Parenting Circle Session on Women's Rights at Machira 2

Parenting Circle Session at Machira 2 (T/A Kwataine, Ntcheu)

By Shubham Kapoor (ICS Volunteer)

Here in Ntcheu, our team is working closely with YONECO (Youth Net and Counseling), a national NGO that targets children, youth and women to raise awareness on SRH&R (Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights) and environmental issues. To reach a large audience, the SYNERGY ICS team ventured out into the most rural areas of the Ntcheu district to deliver talks to parenting circles and youth clubs, but not without getting involved in a few cultural dances along the way. We were very excited to be greeted by the Ngoni tribe in Machira II, Kwataine, about a 30 minute drive from the office. I think it's safe to say that the tribe was impressed by a few of our moves!

A video to show the ICS volunteers getting involved with the dancing conducted by the Machira 2 community.

After the warm welcome, we split the team into two and simultaneously facilitated talks to the parenting circle and local youth club. For the parenting circle, the prime focus was on women's rights. Since a staggering 9% of Malawian girls are married by the age of 15 and 46% are married by the age of 18, our talk firstly focused on the issue of child marriage and its effect on education. Thankfully, the audience were very aware of the issues of child marriage as well as the importance of education. One woman even called her 3 children from the youth club session so that we could talk to them since they were refusing to attend school during their primary education. After a stern but friendly talk from the ICS volunteers, they agreed to stay in school and this resulted in a very happy mum.

Unfortunately, the response when discussing gender based violence wasn't as encouraging. Responses to questions like "what would you do if you were a victim?" often consisted of "we just cry" and "do nothing". It seemed the women would often joke to hide their discomfort; one woman even joked about how a husband would beat a wife. However, to make the situation even worse, the husband would encourage her child to join in. This was very disturbing to hear and the fact that the audience found this amusing was even more shocking for us, especially since 90% of the audience were female.

ICS Volunteers Shubs and Charles conducting the parenting session on Women's Rights 

On the upside, the audience remained engaged throughout the session, becoming more aware of their rights as well as the YONECO helpline numbers in case they needed them. We were really happy to have the Chief come up to us afterwards to congratulate us on the talk. She said that the issues raised were really useful to the audience and insisted that we come back for another session. This, backed up by the fact that the audience impressively retained most of the information given to them, was very rewarding to hear and gave the Ntcheu team a sense of fulfilment. It’s satisfying to know that we are actually making a difference to the lives of vulnerable people, one parenting circle at a time.