She believed she could, because she is a SHIFTer

I am a girl. Today the world commemorates me, it’s a celebration, it’s a pride. Personally it’s a day that feels me up with hope and future.

Loveness Chimombo, Brian Chaponda

I am an African girl child! My society is striving to nurture me to become the best version I could be. I spend most of my days being taught how to cook, social media is teaching me how I ought to look and behave and especially how I could bet a rich guy for myself. Everything about my life is centered around domestic chores, caring for my siblings at home and how I could relate to guys. Worse still, to some, I am a sex object. My parents say are poor, they would rather send me off to marriage, after all, marriage is the only future there is for me, they say.  Moreover, school is expensive to have both my brothers and I educated. If at all I make it to college and graduate, the society is all over me deciding what kind of jobs I could get.

Is this what I want for my life, is that all that affects my wellbeing and is this all I could be? For the longest, I have been too anxious to say this out loud. I am a SHIFTer, I am well aware of what I want and I am part of the drive to the change I want to see. On International girl child, the world has its attention on my needs, advocate for my rights and empower me to reach my full potential.

I reside in Lilongwe, I am a SHIFTer and waste is my biggest concern. My city produces 250 metric tonnes of waste per day, less than 30% of it is collected. In Chinsapo, this waste is accumulated in market places as well as the residential areas. I am concern because I face a higher risk of contacting diseases and infections due to direct contact with these. I am mostly the one who goes to the market, either being sent or to sell to support my family. Not only that, I am more likely to get involved in informal waste collection and disposal due to the social stigma I am subjected to. This poses a threat on my health as well as wellbeing.

This being my pain point, I took up the challenge of waste management and environmental sustainability in the city using Chinsapo Market as a model. I have mobilised my fellow youth and developed sustainable partnership with market actors, city and the district council to clean up the market. I held street shows to educate the masses about the need to manage waste and called for action against thin plastics and even shared my vision of a cleaner Lilongwe with the State President. I have resorted to cleaner and greener ways of generating income through waste collection. What I love most is how I have managed to convince youth in my area to embrace collective action so as to resolve the dynamic waste problem. I and my friends, both girls and boys, managed to address the problems I and my fellow African girl children face. Today, I am raising awareness and demanding proper waste management from everyone. Waste is killing me!

I am a girl child from Ntcheu, I am an empowered youth leader and high number of children dropping out of school been my concern. I realised that poverty, lack of role models, early marriages, juvenile delinquency, wedding and initiation ceremonies held on schools days contributed a lot to the problem. I opted Machira Village as a model site for my campaign, particularly Machira and Nenekeza primary schools. During the campaign, I worked collaboratively with stakeholders including all decision makers in my village on the matter. I worked with mother groups, Chiefs, Village development committees, Parents- Teachers Association, Child Protection Workers, the Police as well as the teachers.

I also approached authorities such as the district commissioner, ward councillor, the member of Parliament for my area and the district youth officer. I passed on the message against school dropouts through door to door discussions, art, role modelling and with the support from Save the Children I managed to reach out to 9271 people with my messaging, 4352 being males and 4959 being females. My efforts have brought back 115 children back to primary school, 65 boys and 50 girls representing 70.98% reduction in school drop out cases in my area. Isn't that remarkable? The Head of Education in my district said: "What SHIFT has done within half a year of campaigning is something we have never been able to do as a department for years." . I am a girl child from Ntcheu and I am demanding opportunities for education. Fix my Education, fix my Future!

I am girl Child from Neno, I am youth advocate and my biggest worry is child marriages. I am not happy seeing my fellow girl children marrying early because they have been convinced that indeed marriage is the escape from poverty; Marriage is the future or perhaps they are not aware of laws and authorities to run to in case they are being forced to marry. I resorted to addressing the issue because I believe there is a beautiful future for all the girls in my community. I used art and sport to bring the messaging to the community.

Apart from that, I held awareness campaigns and community dialogue sessions with Stakeholders such as the police, magistrate court, social welfare department, mother groups, school committee and the health sector so as to collaborate in addressing my concern. I managed to deliver my message to my community, which I managed to reach out to 1770 people constituting of 582 boys, 482 men, 206 woken and 499 girls. So far, according to the police reports, cases of child marriages have dropped from 10 to 1 within my 6 months of campaign period.

As we commemorate international day of a girl child, Save the Children through the SHIFT campaign program is the new dictionary of hope for all the girl children out there. SHIFT is a campaign accelerator funded by Save the Children International that amplyifies the potential of a girl child to make positive change within their community, society and the nation at large by empowering her with skills, resources networks and a platform to raise her voice and create the change she wants to see. Dear girl child, the future is yours to take!

"The future is feminine!" Coco Chanel. Let's shift power to the youth.