It was a joyous day as students of Kapiri Primary and Chilanga Secondary Schools of Mawango Village and Mlangali Village respectfully came together in Chisazima village ready to show off what they had learnt from Pitala village.
It was a joyous day as students of Kapiri Primary and Chilanga Secondary Schools of Mawango Village and Mlangali Village respectfully came together in Chisazima village ready to show off what they had learnt from Pitala village.In the weeks prior to this event, the newly launched Kasungu Mamaye Clubs in the company of Senior Chief Kaomba and members of village committees, had gone to Pitala Village in Mchinji to appreciate what their equals have been learning on saving the lives of mothers and babies.There, they learnt that Pitala Village has not had a maternal death in over 10 years. This is because the community is well informed on safe motherhood and that each individual has taken it upon themself to play their role in saving the lives of mothers and babies.Geared and motivated the students are determined to make a difference in their own communities.Step one, is to share the evidence and good news from Pitala. Step two is to scale up community awareness. Step three is to implement what they have seen and finally, step five is reaping the fruits-reduced maternal and newborn deaths.So on this day, the students took their messaging to a far far village- Chisazima.More exciting was the presence of other partners- Presidential Initiative on Safe Motherhood (PISM) and Family Planning Association of Malawi (FPAM), who took the platform and shared about the dangers of teenage pregnancy.Evidence from the school in Chisazima shows that 13 students dropped out due to pregnancies. It was only right for MamaYe club to visit the school to talk about dangers of early pregnancies.Students from Chisazima learnt about safe motherhood but they got also encouraged to stay in school. 21 years for childbearing was the message of the day.MamaYe, FPAM, PISM, Senior Chief Kaomba, Village Headman Chisazima, Head Teacher of both schools (Chilanga and Kapiri), encouraged parents to keep children especially girls in school where they can join different clubs that will keep them busy and refrain from mischief.As part of community mobilisation the students sang songs, recited poems, performed dramas all in reflection of their fight for the survival of mothers and babies.Spicing it all up was a slogan of MamaYe where one would say “Mama!!”, and the rest would respond “Ye!!!!” This would be done three times.So I shout to you ‘Mama’ and hope to hear back ‘Ye!’