Girls Break Free in Machinga District

Mary Karoti, 18, sits quietly on the bare floor of her family’s home in Maindi village, Traditional Authority Chiwalo, Machinga district. Her baby boy rests gently on her shoulder as she reflects on the painful journey that nearly cost her the chance to continue her education.

Mary’s dream has always been to become a teacher—a role model in a community where girls’ education is often undervalued. Her parents, subsistence farmers with no formal education, grow maize that barely sustains the family through the year. If she succeeds, Mary will be the first in her family and clan to become a teacher.

While primary education in Malawi is free, the cost of learning materials—books, uniforms, and basic supplies—remains a barrier. Mary first felt the weight of this reality in Standard Six at Nsakala Primary School in the area.

“I needed books, a uniform, and other accessories my parents couldn’t afford. We come from a poor background,” she explains.

Unlike boys who can earn money through menial work after school hours, girls like Mary are burdened with domestic chores after school, leaving little time or opportunity to earn an income. Hunger, lack of resources, and social pressure made school feel increasingly out of reach for Mary.

It was during this vulnerable period that Mary entered a relationship with a local school dropout who offered small gifts and money. When she became pregnant, her parents sent her to live with him. The relationship quickly turned abusive.

But Mary’s story took a hopeful turn thanks to the BreakFree! Programme which FAWEMA, in a consortium with Plan Malawi and SRHR Africa Trust (SAT), implemented in some districts in Malawi with funding from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A local mother group trained under the initiative visited her family and persuaded them to welcome her back and support her return to school.

A five-year SRHR advocacy initiative, BreakFree – which closes this year, was aimed at empowering adolescents to exercise their right to live free from teenage pregnancy and child marriage and attain education.

In Malawi, 47 percent women are married before the of age 18, according to UNFPA.

The programme was being implemented in nine African countries with high rates of child marriage and teenage pregnancy: Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Mozambique, Zambia, and Malawi.

PLAN Malawi, one of the child rights institutions which advances child rights and equality for girls, were key in dealing with harmful social norms that contribute to child marriage and teenage pregnancies.

SAT were key in promoting meaningful youth participation, innovative delivery of ASRHR information, Education and services using Youth Wyze platform and creation of protective environments for young people.

On its part, FAWEMA, which promotes women and girls’ education, dealt with gender disparities through advocacy at policy and local level, raising awareness on the retention policy which allows teen-mothers to return to school.

Mrs. Dorothy Petulo, chair of the mother group in the community, says they were not aware baby mothers could be accepted back in school until the BreakFree project.

“We were made aware of the government retention policy and now we advocate the same for teenage mothers to go back to school, complete their education and become economically independent in future,” Petulo says.

The mother groups implore parents to be responsible for their daughters’ welfare so that they can concentrate on their education. They also conduct counselling sessions to adolescent girls on how they can avoid teenage pregnancies.

“BreakFree! didn’t just give us tools—it gave us courage. We now speak out against the barriers that silence our girls, from gender inequality to the stigma around sexuality,” she explains.

Through community awareness and advocacy, the BreakFree project has challenged policy makers to make learning environments friendly to girls, resulting in the deployment of female teachers where there were none and construction of female teachers’ houses and changing rooms for girls.

Says Sub-Traditional Authority Chimwaza: “I am a champion of this initiative here and we [traditional leaders] no longer tolerate early marriages. Every girl is going back to school,” he says.

To help girls be more ambitious, girls from Nsakalu primary school have regularly been brought to Lilongwe to interact with various women professionals such as parliamentarians, doctors and lawyers.

“This has been inspirational, and I can feel it within myself that we have future doctors amongst this crop of girls – lawyers will come from this village,” says school head at Nsakalu primary, Robert Nkusa.

As a result of awareness and the re-admission policy, 349 girls had been enabled to return to school and 290 marriages nullified in communities where the project was being implemented. In Machinga alone, 199 girls were retained back in school.

FAWEMA executive director, Mr Wesley Chabwera, says as the project exits it leaves behind structures and empowered stakeholders for sustainability.

“We worked with various government departments at policy and implementational levels, trained youth clubs and empowered traditional leaders and mother groups to be champions of this transformative effort to support girls access quality education in Malawi,” says Chabwera.

For 18-year-old Mary Karoti and two other teen-mothers at Nsakalu primary school, returning to school has not only saved them from the burden of being mothers at a tender age, but given them the rare opportunity to reclaim their destiny and be role models in their communities.