From Poverty to Promise

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  Lilongwe, Malawi
Friday, February 27, 2009

LifeNets scholars are telling you about their job goals and successes because of education. Many of them are the first or only in their family to attend higher education or even high school. As in the case of Daniel Bizwick who is the only of ten children to attend high school in his family. Now, he's pursuing a computer studies course thanks to LifeNets.

My last blog showed the faces of poverty in Malawi, and this blog shows the promise. Below are three profiles of scholarship recipients who are already achieving and making a difference in the lives of family and friends. My remaining blog entries will focus on scholarship recipients. Today's three are:

1. BYSON NKHOMA, (college scholarship recipient-Rural Community Development)
2. MEMORY THOME (high school scholarship recipient)
3. DANIEL BIZWICK, (college scholarship recipient-Computer Studies)

Sunday I am teaching "Business 102: Managing Your Business" to fifteen LifeNets grant recipients and fifteen self-employed members of the Malawi Informal Sector Trade Union (MISTU). The additional fifteen participants are attending because of an interview I had today with the main researcher at the Malawi Congress of Trade Union. He asked if LifeNets has had other American representatives come to do research/project management in Malawi. I told him about Jennifer Myers from IN, USA who came to teach "Business 101" to grant recipients in 2008 and that I was doing a follow-up course this Sunday. Already he wanted to partner with us and asked if he could invite small-business owners and farmers represented by MISTU to the LifeNets meeting. Taking some administrative allowance, I said that it sounded like a great idea and I hope they could participate in the three hour course. Most of the principals are tugging at the challenges of creating a budget, record keeping, marketing and business ethics. Most of all I hope people of similar enterprises will collaborate. It will be exciting to learn about these businesses, their challenges and plans to grow.

Next Thursday I will be traveling to Blantyre, "the commerce capital of Malawi" and will be researching the scholarship recipients and Livelihood Development project there. But you'll hear back from me before Thursday.

Enjoy learning about these LifeNets scholars!



Byson Nkhoma

Byson is pursuing an advanced diploma in Rural Community Development at Skyway Institute of Management, Research and Development. (An "advanced diploma" would be considered higher than an associates degree but not yet a bachelors degree by American standards.) He is the third born of [six] and the only one to attend higher education in his family. He got the chance when he learned about LifeNets three years ago. At that time, he had long finished secondary school and attending college was, as he describes it, "just a dream."

PROGRAM: Byson chose RCD so he can work with village communities to create sustainable small-businesses and live healthier lives.

"In Rural and Community Development we teach people how to sustain their life with locally available resources--because people end up being at the fate of their own problems. They think that they don't have while the [do] have but just don't know how to utilize what they have. For instance, a person can possess groundnuts [or peanuts] from his or her garden but he claims not having [peanut] butter. While the raw material for butter manufacture is groundnuts so rural community development is intended to let people know that 'you can survive with this and come up with this.'"

SCHOOL: Skyway has the most advanced curriculum for Rural Community Development but faces challenges with being a private school. The school relies ONLY on student's payment of school fees and does not receive any aid from government, companies or private donors. So the student is boss.

"Everyone goes there with their money...and when you focus on education, in terms of social engagement, you seem to be a failure," he said with a smile.

In the classroom, it's common for students to drink and will disrupt the teacher at anytime with yelling and music. But teachers don't dare discipline misbehavior because they need student tuition money. Byson cites that student's attitude and behavior may cut productive class time in half. The lack of resources is also a problem. Byson doesn't have computer access and will share one textbook with 30-40 other students in his class for studying. But the benefits still swallow the challenges.

EMPLOYMENT: A project coordinator or social worker can find employment advertisements in the paper daily for NGOs like CARE Malawi, PLAN Malawi, World Vision and USAID. Byson has applied to all the mentioned organizations for an apprenticeship but got no bites. The main problem is that they are looking for qualified persons with bachelors and five years experience. For advanced diploma positions they also require five years experience. So getting any experience is difficult.

VISION: Byson looks forward to helping LifeNets in the future: "implementation of projects; evaluating and monitoring." He's open to volunteer work now.

"If there is a chance...to work with donors or sponsors, I can even sacrifice myself to be working with people in remote areas to implement small scale projects such as a business whereby I can let them know the evaluation of a business and how they can coordinate their funds. Even in the garden, I can help them-learning
HOW, WHY and WHAT do we do to come up with what is needed."


THANKS!:

"What I am doing, what I am achieving, wasn't my dream [it's to BIG to be a dream]. Because my parents couldn't manage at all. So it's very difficult for me to talk of this opportunity-going to school while receiving a scholarship from LifeNets. All in all, I am very thankful to LifeNets and it's my plea that the administration of LifeNets keep on doing this to all corners of the world."




Memory Thome

Memory is finishing her final year in high school at Chipasula Secondary School. LifeNets began sponsoring her in 2006 as a freshman. She's a stellar student and "head girl of the school!" English and home economics are her favorite subjects. At school she's involved in Student Christians of Malawi (SCOM). Memory wants to be a nurse and attend Kamuzu College of Nursing-the prestigious constituent college within University of Malawi. Accounting is her back-up career and she plans on attending Malawi College of Accountancy if she doesn't get into Kamuzu. (Kamuzu accepts less than 300 students per year.)

CHALLENGES: Memory, orphaned at childhood, lives with her widowed grandmother and cousins. Her grandmother collapsed a few weeks ago from severe levels of low blood sugar and is currently in a Blantyre hospital for treatment. Helping and caring for her grandmother are very important activities to Memory. Throughout her childhood, her guardians have emphasized the importance of hard work and dedication.

"They encourage us not to get involved in other things, like boys or whatsoever," she said smiling.
"Is it easy to stay away from boys?" I asked.
"Yeah, we manage."
We laughed

COMPUTER???: Memory has never used a computer, never typed an assignment, and never browsed the internet. The computers at school are reserved for those taking the computer elective course or those who pay. And right now she sees no need. (Though she anticipates that will change at college.) Now she's able to complete all school work without a computer.

THANKS: Thanks to LifeNets for giving me this chance!



Daniel Bizwick

Daniel wants to be a computer engineer. "I want to be making computers," he told me in the LifeNets studio. He's pursuing his advanced diploma in information studies at MacMaine School of Computing. Daniel's LifeNets scholarship covers tuition, a bicycle for transport and a computer. Other LifeNets scholars were "exemplary examples" and "role models" to Daniel. "There were some getting diplomas and degrees...they were role models to me," said Daniel.

Previously, Daniel was working as a primary school teacher in the government system.
Daniel started playing with a friend's computer two years ago and decided he wanted to become an expert in computer building and mechanics.

EMPLOYMENT: After he completes a degree program, Daniel wants to work for a company or be self employed fixing computes. "I've seen people come and bring the computer for maintenance maybe charging MK25,000 or 30,000 [$178.57 or $214.28-more than 1.5 x larger than the MONTHLY salary of a primary school teacher]. So it's a large amount of money just to maintain the computer...a job that takes no longer for 6 hours So you can see that it's a good job."

HISTORY: He is the third born of ten children. ALL nine siblings stopped going to school at EIGHTH GRADE!

Since he was sixteen, Daniel has been practically a son to Mr. Wordsworth Rashid. It was 1994 and he was in sixth grade at sixteen. Mr. Rashid was his teacher. Though very delayed, Daniel had great potential but a small chance of continuing his education. Mr. Rashid decided to take him under his wing. He talked with his parents, and they agreed to let him provide for their son. Since that time Mr. Rashid has paid for Daniel's school fees-swallowing over half of his teaching salary during Daniel's high school years at Salima Secondary School.

"My parents could not pay the school fees so he [Mr. Rashid] saw fit to sacrifice himself, to surrender himself to pay the school fees. His aim was to ensure that I continue with my education."

VISION: "...I will be getting money to assist my family and assist others because there are some children who are orphans. I can decide to take 'this one' or 'this one' to be in my family," he said.

"I would like to assist some people, especially orphans...I can say there are a lot of orphans just moving around. They don't have any support. They have no one to assist them. So I wish, if God will bless me, I could just take some of them and assist them by taking them to school. Because by this time, school is the key to success."

THANKS! "I want to thank LifeNets for their assistance and especially the assistance here in Malawi. They are assisting us in a lot of things. People are going to school because of LifeNets. People are doing their business because of LifeNets. And to me it's just a plea that they please continue assisting us in Malawi, especially on scholarship because education is the key to success."




Byson, Memory and Daniel are role models for fellow Malawians, but also to those of us in the developed world who have easier access to education. It's been a delight to get to know them. You'll meet more scholarship recipients soon!

Post your own travel photos for friends and family Pictures

9.0 Byson Nkhoma	9.1 Memory Thome	9.2 Daniel Bizwerk	9.3 Boy in village
9.4 Children and me at nursery school in Lilongwe

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