Laika inspires children to join reading camp in Malawi
By Janet Mbwadzulu, Malawi Communications
Laika dropped out of school when she was15 due to poverty. However, this did not take away her hope completely. Laika, now 26 and married, decided to achieve her dream through promoting education among the young children within her area.
"I decided to help the children with reading and writing after classes. Instead of playing after school, they come here and I play with them but with games that help them sharpen their brains," Laika explained. "For example, we play high jump and at every jump, a child has to mention a name of something, spell a word or do anything that we agree. Through this, they memorize some of the things they learn in class easily," she continued.
Laika said she does this because she has passion for child education in her community. She believes this is the best way to improve the social and economic conditions. "I have hope in children. They have greater chance to succeed where I failed. By teaching them how to read and write, they will be good in class and motivate them to study hard," she added. Her whole journey started in 2014 when she started helping the children without any formal training. She taught them the way she thought it was proper until World Vision came in the community with the literacy boost model.
On June 2016, Laika became one of the participants at a Community Action Training that World Vision facilitated for volunteers from Chitundu. After the training, Laika realized her shortcomings and was very grateful to World Vision for the training. "It gave me the advanced skills to create different learning materials in the reading camp using locally available materials like charcoal. I have also learnt about different skills that I can use to attract children's attention," said Laika.
With the community’s help, Laika is now able to produce materials for the reading camp. "More children are joining this reading camp because it is becoming more exciting. I apply some of the skills we learnt from the World Vision training," said Laika. World Vision introduced reading camps to improve children’s learning outcomes. It provides early grade learners with quality literacy programs in school and out of school to help improve reading skills acquisition and reading comprehension.
According to UNESCO, Malawi has over 4 million pupils enrolled in primary and secondary education. Of these, about 3.7M (83%) enrollees are in primary education. Only about 11% of children of official primary school ages are out of school. Recently, Msapuka Primary School selected Laika as grade 3 volunteer teacher where she also helps in the material creation. Laika is proud and happy for her contribution to the community, which has always been her dream.