Secondary education developed late in Malawi, primarily down to insufficient effort during the colonial era. Now there are only 1,411 secondary schools compared with 6,065 primary schools and these are all fee-paying. As a result, only a quarter of Malawi's youth attend secondary school and the labour market is woefully under-skilled.

STEKA/STEKA SKILLS

STEKA provides children rescued from abusive situations or living alone on the streets with a family home.

One of the highlights of our trip is participating in group workshops exploring difficult issues from climate change to trafficing.

We also support an associated programme run by STEKA Skills sending students like Abigail and Gif to Queen Margaret University >>

Malawi Children's Village

MCV in Mangochi supports orphans from birth to adulthood, providing them with shelter, food, healthcare, education and vocational training to lead independent healthy lives.

During our last visit, we joined in their class studying Ben Okri poetry.

Keeping girls in school

Trinitas set up Tina Pads to help girls remain at school during their periods. Funded by organisations like ours, she uses locally produced cloth to make sanitary pads that can be washed and reused multiple times. Our students help to break the taboo of menstruation by visiting schools and explaining the benefit of these pads >>

St Andrews School

Thanks to an excellent relationship with St Andrews Secondary School, we are able to offer students like Heidi the opportunity for some work experience teaching at the school.