The speaker in me

She disappeared around the corner, “must be her baby sister, “I told myself. But barely ten minutes later I saw another girl-probably the same age as the one I had seen earlier and just like the other one had a baby strapped on her back. And that became the trend, every day I saw girls with babies, I wasn’t sure what to call them, they were too young to be called mothers and too old to be called girls. I didn’t understand why so many girls had babies at such a tender age? It made me restless, I just wanted to know why and thought if I knew the reason why then I could do something about it. I did find out why; the girls came from poor backgrounds and getting married was a way of relieving their parents of their responsibilities and most of them had a low self esteem, they had been raised up to believe that a woman’s place was in the kitchen.
And that’s how it started; I went to schools and held girl motivation talks. It was better I spoke to the ones in school and encourage them to stay in school, get an education and be whatever they wanted. I told them they had the potential to be big and to bring change and I haven’t stopped ever since, I visit rural schools and speak to girls to fight on, stay in school and become whatever they want. And this is what inspired me to apply to the Voice of our Future, even though I am an Engineer, I am eligible and can write on a topic outside my career and still be heard.
My personal vision for the future is a Malawi that will stand on its own and such a place is only possible if girls and women will realize their potential, only possible if they will realize that we are all born equal before God-whether man or woman and that we all have been given equal opportunities in life no wonder we all have our hearts on our left. And I can be part of world pulse and do this.