Minister hails govt, NGOs partnerships
Minister of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare Mary Thom Navicha says partnerships between government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are key to promoting national development and gender equality.
The minister said this on Friday when she toured some training programmes at Dapp Chilangoma Teachers’ Training College, an affiliate of Development Aid from People to People (Dapp).
Navicha commended the college for complementing government’s efforts in promoting national development and gender equality through its emphasis on training female primary school teachers.
She said: “Having educated 583 girls [primary school teachers], I believe that this will have a multiplier impact on the livelihoods of the beneficiaries and their families. This is the best way to promote self-reliance among women and promote gender equality in the country.”
Navicha commended Dapp for contributing to government’s national economic action plan for women empowerment, which comprises promoting women and girls’ economic empowerment and financial literacy, facilitating women labour and employment, increase access and control over property, and supporting women’s businesses and entrepreneurial activities.
On her part, Dapp Malawi country director Lizbeth Thomsen said her organisation structures its training programmes to ensure that its graduates can work within their means and identify local solutions to the problems they may encounter in their communities.
“At Dapp, we encourage our teachers not to lean back and wait for resources to come, but to use the local resources to be creative, hard-working and to cooperate with the communities in finding local solutions to challenges in their societies,” she said.
Thomsen said the partnerships between government and NGOs are critical to addressing the challenges that have rocked the education sector, including lack of adequate qualified teachers and high teacher to student ratios.
