supply means there is great potential for agribusiness, including small businesses exporting vegetables to neighbors with drier fields.
September, 2009
- CARE introduced the village savings & loan association (VSLA) program to the members of Katukula village in late July. Some women in the village said they were eager to take loans to buy fertilizer so that they could produce enough vegetables to sell outside of Katukula. The increased income could support greater educational opportunities for their children.
- With encouragement from her grandmother, Margret is dreaming big, and hopes to be a doctor some day. Unlike the other girls in her class, she has no interest in a boyfriend because her education comes first.
- Margret’s family would struggle to pay for her secondary education, but with introduction of the VSLA program, and the secondary school scholarships available through Join My Village, her dreams may be closer than she realizes.
