When Ellen Tembo was selected to attend Mpatsa Secondary School in Nsanje, it was a bittersweet moment for her mother.
"About 40 of us made it from Mpatsa Primary School," recalled 14-year-old Ellen. "But while some parents were throwing parties for my peers, my mother could only congratulate me. She appeared worried as she was struggling to feed the family. She didn't know where my fees would come from."
Since Ellen's father died in 2015, her mother had raised four girls and two boys alone, often struggling to make ends meet.
"It wasn't easy for my mother to choose between educating me or feeding my family." - Ellen, 14
Ellen's secondary education got off to a turbulent start when she was sent back home because of outstanding fees. Determined to give her daughter an education, Ellen's mother borrowed MKW 20,000 from neighbours - but only after Ellen had spent a week out of school.
"I wept because my friends kept learning while I was idle at home," says Ellen. "I feared for my future. My mother was doing everything to keep me in school, but it wasn't easy for her to choose between educating me or feeding my family."
Ellen feared that she might follow in the footsteps of her older sister, who had failed the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) exams because she was constantly forced out of school due to unpaid fees.
When Ellen became one of 16 girls at her school to secure a Spotlight Initiative-supported UNICEF scholarship, she felt relieved. The scholarships benefit girls disproportionately at risk of dropping out due to poverty. The bursary covers tuition, materials such as notebooks and exercise books, uniforms, shoes, a calculator and sanitary products for each recipient.
"Since I started receiving the scholarship, I have vowed to work hard to achieve my dreams and pass well because I have no excuse to quit. I want to lift my mom, siblings and myself out of poverty," says Ellen, who aspires to become a nurse.
Ensuring that girls can exercise their right to education is an essential part of reducing violence against women and girls, child marriage and early pregnancies. Nearly half of girls in Malawi marry before reaching the legal minimum age of 18, and one in three become a mother by their 19th birthday.
"Without these scholarships, most of the recipients would have dropped out of school to marry." - Fred Kaligomba, Head Teacher
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"Without these scholarships, most of the recipients would have dropped out of school to marry, as do most of their peers in this area where girls marry young due to widespread poverty, parental indifference, and practices that appear to condone [child marriage] instead of keeping them learning until they are old enough to decide when to marry," said the school's Headteacher Fred Kaligomba.
The school also works with mothers from the surrounding communities, who speak to girls about the importance of education and help to re-enroll early leavers.
For Ellen, the scholarship means one less hurdle on the road to her future.
"I now have every reason to stay in school until I can achieve my dreams and make my mother smile," she says. "The scholarship has relieved my hardship and my mom's worries as she now uses her little income to care for my siblings," says Ellen.
By James Chavula. Original story published by UNICEF Malawi.
