Education Is Key To A Brighter Future

Ruth Dewu is part of a tree-planting committee in Chiponde Village in western Malawi. She and other members of the committee have been planting fast-growing Senna Siamea trees that can be tapped for firewood and building materials after only five years. They need to patrol the field day and night — keeping it weeded, but also making sure the trees, a precious commodity, aren’t stolen.

Southeast of Chiponde, In Gideon Village, Sharon Nkhoma uses a bucket and wooden wedges to craft a portable stove in about 10 minutes.

“I learned to work extra hard from my parents,” she says, “because without sweat you won’t gain anything.” Introduced during the Kasungu Heifer Project, the stoves, which sell for 800 Kwacha (About $6), have been distributed to every family in Gideon as well as leaders in neighboring villages. The women carry the 15-pound, pumpkin-sized stoves on their Hheads.

In addition to providing Nkhoma a steady source of income, the portable clay stoves are much safer to use than a traditional fire because they are contained. They also use only a third as much fuel, saving the women and children charged with collecting firewood time that can be spent harvesting crops or doing schoolwork.

Education is key to a brighter future for the children in Gideon Village, and Werengani Banda knows his eight children will have a better life than he had. Since he was 16, he would join other men for bi-weekly 12-mile hikes to Kasungu to hunt after dark so their families wouldn’t have to subsist solely on vegetables.

Now 62, Banda says he was glad to give up poaching to raise goats. “It’s a lot of work to hunt,” he says. “Goats stay in one place.” He now spends his extra time growing maize and sunflowers, his bow and spear happily retired and dulling.