On 26th July, Malawi will join the rest of the continent in commemorating this year’s Day of the African Child in Salima.
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Commemorated on June 16 every year, events were however shifted following the Vice President’s death and eight others who perished in a plane crash on June 10.
The day will accord children’s voices to be heard against a myriad of reports of various forms abuses from their communities.
Minister of Gender, community development and social welfare Jean Sendeza condemned the bad acts done on children while noting that during disasters they are also subjected to various forms of abuses.
Speaking during a press briefing in Lilongwe, the Minister highlighted the various social interventions undertaken such as the social cash transfer programme whereby every family with a school going child is provided with funds to enable them to attend school.
Through the construction of the 10,000 classroom blocks launched by the President in Salima in January under the US Government’s Secondary Education Expansion for Development (SEED) Project, it has provided a conducive learning environment for the students.
The $90 million investment among others aims at addressing a critical shortage of facilities, teachers, and seats needed to accommodate female students.
While admitting that marriage breakups have contributed to lack of parental care for the children, she nonetheless underscored on the role that the extended family structure in taking up roles of taking care of children.
“The laws of Malawi, the policies do not allow parents to leave their children in the streets so what I would want to see are to have marriages that are intact, if they’re any misunderstandings, I’m calling upon our religious leaders, our community leaders to come in and help reconciling these parents that have their marriages been broken.
“But what we’d want to see is to have these children being taken care of by their relatives guardians because whatever means, a child will always have somebody that she can look up to those people should take charge in ensuring these children being raised in a family not leaving them in the streets” she enthused
Sendeza called on the need to overcome barriers child face in accessing education and urged stakeholders to support children’s rights and promote inclusive learning for them to fulfill their potentials.
World Vision Malawi’s Advocacy Campaigns and safeguarding manager Lizzie Lombe, explained that this year’s Day of the African Child is centering around children’s right to education.
She indicated that the organization recognizes the fact that for children to attain quality education, a number of aspects need to be addressed.
According to Lombe, this comes against the many challenges that children are facing in attaining quality and that food issues around nutrition are critical.
“You might recall even in the speech by the Minister she also made reference to the importance of Early childhood development so nutrition is also another aspect that we need to ensure that it also gets amplified if the children are to achieve quality education.
“On that note, I’d just indicate that even in recognizing that fact for us as an organization we are also championing a campaign which is called ENOUGH campaign which is basically trying to ensure that we address issues of malnutrition and child hunger as one of the aspect to ensure that we foster education for the children”
