Dreaming of going to school

"The area covered by Kasungu parish in Malawi has a population of around 200,000 people, including 35,000 Catholics. Kasungu has one of the highest [HIV/AIDS] prevalence rates in Malawi at 30-40 per cent, compared to the national rate of 14.1 per cent (UNAIDS, 2006). The parish has six HBC [Home-based care] centres with about 130 caregivers. Support for school fees, uniforms and food is provided for 680 orphans, and seeds and fertilisers are offered to their families, with the aim of ensuring food security. There are some 20,000 orphans in Kasungu - ten per cent of the population - but the parish cannot afford to meet the needs of more."

Fr Pete Henriot, an American Jesuit who has spent many years in Zambia as the director of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR), has focused on social justice and seen at first hand the difficulties which orphans and the children of the poor constantly encounter. He has recently moved to Kasungu and comments: "Kasungu is in a poor rural area where secondary education opportunities are extremely limited. If there were a co-educational school which aimed for 50-50 enrolment of girls and boys, then the whole future of the nearby towns and villages would be transformed. A boarding school which accommodated 500 youngsters, paying special attention to local girls and boys, would be of enormous benefit. The students would be able to attend classes without the hassles of walking long distances to and from school each day. There would be fewer distractions and, in a very real way, such a school could be an 'option for the poor'. No real development is possible in Kasungu without education for youth, especially for girls!"

One of the photographs of Kasungu shows a 22-hectare site of open scrubland with a mountain in the background. A feat of imagination envisages a secondary school where there is currently bare ground.

Pictured right: Amanda Chimtengo, a Standard 7 pupil from Saint Joseph's Catholic Primary School in Kasungu, read Malawian poet 'Q' Malewezi's Anything, composed for the Groundbreaking Ceremony at Loyola Jesuit Secondary School, in Kasungu, Malawi, on Friday 21 September 2012.