First Lady challenges girls

The First Lady of Malawi Gertrude Mutharika has challenged Malawian girls to take on challenges in life and fight hard to realize their dreams.

Mutharika made the remarks on Monday at the closing ceremony of women in science camp at the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) in Thyolo district.

Mutharika expressed gratitude to see 98 young ladies across Africa and the United States sharing experience and knowledge in various categories of science.

“At first people thought that girls cannot do sciences, the camp has just demonstrated that it’s not only boys that can do it but girls too can make it, this camp is so unique because it focused on girl child in science and it will also help other girls who were lagging behind in sciences,” she  said.

Mutharika, therefore, asked the women participating in the camp to put into practice the knowledge and share the skills with their respective communities.

Mutharika said she would like to see all of them blowing their own trumpet and one day to hear that there is a women science fair at community level.

Speaking at the same function, Minister of Education, Science and Technology Bright Msaka applauded Mutharika for her passion towards ensuring that the girl child in this country is given equal opportunity to access and complete education.

“Through your Excellency’s Beautify Malawi Trust, you are making available bursaries to so many girls to access secondary education.

“You have also constructed girls’ hostels to ensure that the girl child does not walk long distances to school,” Msaka said.

He said with the support from Mutharika many women are taking up more challenging responsibilities.

Msaka added that the education sector need support from partners in ensuring that more girls participate in sciences.

“Malawi cannot realize meaningful progress if there is no investment in science and technology. We need scientists to assist us with innovation of new technologies that the country requires to forge ahead,” Msaka observed.

He thanked the American Government and all partners for taking women in science camp to Malawi.

Malawi was the second country to host the camp after Liberia. The 2017 women in science camp is a US Department of State Programme being implemented by World Learning in the UN foundation’s Girl Up campaign with support from private sector partners such as Google and Intel.

Girls in the field of science, technology, engineering, arts and design were drawn from the United States of America, Liberia, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania and Malawi.