Empowering girls through education and entrepreneurship? Ukani Malawi knows how

Ukani Malawi is an organization from Malawi that aims to empower girls and young women through education and entrepreneurship. It was set up in 2016 by two friends, Temwa Chirembo and Modester Mangilani. Like so many other girls and women across the world, they experienced certain barriers for women while growing up. The views of gender roles and expectations have resulted in imbalances between the two genders, especially in the domainsof business and politics. For example, the male-female ratio in industry and politics is heavily favored towards males and there are relatively few women leaders and entrepreneurs. As a result, sometimes Malawian girls, like elsewhere, do not have enough strong female examples in business and politics to look up to and to strive to be like Another example of the imbalance between the two genders is the marginalization of women in education and the lack of awareness and knowledge around female health and sanitation.

About Ukani Malawi

Experiencing that many Malawian women, not unlike their counterparts across the world, are often still marginalised in business and political life, Temwa Chirembo and Modester Mangilani decided that it was time for change, time to fight the existing barriers. To this end, they founded Ukani Malawi in 2016. They realized that in order to truly enhance the position of women in society, a holistic approach was needed: thus they started a variety of projects, each to tackle different barriers. Growing up, Temwa and Modester had access to mentorship and university, which has offered them the opportunity to make their dream of realizing Ukani Malawi come true.

And indeed, over the past five years they have achieved a lot: starting with only seven dollars and two women, the organization now counts over two hundred volunteers. It has managed to attract more capital and use this to support more than 2700 women, among other things by providing mentorship, reusable pads, and by helping other women make their dream about small-scale businesses come true.

Modester Mangilani (left) and Temwa Chirembo (right)

Projects

In total, Ukani Malawi runs five unique programmes, that all serve to empower women and girls through education and entrepreneurism. The Breaking Red Project trains girls in menstrual health hygiene management, which includes the distribution of reusable menstrual pads and by providing girls with skills on how to make them. The Young Mothers project aims to break poverty cycles among young mothers in Malawi by equipping them with marketable skills in tailoring, material refurbishment and shoe making. Bloomkins is a social enterprise run by Ukani Malawi that provides reusable pads at an affordable cost to other NGOs and the money made is then fed back into supporting Ukani’s other programs. The Secondary School Leadership Programme looks to equip young girls with skills in leadership, entrepreneurship and advocacy through a series of fun and engaging workshops and access to role models and mentors. The Seed Grant Initiative provides young women in rural areas with start-up capital to run and manage small scale businesses.

A grassroots initiative

The above has shown the great success that Ukani Malawi has achieved throughout its various projects, as well as the growing number of women that the organisation is working with. In addition to that, the organisation is a great example of a successful bottom-up initiative by the young generation. In this way, it represents the self-initiative of youth across African countries. Moreover, it reflects the great potential bottom-up programs (this, in contrast to many other development initiatives, which are often top-down programs). All in all, Ukani Malawi perfectly exemplifies a bottom-down approach that can enhance the societal position of women all over the world.

Authors: Kyra Nijman, Philippe-Jan Ramondt, Kamiel Vermeulen, and Renske Natté

Links to original story and/or relevant sources:

https://www.ukanimw.com

https://www.queenscommonwealthtrust.org/projects/ukani-malawai/