Veteran musician Lucius Banda has recorded a song promoting girls education in the country.
The song, Msungwana Shaina, is part of the Send Your Girls to School Project, which is the brainchild of British envoy Micheal Nevin’s spouse, Sawako.
Originally conceived in English, Lucius translated it to Chichewa and created a story out of it and recorded it with Lulu as the producer.
The song was launched on Wednesday night at the ambassador’s residence where Lucius performed to a select patronage.
Sawako said the motivation for the project emanates from her support of Japanese NGO school feeding project at a primary school in Mzimba South.
“When I was talking to the headmistress about learners’ poor attendance rate, she told me about the groups of older women in the villages who try to discourage girls from going to school when they reach Standard Four, telling them to stay at home and get ready for marriage,” she explained.
According to Sawako, she came up with an idea of a communication medium that is close to ordinary Malawians.
“It is common knowledge that Malawians love music and dancing. This is how I came up with the idea of getting my message across in a song. And I knew right from the beginning that the person who’s going to compose and sing the song should be someone famous, male, mature and who can connect with the older generation and Lucius Banda met all these criteria,” she said.
