Source: Malawi News Agency
(FAWEMA) has stated the need for parental engagement in promoting education especially for girls in the country.

The remarks were made recently when FAWEMA organized an open day at Nsinja Primary School under Group Village Headman Chizenga, in Chikwawa district.

According to the Chikwawa District Coordinator for FAWEMA, Wanangwa Mganga, her organization organized the open day in order to raise awareness on education in general as well as bring about parental engagement in children's education.

She said: "We have invited community leaders, mothers from community, members from the community and the school structures so we can appreciate what our children are doing in schools. We got different activities showing how our girls and boys are leaving in school and what they have achieved so far.

"As an organization, we also ensure to reinforce protecting children's rights to education, taking to task those hindering girls' education at the same time taking into practice by-laws."

Mganga indicated that parents were engaged looking at the fact that there were issues where girls were forced into early marriages and there was high dropout rate adding that FAWEMA was coming in to try to bring about increased enrollment and reduce dropouts.

"We are engaging parents from the communities as well as children so that everybody is aware of the importance of education as well as the children's rights to education. The open day was organized just to coincide with the Day of an African Child which falls on June 16 every year," she said.

In an effort to help uplift education standards in the country, the organization has so far recruited 65 teaching assistants, trained 120 teachers and 30 head teachers on top of distributing over 6000 books from Standard 1 to 4.

The open day celebrated under the theme 'Protecting children's rights in conflict and crisis in Malawi' was held in the catchment areas of Livunzu and Ngabu in an effort to raise awareness and community or parental engagement in girls' education.

FAWEMA conducted the activities with support from 'I'm Swedish Development Partner.'

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