REPORT: EMPOWERMENT OF GIRLS AND BOYS THROUGH INCREASED ACCESS TO
EDUCATION
CLIENT: LIVINGSTONIA SYNOD
SUMMARY
With a grant from the Scottish Executive through Tearfund the Livingstonia Synod AIDS
Programme aims to implement a project entitled, “empowering Girls and Boys through increased
access to education”. This project will build on the work of Iponga girl’s empowerment pilot project
which was funded by the Scottish Government through Tearfund and was implemented by LISAP
and other collaborative partners. This report presents findings from a baseline study done in
September, 2010 by the Centre for Development Management. The objective of the baseline survey
was to gather current information on situation and activities that hinder girls and boys from
accessing education which empowers them to prevent themselves from various forms of abuse
including HIV and make recommendations for redesigning and implementing of the project to
improve the situation. The Girls and Boys Empowerment project will be implemented in Ighembe
and Iponga educational zones which are found in Traditional Authorities Kilupula and Mwakawoko
respectively. Ighembe has a total of fifteen primary (15) schools while Iponga has a total of fourteen
primary schools. Iponga zone has one Community Day Secondary School (CDSS) known as Iponga.
In terms of distribution of primary schools in the two zones refer to the map in figure 1 below.
Traditional Authority Mwakawoko has 14 villages and 4 Group Village Headmen (GVH) while TA
Kilupula has 30 villages and 8 GVHs. Two villages, Mwasalano and Mwanjawala are said to be very
accessible even during dry season.
The research methods included desk research, structured questionnaires, structured checklists, and
other key informant interviews guides. For the school survey, ten schools were selected from both
zones using systematic type of sampling. In actual sense five primary schools were sampled from
each zone. A deliberate move was made to targeted senior pupils especially from standard eight
mainly because we assumed they can respond to the questions more easily than their junior
colleagues. From each of the ten sampled schools twelve (12) pupils were randomly selected and
interviewed. Out of the twelve, six were girls and the other six were boys making a total of one
hundred and twenty (120) pupils for the whole school survey. For the household survey, we
deliberately targeted communities/villages forming catchment areas of the ten (10) sampled
primary schools sorely to learn more about the socioeconomic factors prevailing in these
communities and see how they affect pupils in their day to day life.
In this report the baseline findings have been presented under each of the project objectives as
follow;
Education Drivers
The main occupation is farming which is synonymous to agriculture and most of it is smallholder
farming. Comparatively Iponga had a higher percentage of respondents who had farming as their
main occupation (46.7 percent) as opposed to 40.0 percent from Ighembe. In both areas, rice
farming is dominant. The second most important occupation for both zones is business (21.7
percent for Ighembe, 20.8 percent for Iponga). Business is also an important occupation in Karonga
since it is a border district. Just like other border districts, cross-border trading activities are a
common place, especially between Malawi and Tanzania.
The study findings revealed that the mean household size for both zones is 6 which is greater than
the national average. In the study the minimum average size of the household was found to be 2
people while the maximum was found to be 15 people.
There are more paternal orphans than maternal orphans in the area, which is a serious problem as
fathers are main breadwinners and their deaths creates a state of unbearable vulnerability to the
remaining family. With increased vulnerability, children drop out of school, starting with girls.
Objective 1: To promote increased access and continuation with education by boys and girls

Ighembe Zone has higher enrolment than Iponga zone for all the years indicated. This is
mostly due to population sizes of the zones
 Most of the classrooms are in Ighembe schools and mostly those that are close to the main
road. Geographically, Ighembe is more accessible than Iponga and this means that most
education services are biased towards Ighembe. It also has more facilities such as toilets in
schools. In both zones, schools that are far away from the main road and especially those in
mountainous areas are deficient in most infrastructures including classrooms.
Objective 2: To reduce incidences of harmful practices that negatively affects girls and boys
education

The problem of forced marriage and even kupimbira is almost not there in the two zones.
The pilot project managed to arrest the problem of kupimbira in Iponga zone and the two
zones being adjacent the project benefits might have extended even to Ighembe.
 All the 14 villages in TA Mwakawoko have by-laws have by-laws protecting girls from
early/forced marriage and forced labour but such laws are lacking in TA Kilupula. These bylaws were initiated by the Girls Empowerment Pilot project implemented in Iponga zone.
 There is child labour in both zones which definitely affects education of most of the youths
involved. On the same note, more male pupils were given cash as a reward after work while
more female ones opted for food. This is a common scenario because most of the females
mind a lot about food at home than cash and the opposite is true for the men.
Objective 3: To increase HIV and AIDS knowledge of girls and boys to help them make safe
choices on sexual activities

Ighembe has more pupils involved in girl and boy relationships than Iponga. The variation
between the two zones is possibly due to the fact that in Iponga activities to reduce early
relationships had been implemented in the pilot phase of the project.

There are sexual activities taking place among pupils in the two zones, the problem is bigger
in Ighembe than in Iponga, and based on gender more males are involved in sexual activities
than females.
 Most of the pupils engage in sexual activities with partners of their age which will make it
easier to package interventions.
 Comparatively more pupils reported to have undergone HTC in Iponga than Ighembe
probably because some activities have already been implemented in Iponga during the pilot
phase of the project.
 There are more life skills clubs in Iponga than in Ighembe for the same reason that a pilot
project was implemented in the former.
 Participation in life skills clubs at both school and village levels have been found to be very
dismal.
Conclusion and recommendations
As a conclusion the study has revealed that there are huge variations in terms magnitude of the
problems that youths are facing in the two zones. Most of the youths in Ighembe are far much
behind on activities that directly affect their lives as compared to those from Iponga. The reason
behind this variation is the fact that the project was piloted at Iponga and has registered some
significant impact on the welfare of the youth to the extent that most of them are in school and
performing very well. There are also gender specific differences in the findings in some thematic
areas with males lagging behind in most of the issues affecting their lives.
The study makes the following recommendations, which should be considered during
implementation.
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In both zones especially Ighembe the project should ensure that new life skills clubs are
formed at both school and village levels so that children can have double chances of
enlisting their membership. Existing clubs especially in Iponga need to be activated or
rather resurrected since most of them have been very inactive.
Lessons from Iponga pilot project need to be used in this project considering the fact that it
registered success. There is need to scale up the project activities implemented at Iponga so
as to carter for the high demand for support from the two zones. For instance the project
facilitated the establishment of the by-laws aimed at protecting children from early/forced
marriages and forced labor. These by-laws need to be formulated in the rest of the villages
in the two TAs especially Kilupula.
Capacity building of the different community structures is needed to ensure ownership of
the project as well as sustainability once LISAP stops funding the different activities in the
two zones. Training may be conducted in areas such as human rights, psychosocial support,
life skills and other thematic areas affecting the youths today.
The project needs to lobby the government through relevant machineries for an additional
secondary school, if possible, considering the fact that both zones have only one secondary
school but very high enrolment at primary level.
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The pilot project managed to arrest some problems such as kupimbira cultural practice and
similar effort need to be directed towards other problems such as child labour which is
disturbing education of some youths in the two zones.
During implementation of the different project activities consideration should be given to
the variations in the magnitude and severity of the problems youths are facing in the two
educational zones. Already from the study findings Iponga is already ahead of Ighembe in
the status quo of most of the development issues due to the pilot project implemented in the
area.
The project can engage with more stakeholders in the current in the project if issues of
sharing information, ownership and sustainability are to be achieved. Currently LISAP has
low stakeholder base which include Karonga District Assembly, Ministry of education,
District social Welfare, Ministry of Community Development, Youth Development, CCJP and
Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR).
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