This is Grace. She is 15 years old and she is super SMART!

Grace was recently selected to one of Blantyre's top District Boarding schools (Lunzu Secondary School), which deserves a shout out. To have some perspective, only two young people this year were selected to Lunzu from across Joshua's impact areas – more than 40 villages serving around 12,000 children. Grace beat a lot of odds to make it this far and we are going to be with her for the next four years, supporting her to break the bonds that girls across Malawi experience every day of their lives. Bonds like lack of quality education and female role models, a complete lack of knowledge around managing periods and puberty, having enough food to eat, freedom to walk to school without fear of sexual harassment, to name just a few.

Grace lives in Solomoni Village, among a cluster of rural villages 15kms down a dusty and pot-filled road past Blantyre's Chileka airport. Her home is typical of the village – a grass roof that leaks in the rainy season atop of mud brick walls full of potential for collapse at any moment. There is no electricity, people get by with candles and small torches and water is fetched from a borehole (long walk, heavy buckets, hours wasted standing, queuing, waiting). Unlike a lot of her friends, Grace lives with both her parents, who farm and do small piece works to provide for the family. It is backbreaking work and it never produces enough.  Across Blantyre and Malawi, this is just peoples daily reality.  

Joshua helps young girls like Grace with school fees, uniform, stationery and other essentials. Since 2015, we have been running SMART mentoring alongside sponsorship – an essential component for boosting student confidence and critical engagement with their education. It is not common practice in Malawi for young people to be asked to evaluate themselves, to think about their strengths and weaknesses and map out ways to maximize their opportunity for education. SMART mentoring gives students one-to-one SMART goal setting support. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely. Students are also encouraged to study together and join after-school clubs such as Mathematics club, English club and Library club. At boarding school this is particularly encouraged as students have more time for studies, without the stress of walking long distances to school, caring for siblings and doing chores and paid works. We have seen a marked improvement in results and confidence among students since introducing SMART objectives.

Too many times we hear a student say, 'my dream is to become a doctor' and yet they have no real idea of the hurdles they need to overcome to get there and there are so many other obstacles out of their control that they must contend with, even if they themselves do have what it takes.  Sadly for most, these ambitions are little more than pipe dreams as the vast majority of students will return to the village, to farming or to other low income work.  But at Joshua we do not accept that it has to be like this - so we will invest in Grace and others like her, we will push her from the wings to put in all her effort, so that she can dream big and make it.

To sponsor student education through Joshua, get in touch via joccmalawi@gmail.com or visit our website - www.joshuainmalawi@gmail.com 

One thing that makes Joshua great - Our Field Officers

As a grassroots organisation with deep roots in our communities, JOCC Field Officers are people who have grown up in the villages our projects serve and most live there to this day.  They are the eyes and ears on the ground, ensuring all projects are community driven based on real need.  They are troopers - they walk sometimes 5 hours in a day, from home to a project, to the office and back to home.  Come rain or shine, they put in the work and help us to get results.  

Here is what Joseph has to say about his role and his time with Joshua:

"I first got involved with Joshua from my community in Pensulo village at the Joshua Secondary School.  I did my form 2 up to form 4 studies back in 2008.  When I got to the senior section I was appointed school prefect and after school hours on particular days in the week I would meet with my fellow youths for various activities.  This youth program was supported by Joshua organisation and some of the things we did included inter-youth sporting activities, environment activities like sensitizing communities about the effects of deforestation and HIV/AIDS awareness.  I also did a lot of volunteering at the Joshua- Pensulo health clinic when I finished my secondary school.  

I volunteered at the HIV and Malaria testing department where I was incharge of civic education.  Together with the youth group, I had my first opportunity of working with fellow young people from overseas who would come to our village through Joshua for various construction projects and other sporting games.  I enjoyed socializing with the overseas youths as it gave me an insight of English culture.  This experience opened up many opportunities in my life and allowed me to travel to many countries in the world leading leading other volunteer teams and expeditions.  I even got my foot into England where I attended training for overseas team leading with Joshua and Quest Overseas.  Currently, I am on a work contract with Joshua Orphan and Community Care working as a Field Officer linking Joshua with six villages across Blantyre Rural.

Joshua has made a huge impact in my life as to what I am today.  To be honest many of my friends and colleagues and my best memories and experiences, I have had through Joshua. My community - Pensulo is many times developed thanks to Joshua's non stop support to it, the health clinic, the various schools, the maize mill, all of these have improved our lives"

Joseph Chiedza, JOCC Field Officer