The Prize Giving Ceremony

On Saturday May 3, the Malawi Writers Union proudly awarded six prizes to winners of the first-ever Malawian girls short story competition at the Alendo Hotel in Blantyre. In their stories, the winners address the crucial issues affecting Malawian girls today: poverty, orphanhood, HIV and AIDS, the constraints of tradition and the difficulties of pursuing an education.

First prize in English ($530) was awarded to Pamela Mithi (17) from Likuni School Girls Secondary School for "Nambewe the Heroine", the story of a girl who flees her village rather than take part in the traditional girls' initiation ceremony chinamwali. During this ceremony she would be forced to sleep with an older male in the village called an mfisi. Nambewe moves to town with one of her teachers and continues her education, eventually gaining a degree in community and rural development and returning to help develop her village. Pamela is in Form 4, her last year of high school, and plans to use some of her prize money for computer courses before writing her University entrance exams. In the future, she hopes to become a journalist.

Second prize in English ($355) was awarded to Tiseke Chilima (14) of Marymout Catholic Girls Secondary School for her original story "Be Careful What You Wish For". Her story follows the life of a Malawian girl who is "fascinated by war and fighting" and becomes a nurse in a new world war. Tiseke is in Form 4 and says she plans to save her prize money for college.

Third prize ($177) was awarded to Grace Bandawe (17) from Likuni Girls for her story "The Rising Star" about a girl whose mother dies in childbirth. This young star pursues her education and eventually becomes the highest medical administrator in Malawi, operating in the very theater where her mother once died. Grace says she chose to write about a girl who returns to Malawi after being educated abroad because today there is a serious issue of "brain drain" in the country. Also in Form 4, Grace will use her prize money to gain a certificate in IT. She hopes one day to be a doctor and to publish a novel.

Due to the high volume of stories in English and the few stories received in Chichewa, the judges decided to award a 4th prize in English ($177) to Khama Khomba (14) for her story "The Song of Life". In this story, a young girl is forced to return to her village with her grandmother when her parents die and all of their money and property is taken by opportunistic relatives. Unlike the other village girls, who are not in school and often pregnant, this girl pursues her education and eventually becomes a lawyer. Khama is in Form 3 at Marymount and plans to save her prize money for college. She hopes to become an economist.

In the Chichewa category, 1st prize ($530) went to Clara Chikuni (16) for"Ndaziona Mwana Wamasiye" (Ndaziona the Child Orphan). After Ndaziona's father dies in jail and her mother in a car accident, Ndaziona is mistreated by her relatives. Eventually, she is taken to town by her Uncle and is able to start school. When she is older and successful, Ndaziona returns to help the family who once was unkind to her. Still in Form 3, Clara says she will use her prize money for school fees. One day she would like to become a doctor as she says doctors are desperately needed in Malawi.

2nd prize in Chichewa ($355) was awarded to Nthambi Chikuse (13) of Likuni Girls. Her story, "Zomwe Chisomo Saw" (What Chisomo Saw) also tells the story of an orphan girl. When asked why she chose this topic, Nthambi replied, "That's what many people face in Malawi". Only in Form 1, Nthambi will use her prize money to pay her school fees. Her prize money should be enough to cover her school expenses for the next 2 years.

There is a common theme in the winning stories - that of education as the most powerful tool for overcoming the various obstacles that girls in Malawi face today. We hope to share the powerful messages of these stories with girls all over Malawi by printing 1,000 books of the winning stories. These books will be distributed to schools and libraries, with an emphasis on rural and underserved areas. Unfortunately, even at some of the top schools in Malawi, such as Likuni Girls from which 3 of our winners hail, there is a severe shortage of books. Likuni's Deputy Headmaster informed me that most textbooks are shared between 3-4 students.

If you would like to help facilitate the printing of books of the winning stories, please click on the "donate" button on the right side of the page. We have found a publisher in Malawi and will be able to print attractive, durable books for only $1 per book!

Again, a big thank you to everyone who supported this initiative!

UPDATE

The first ever Malawian Girls Short Story Competition has been officially launched! Mike Mvona, President of the Malawi Writers Union reports that "the competition has been advertised on many channels including Television Malawi, Malawi Broadcasting Corporation, Nation and Daily Times newspapers, PTC, People's and all chain stores. Right now we are preparing to go to private owned radio stations. We have also written the Minister of Education responsible for Primary and Secondary schols and sent guidelines of the competition to more than sixty schools."

The competition closing date is March 31 and we expect to have the prize giving ceremony at the end of April. Again, thank you to everyone whose generous donations have made this competition possible!

Short Story Competition 2007-8

This December we are launching a short story competition to encourage girls' writing in Malawi. Often, as Geoffrey Maloya, an English teacher at Lydia Secondary School in Zomba explained, girls in Malawi are expected to do cooking and cleaning after school, leaving them with little time to read, write or study. It is for this reason that the boys' language and writing abilities are more developed and their success rate in school higher. This short story competition, which will accept stories in both English, Malawi's official language, and Chichewa, its national language, attempts to place higher value on girls education and writing. The prize money - 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in each language - will go directly to school fees for the upcoming school year. The theme of this year's competition is Writing for One Another.

How to Help

By US Standards, education in Malawi is cheap: about $213 per year for government boarding school. Yet, many Malawians cannot afford it. The prize money for this competition will go directly to the winners' school fees and supplies for the upcoming school year.

We are hoping to raise a total of $3,500 to run this competition. To date, over $2,000 has been raised and pledges of several hundred dollars more made. Of this money, nearly 60% will go directly to school fees. Help us to raise the last few hundred dollars!

Checks may be addressed to the Malawi Writers Union, a non-profit organisation, and sent to Dr. Donald Bosch, 16 South Oakland Ave, Suite 211, Pasadena, CA, 91101. Checks will be collected and sent directly to the Malawi Writers Union (this will allow Stephanie to keep track of how much money has been raised).

It is also possible to donate online with PayPal - please see the sidebar of this page.

Each dollar counts. $1 = 141 Malawian Kwatcha, enough to buy 14 exercise books or 2 boxes of pens: enough supplies for one student for an entire school year.

How the competition came about

From June-July of this year I travelled to Malawi with the Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) and for several weeks taught writing workshops at Lydia Secondary School in Zomba. My experience there gave me the desire to develop this competition, which will be run under the auspices of the Malawi Writers Union.

Most of the questions I ask are answered with sidelong glances and nervous giggles. I imagine that for them, it must feel like being underwater – straining to make out muffled sounds on the surface above, the meaning slippery and just out of reach.
I have asked a question that I thought was simple: “What do you like to write?” The silence in the unlit room with its cement walls and floor and tin roof is too much.
“Poems, stories… compositions?” I prod. Again, nervous smiles – the only bright spots in the room aside from our blue, red, and green plastic chairs.
I realize later that this question is hard for reasons beyond the English language. Compared to these shy girls, in their stiff, calf-length navy blue dresses, as formless as heavy drapes, the boys at Lydia School are dapper and confident in dress pants, shirts, and ties.
“Hey,” they shout at me in bold English for the whole schoolyard to hear, “Why are you only having classes for girls?” A pause, then, “You know, boys can write stories.”
I know all too well that boys can write stories – the Director’s sons, smart, well-educated, boarding school boys have written and self-published small booklets of short stories.
Searching for short stories by Malawian women authors to share with my class for inspiration, I come up empty handed. I am able to find one, and only one, Malawian female novelist.
“Next time,” I yell back, over my shoulder to the slouching, confident boy.

My only thought is: How am I going to teach these girls to write in a language they barely understand?
Yet, what I am trying to do doesn’t feel entirely irrelevant, on the national test that all secondary school students write to complete our equivalent of high school, they will be asked to write an engaging beginning to a short story.
What we do is throw out spelling, grammar even sentence structure. All we want is words on the page. We start with descriptive exercises: describing a place or an important moment using sight, smell, touch, taste, sound. The focus, however, is on teaching them to help one another, to eventually develop their own writing ethos and aesthetic. We spend a great deal of time reading aloud to one another and commenting, asking questions, telling the writer things we’d like to know more about.
I am disappointed when the stories are not about themselves. Travelling with GAIA, in a group of mostly women, through dusty villages, women’s eyes followed us as we passed. We all wanted to know what they were thinking, what it was like to watch a minibus full of camera wielding azungus come thundering through. But more than that, we wanted to know their everyday thoughts, to be privy to their stream of consciousness, as they carried gallons of water on their heads back from the well, sat on the side of the road selling tomatoes, stood in the aisles of buses with toddlers on their backs. We hardly knew what we were thinking ourselves, on our own side of the fence, but the desire to connect with these women was overwhelming.
We visited a Catholic Church in Salima near the lake, and afterwards met with the Church’s AIDS support and home-based care group. A throng of women sang as we entered the building, empty except for chairs lined up for us along one wall at the front of the room, and a few chairs facing us where the 5 men in the group sat. After their song of welcome, the 20 or so women sat on a large straw mat on the floor, silent for the rest of the meeting.

I meet with the Form 1 and Form 3 girls after school and the Form 4 girls at lunch. The school Director advises that I provide lunch for them, as they normally use lunch hour to go buy food.
“What shall I buy?” I ask her. She says just some bread and Sobo, a sugary, bright orange concentrate which you add to water.
Feeling that this isn’t enough, I buy peanut butter and jelly, bananas and cookies as well.
Over lunch, which perfectly matches those of my childhood, I ask the girls what they usually eat.
They shake their heads.
“We don’t eat,” one girl offers. I am stunned. I know that most of them leave for school by 6:30 am, some as early as 5:30, to walk up to 10 km to school. How can they study on an empty stomach, let alone walk so far?
“But where do you go during lunch, Mrs. Fiedler says you go buy something – I see you leave…”

“We just walk,” another girl says.

I speak to the girls’ English Teacher, Geoffrey Maloya. He explains that boys have greater access to books than girls simply by virtue of having more time. Culturally, girls are expected to help cook, wash and clean after school and on weekends. Boys have more free time, to spend at the National library or at friends’ houses who might have books. Although there is a library at the school, students are not allowed to take books home for fear they won’t be returned. Similarly, the National Library requires you to know someone in Government to be a member with borrowing privileges. Two or three students at the school are members – all boys. Mr. Maloya expressed that, “girls need incentives to improve and parents need to be sensitized, they need to give girls a chance to study.”

The aim of this short story competition is to provide that incentive, both to the girls and their families. I spoke to the Director’s assistant, Kasuzi Mbaluko, a member of the Malawi Writers Union, about the idea, and he in turn spoke to the President of the union, Mike Mvona. I met with Mr. Mvona and members of the Women’s Desk while in Blantyre and almost immediately, the competition was set in motion.
I am worried, however, that the girls from Lydia School won’t stand a chance in a national competition. Lydia is a school set up through the generosity and vision of Rachel Fiedler, a Malawian woman widowed at a young age, to help orphans and other disadvantaged children. Most the students at Lydia come from poor backgrounds and were not accepted to government funded secondary schools. I want to give them a chance.
Back in Zomba, I tell the girls about the competition. They are excited.
“Would you like the competition to be run in both English and Chichewa?” I ask.
“Yes,” they answer almost in unison, nodding their heads and smiling.
This, I hope, will help to level the playing field, even if just slightly.

Stephanie Bosch

Malawi Literacy Statistics

According to the National Statistics Office, the male literacy rate in Malawi is 72% while the female literacy rate is a meagre 49% (2004).

Illiteracy has ramifications in all areas of life. The theme of International Literacy Day 2007 - the half-way point of the UN Literacy Decade - is "Literacy, key to good health and well-being", emphasizing the link between literacy, health and education.

Mr. Koichiro Matsurra, Director-General of UNESCO explains, "Literacy strengthens the capabilities of people to take advantage of health care and educational opportunities - for example, by seeking medical help for themselves and a sick child, by adopting preventive health measures such as immunisation, and by acquiring greater knowledge of family planning methods. Moreover, good health and nutrition are prerequisites for effective learning... Educated parents - especially mothers - whether through formal schooling or adult programmes are more likely to send their children to school and have a better understanding of their health care needs."

Lack of education in women has been associated with higher birth rates. This, combined with lack of access to adequate heath care, helps to explain why the Maternal Mortality rate in Malawi is an astronomical 984 / 100,000 live births compared to 13 / 100,000 in the US – a statistic that Dr. Medguid at Bwaila hospital in Lilongwe calls “medieval.”

Illiteracy is also related to HIV/AIDS. In Malawi, the fastest growing rate of new infections is in women aged 14-25. In young adults, the infection rate is 6 women to 1 man.

Halfway through the UN Literacy Decade, Mr. Matsurra finds that "despite many and varied efforts, literacy for all remains an elusive target" and urges governments, international organizations, civil society and the private sector to "give renewed support to literacy as an integral aspect of the universal right to education and as an essential basis for improving health conditions."