Ekari Writes

Happy UN Day! I had the great fortune of attending my first UN Townhall meeting which was to commemorate UN Day on the 24th of October. The first thing I learnt about Townhall is that it doesn't take place in a town hall. After some speculation I came to the conclusion that Townhall was not a description of the physical structure, but rather a meeting of the minds of staff from all UN derivative groups such as UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, etc, to discuss current agendas.  This year, the main agenda was (suitably) climate change. Speaking on the issue was Professor S. Chiota, who teaches at Chancellor College (Chanco), and is the regional programme director of the Leadership for Environment and Development Southern and Eastern Africa - LEAD SEA ( http://www.leadsea.mw/ ) . What I had expected was a presentation of the facts and figures of the effects of climate change in Malawi, with graphs and pie charts showing how things have been getting progressively worse over the years. What

Hey, take a look at this: I am a woman in one of the poorest countries in the world, and yet, here I am in front of a computer, blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, instant messaging, Googling and much more. The odds say I shouldn’t know how to. I am one of the 48.6% literate women in Malawi. To put this in perspective, 72% of Malawian men are literate. I am one of the 31.4% of girls who finish primary school. I am also one of the 11.1% girls who finish secondary school. As for tertiary education - less than 10%. So, I have had about a 50/50 chance of knowing how to read at all, and the odds of increasing my education get slimmer and slimmer with every level. But here I am with 2 tertiary degrees, in the dawn of my career. Why? Why me? Because of my mother. And because of her mother. They recognised the importance of education, especially for girls, and two generations later, the girls in my family are smart, savvy, and paving our destinies with the choices that we have been give