Day of the shocking numbers
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. It’s number 171 out of 187 of the Human Development Index. That sounds really bad, of course. But what does it mean? What does this number say? How hard is life in Malawi?
Today we had an introduction to what UNICEF is doing in Malawi. Roisin Du Rurca, Deputy Representative of UNICEF Malawi, gave us some general information about the main subjects of UNICEF: child survival, education, HIV and AIDS, hygiene, child protection and health. After that Angela Travis, Head of Communications, gave us some more detailed information about UNICEF in Malawi. Shocking information… She told us that 67% of the people are below 25 years of age. This makes Malawi one of the youngest countries in the world. But everybody can understand this is not a positive thing. The life expectancy is only 53.5 years in Malawi. For comparison, in the Netherlands it is 81.5.
Another shocking number is the under-five mortality ratio: 71 of 1,000 kids die before they are five years old. For the Netherlands this is 4.
Also the education numbers are interesting. In Malawi there is an average of 75 kids per teacher, and 25% of kids are not making it till standard 8, and drop of before standard 5.
This is the reason UNICEF is in Malawi. And it works! The child survival rate is going up, because there is better nutrition, mothers are encouraged to give birth in a clinic and the young kids get vaccinated. Also education is getting better. In Malawi, there are as many boys as girls in standard 1. This is very special in sub-Sahara countries. Also education is getting better, by training the teachers, better school buildings, and a great initiative; mothers’ groups! In these groups, girls will be guided by mothers in the community to help them with the real girl issues. Also they motivate the girls to go to school.
After all the information we got from the UNICEF staff, we went to a child-friendly school to see it with our own eyes: Mchuchu Primary School in Lilongwe. This is a school with over 900 kids! We first were introduced by Elisabeth, head teacher of this school. After the general information, we were able to join a lesson. Christina, Johan and I were lucky to join a Chichewa class. 😉 We couldn’t understand a word, but what we saw was great. Kids with a lot of interest for the subject, all paying attention to the teacher. A teacher with a very open and friendly face was encouraging the kids and giving them confidence to speak. They had only five textbooks, but they gathered around in groups and did their very best and were so motivated to read the pages. Really great to see.
After this, we had to make a long drive to the next town, Blantire. It took us 4.5 hours, but this was no problem, we had the best view ever!
This was our first official visit to a school, and we could see what UNCEF is doing, and that what they are doing works out very well! Hopefully the rest of the days we will see much more of these great examples, so we will see what we all work for, at IKEA and at UNICEF.
