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| Features |
| Orphans left on periphery |
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by
George Ntonya , 25 January 2007
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07:28:33
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Mary Donasiyano from Kadise Village in Mwanza District was forced to drop out of school in Standard 5 because there was nobody to support her after the death of her parents.
Today the 16-year-old is playing the role of a mother—looking after her five siblings and an old grand mother, all of whom are living in abject poverty. She works in other people’s gardens and sometimes sells firewood to raise money for soap and food.
“I wish I could become a teacher,” she said in an interview a four months ago in the district. She could not rule out the possibility of going into early marriage hoping that the husband would fend for her and the siblings.
Mary is one of thousands of orphans whose future is on the verge of doom if nothing is done to take them back to school. Or if she does not find any institution to provide Mary and her siblings with survival skills. Malawi has about two million orphans. They constitute 14 percent of the population of children under the age of 18 years.
Nearly 400,000 of the orphans are said to be loitering the city streets, begging or pick-pocketing. They may graduate into hard-core criminals and the government would partly take the blame.
A study commissioned by the Network of Organisations for Vulnerable and Orphaned Children (Novoc) has shown that government is not committed to deal with issues affecting disadvantaged orphans in the country.
The study, carried out by the Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn), shows that the government is offering lip-service to issues concerning orphans as it continues to depend highly on donors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Director of programmes at Mejn Mavuto Bamusi said during the release of findings of the study recently that the Ministry of Women and Child Development—the ministry responsible for issues of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVCs) has been spending millions of kwacha on travel for its officials to attend foreign workshops while allocations for activities to improve the life OVCs have been negligible.
For example, the ministry planned to use part of K338 million it received from the 2004/2005 budget to link 1,500 households keeping OVCs to organisations that provide social relief, but nothing happened. Yet it spent K21 million on external travels.
“The ministry targeted to link 1,500 households keeping OVCs to organisations providing social relief. But achievement rate was zero percent compared with 100 percent achievement rate on attendance to international workshops,” reads the report, which will be used for lobbying government to increase funding to the Ministry of Women and Child Development for better implementation of programmes aimed at improving the lot of OVCs.
The report also shows that in 2005/2006 fiscal year the ministry did not have any money for community-based childcare services yet it spent K30 million on foreign and internal travels. During the 2004/2005 fiscal year the ministry paid school fees for only 600 OVC against a target of 1,500. This shows that education support for the OVCs, says the report, is a non-priority area for the government.
Meanwhile, Novoc has asked the government to reduce the number of students it is sponsoring to study at the elite Kamuzu Academy, saying that money saved should benefit orphans that are failing to access secondary school education.
The request comes following revelations by the study that the government is spending K2.3 million every year on each student it sponsors at Kamuzu Academy.
President Bingu wa Mutharika directed in 2005 that the government should be sending 56 students to the Kamuzu Academy (KA) every year, two from each district selected on the basis of outstanding performance.
Commentators doubt the government would respect Novoc’s request because of political consequences this may have on Mutharika’s administration.
According to Novoc and Mejn, the government spends K8,000 only for each orphan that is at a public secondary school on government bursary.
“Money spent on only 56 students at KA (Kamuzu Academy) can benefit 40,000 orphans in primary school or 17,000 in secondary school,” the reports says and it adds that one student at the Academy uses up money that can benefit 306 orphans at a public secondary school.
“We are not saying the government should not sponsor students to go to the Kamuzu Academy. It is just a matter of balancing the budget [so that orphans are also accommodated adequately],” reads the report, adding: “Government must seriously consider establishing fair balance between bursaries to KA and for the many orphans in public schools.”
“We have circulated the report to our stakeholders. We expect them to make their input and after incorporating their comments we shall circulate the copies to members of Parliament,” Novoc Executive Director Dennis Matekenya said.
The current budget allocations for OVC programmes are not realistic, he observed.
Secretary for Women and Child Development Andrina Mchiela admitted in an earlier interview that annual budget allocations to the ministry for OVC programmes have been low. She said time was ripe for the government to take issues of OVCs more seriously by increasing funding.
“The government provides us with very little money,” she said. “We, as government need to show that this is our problem by putting in more resources for OVCs.”
According to Matekenya, Malawi is sitting on a time-bomb because if the government continues to pay lip-service to the plight of OVCs some of them are likely to graduate into criminals after failing to get education.
“As Novoc, we would like to engage government and NGOs to increase budget allocation for OVCs and that the allocations are used properly,” he said.
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