Empowering Women with Literacy

by Limbani Eliya Nsapato
The motion of empowering women with literacy contained in this article is related to the 2010 theme of the UNESCO-coordinated International Literacy Day, which annually falls on 8 September. The chosen theme for commemorating the Day is “The Power of Women’s Literacy”. The theme calls on policy makers and implementers to give due attention to literacy for women as it is important for their and society’s empowerment.

I support this theme because I strongly believe that without educating our women, Malawi’s Vision 2020 cannot be fully realised. Nor can the vision of the African Union or the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

I share in the urgency of the call to action behind the theme because I do think our country is not doing enough to implement policies and strategies that will ensure that by 2020 all the women in my village and yours will have been empowered with literacy and development as a whole.

My recent home travel story can help illustrate this position.

In June this year, I had the privilege of travelling by road from Lilongwe to my home village in Phalira, T/A Nchilamwera in Thyolo. The picture of women and girls I saw as I passed through rural districts of Dedza, Ntcheu, Balaka, Zomba, Chiradzulu, Blantyre and Thyolo was not a good one. I saw that women especially were struggling.

The women were less empowered to improve their lives and that of their families. I could see very few women looking healthy, dressed in decent clothes and nursing well nourished babies. I could see even fewer women going to or coming from office or work stations, or wearing fashionable hair make up, possibly with money in their handbags.

The majority of women I saw were sitting on the veranda of their grass thatched houses, walking on the road aimlessly, carrying firewood or water buckets on their head, often with crying babies on their backs, or cooking food using charcoal or firewood.

Along trading centres, and markets like at Bembeke, Chimbiya, Lizulu, Tsangano, Machinga, and Balaka Turn off, I saw women carrying and selling less profitable goods like sweet potatoes, fried maize, vegetables, bananas or pineapples and avocado pears. Some sold second hand clothes, dry fish, or “kanyenya” especially at Lizulu, Balaka and Mangochi turn off.

In Thyolo I saw few women plucking tea leaves with woven baskets on their backs on tea estates at Bvumbwe, Thyolo, Conforzi, Satemwa, and Nchima. When I reached my home village I understood that very few women rarely took part in development activities or committees or had their own property like land or houses. I listened to stories of women who were shamelessly beaten up by their husbands, of women who often slept on empty stomachs, and of many single young women who struggled to fend for their siblings. A number of women were bedridden and could not access basic medication.

The majority of women I met or saw during this homeland visit did not have any joy written on their faces. Although their sad experiences could vary, the common denominator was the source of their anguish.

Most of them were either not literate or if literate their education was so low that they had inadequate skills to develop their potential and make life more meaningful to them, their children or their families.

These unprivileged women are the ones that constitute the national and global statistics of illiterate or unskilled women who stand to be condemned to poverty unless something is done for them.

Malawi education policy review reports show that up to 4.6 million of the country’s 13 million population are illiterate and out of these more than 60% are women and girls. Females make up more than half the current number of out of school children of 600,000. The school dropout rate is higher for girls than boys.

Global UNESCO statistics reveal that some 759 million adults lack minimum literacy skills and while one in every five adults is not literate two-thirds of them are women. Out of the global figure of 72.1 million children out-of-school over 60% are girls.

Indeed in almost every African country the literacy rates of women and girls are lower than those of men and boys. Gender disparities have become parts and parcel of our statistics, and in most cases disfavoring women and girls.

The significance of the theme for the international literacy day 2010 cannot go unnoticed. Illiteracy dis-empowers people especially women and girls. But literacy has the power to transform people’s life especially that of women, in many ways, socially, economically, and politically. Moreover, empowering women translates to empowering a whole society.

Our country has some living examples of empowered women. On the political scene examples include Vice President Hon Joyce Banda, or ever-green lady members of parliament like Hon Anna Kachikho and Hon Patricia Kaliati. On the development scene empowered women include Justice Anastazia Msosa, Chair of Electoral Commission, Ms Seodi White from Women and Law Society, and Mrs. Martha Kwataine from the Health Equity civil society network.

Examples could also be told of women bankers, business women, lawyers, doctors, educators, pastors, and those in other professionals. All these have a denominator called education in their DNA.

At this point a couple of questions cross my mind. Why is it that we have so many women who are illiterate and do not fall in the category of the empowered women above? How can the women I saw on the road from Lilongwe to Thyolo be rescued from the bondage of ignorance and poverty?

Going through diverse literature on the matter, I think of at least three key issues that need addressing.

The first issue is that there needs to be a change of attitude on education for women and girls. Deep-rooted into the hearts of many of our communities and cultures is the belief that education of girls and women is not a necessity.

There are still many people who think, after all, women and girls will always be married, so why bother educate them? Others also think that women are not important to the development of society. I believe all these are misconceptions that need to be corrected.

There needs to be an increased awareness on the rights and potentiality of women in society especially on their primary rights to education and development. Awareness campaigns organised by civil society organisations, traditional leaders and government agencies or departments can help transform the negative attitude of society towards female education.

The second issue is that our nation needs to move from rhetoric to coherent action especially with regard to implementing policies on education for girls and women. The country has adopted international and local policies and strategies that aim at empowering women but little is done.

Little is done because there is often inadequate money to finance those literacy programmes and projects that have direct impact on women.

The government departments that address literacy programmes in Ministry of Women and Children annually receive less than 1 percent of total expenditures in education against the recommended minimum of 3 percent. The ministry of education which implements formal programmes for girls and boys receives less than 6 percent of the GDP or less than 20 percent of the national budget. The ministry of youth that tackles vocational and reproductive programmes for young people is always underfunded.

Moreover, there is inadequate accountability of funds for such programmes. As a result there are inadequate facilities, teaching and learning resources, infrastructure and personnel to fully implement programmes that address the needs of women and girls.

Little is done also because the challenges above are augmented by an imperfect monitoring and evaluation framework leading to failure to systematically review progress and efficiently act on shortfalls on the literacy programmes.

The third issue is that the country’s literacy programmes do lack supportive programmes in order for women and girls to develop themselves after acquiring basic literacy skills of reading and writing.

For instance, programmes that facilitate women’s entrepreneurial activities or use of science and technology are very limited.

Above all, participatory and gender sensitive approaches and methodologies are not always applied during routine planning, budgeting or implementation and review of local or rural development projects. As a result women and girls often remain on the peripheral due to the patriarchal nature of our societies.

There is therefore need to integrate entrepreneurial, participatory and pro-gender equity methods in literacy and development projects, and ensures that more women have access to ICT, science and technology.

Women should also have increased access to entrepreneurial or investment opportunities so that they can develop their businesses from small scale to large scale levels. Decision making policies and processes should also lean towards allowing more women to participate at highest levels of our society.

In concluding, it should be re-iterated that literacy is a basic right that women should access on their road to empowerment. In addition, there should be a conductive environment in our communities to ensure that women are able to exercise and maximise their literacy skills for development of themselves, their families and society at large. This could be a very important way to planting smiles on the faces of millions of illiterate and poor women in our communities.

END