RURAL GIRLS AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT

Esnart Diki is a respected and popular member of her community in GVH Chibuli T/A Ndamera in Malawi’s Nsanje District. She is a Lead Farmer, Chairman of the Village Development Committee (VDC) and an influential member of her community’s Savings and Internal Lending Community (SILC) group. Esnart is also considered a gender champion in her community and is a strong advocate for helping to end early marriages for young girls.

Esnart, who has 4 daughters between the ages of 15 and 30, says her motivation for promoting gender equality and empowerment of rural women and girls comes as a result of watching her two eldest daughters marry at young ages. Esnart wished her daughters had continued with their education and waited to marry at an older age. However, within her community, Esnart is challenged by a number of issues she believes significantly impacted her daughters’ decisions to end their education. In Esnart’s rural community, marrying girls at a young age is an ongoing cultural practice. As a result, there are limited role models to help demonstrate to her daughters the benefits of continuing their education. Another challenge Esnart identified was the lack of early childhood development centers called ‘community-based child care centers’ (CBCCs). Young children who attend CBCCs have distinct benefits. By attending CBCCs children are provided with the supports and resources they need to be well prepared for primary education. Attending CBCC also provides children with an opportunity to develop positive relationships with school at an early age.  Children, like Esnart’s eldest daughters, who are unable to attend CBCCs will enter school for the first time at a more advanced age; as a result, these children are often behind in their learning and are more likely to struggle in school. This negative experience with education. often causes these children to lose their motivation to continue school and girls in particular will often choose to leave school in order to marry young.

Motivated by her own daughters’ experiences and the lack of CBCCs in her village, Esnart used the multiple positions she holds in her community to drive development activities that would help establish CBCCs in the area. With the support from local Community Based Organizations (CBOs), and empowered by the training she had received through the UBALE (United in Building and Advancing Life Expectations) Project, Esnart took the lead on fundraising in order to establish CBCCs in her community. The UBALE project is funded by USAID’s Office of Food for Peace and is implemented by CARE in Nsanje District. Together with the community organizations, Esnart helped raise the funds required to construct three CBCCs and purchase school uniforms, exercise books and pens for the children attending the new centers.  

Apart from access to education, Esnart is concerned with the challenge posed by marrying girls at a young age: “The challenge I face is that I am not well supported to help young girls to escape early marriages….[there are] deep rooted cultural values which favor marriage over academic excellence… as well as no [role] models for these young girls”. In rural communities like Esnart’s, there are limited outside interventions to help educate people about the concerns and dangers associated with early marriages. “It is only the training through UBALE on gender equality and empowerment of rural women and girls which has helped us reach this far…” tells Esnart. She sees the positive influence this type of training has had on people’s thinking in her community and she hopes there will be more opportunity to promote learning around gender equality and the rights of girls.  

Apart from helping the community, Esnart is also transforming her household by encouraging her two youngest daughters to continue with their schooling by providing her children all the financial and social support they need to continue. Currently, she pays school fees for her daughters through loans from the SILC group of which she is a member. “I will be proud when I save my daughters from early marriages and [I] get them educated at the highest possible level so that they grow into responsible citizens for the nation, village and my future family”, says Esnart.  

Esnart Diki’s story demonstrates how empowering women and girls through training in leadership skills, advocacy and gender equality, such as those provided by the UBALE project, can positively impact an entire community. Women like Esnart, who are empowered by the training they received, can play influential roles in reshaping their communities and improving the lives of their families.