By Edwin Mauluka
An annual Community Festival for the The British Council’s Our Shared Goal (OSG) project is set for this Saturday November 16, 2019 at Bingu National Stadium where 668 young people are expected to graduate with skills and knowledge in fighting gender based violence, early child marriages and other gender related issues.
British Council Malawi Head of Programmes, McDonald Nyoni said the festival will mark the graduation of 668 young people from Lilongwe peri-urban community of Mtandire who have been empowered and equipped to become better advocates for ending gender based violence, early child marriages as well as advocates for their rights and those of their peers.
“This is a free event, so everyone is welcome to attend. The festival will start from 9:00am to 12:00noon hosted by DJ Goxy and it will among others include performances by the children and guest artists Daughters Band, Suffix and KBG,” he said.
Nyoni said 353 girls and 315 boys will graduate during the day after attending to OSG weekly sessions for over 10 weeks on Gender Based Violence (GBV), Early Child Marriages (ECM) and other issues around gender equity and the rights of women and girls.
“So, this is an annual Community Festival to mark the end to the third cohort since inception and the second cohort for 2019. British Council is implementing the project using sports for development approach.
“Therefore, the training for these grandaunts used healthy inter-gender relationship skills through sports where football training was combined with social, relationship and sexual health education,” he added.
According to Nyoni, OSG a three year project funded by Comic Relief with a tune of £150,000, aims to engage 1,170 young people aged between 7 – 20 years of age, where 60 percent of which will be female living in Mtandire.
Three local organisations working in Mtandire; Tingathe, Zikomo Foundation/ Play Football Malawi and MHub are partners for OSG project. Nyoni said Tingathe is a partner for life skills and GBV safeguarding trainings. On other hand, Zikomo Foundation/Play Football Malawi is offering football training and engagements while a tech partner MHub is helping on digital content sharing.
He further mentioned that British Council has also partnered with Edu-Sport Foundation from Zambia for capacity building of local coaches and Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation from South Africa.
Among other things the festival on Saturday includes Impact Stories (testimonies from cohort members), demonstrations of their activities and performances by the children.
