Nsanje women have faulted government for failing to provide adult literacy learning services in the area despite their strong willingness to enroll for classes.
Belita Mafunga, 45, a mother who hails from the area of Traditional Authority Malemia village explains she failed to go to school when she was young due to poverty but has always had a strong desire to go back to school.
She explained she was encountering a lot of challenges when participating in different groups such as church service as she could not read.
Due to that she explained she was forced to just stay at home.
“When I receive a letter I have to wait for my children to come from school to read it for me. I have a phone but I cannot operate it. I really need adult literacy school in our village so that we can have knowledge on different things and so that our lives can be improved,” Mafunga lamented.
Village Head John said adult literacy schools were crucial for the community development.
He revealed that apart from poverty, people in the past were not aware of the importance of going to school but now things had changed.
“In our area of Group Village Nthukuso there is one adult literacy school which is far from us, it is at a distance of about three kilometers and most women cannot manage to go that far. This the reason why we are asking for help to well-wishers that at least we should also have one literacy school adult
b in the area of Chief John,” Village Head John added.
Assistant District Community Development Officer, Joseph Gama said in Traditional Authority Malemia there are 21 literacy schools and 170 teachers.
He acknowledged that most of the women are illiterate and per the policy, each village is supposed to have one school but this is not the case currently because of inadequate resources.
Gama viewed that, “We have been asking government and other non-governmental organization to help us to fulfill the work as per the policy that governs adult literacy schools that every village must have one school and we are still waiting for the feedback.”