JTI Malawi promoting elimination of child labor

Msunga primary school in Lilongwe is set to wear a new face following a maintenance project funded by the Embassy of Japan in Malawi.

The 65 million kwacha project will see the school having two additional school blocks, two toilets and a changing room for the girls.

Japanese Ambassador to Malawi Satoshi Iwakari said Japan is pleased to eliminate child labour in the country by improving the education sector.

He explained that tobacco business is important to Malawi’s economy as it brings in forex, therefore a tobacco company, JTI

thought it wise to ask for support from Japanese government so that we help to eradicate child labour by improving the education sector of the country,” said Iwakari.

He further appealed to the government of Malawi to provide necessary additional support to Msunga school project so that it becomes a success.

“As it stands JTI and the government of Japan are in full support of this project and we therefore ask the government of Malawi to give us the necessary support to this project,” added Iwakari.

Complementing the same, Karonga Chilindiza, head teacher for Msunga primary school said that the grant has come at the right time as it will help to solve various problems that the school is currently facing.

“There are some issues that are resulting into low performances of our students, for example the school has a few school blocks which leads to learners having their classes under trees and it hits negatively during rainy and cold seasons as many learners report skip classes,” said Chilindiza.

“The toilets and changing room which are to be constructed will help improve girl child education as in the past girls used to skip school because of menstruation as they did not have rooms to safely change in,” further added Chilindiza.

Speaking on behalf of government, Principal of Education Rapson Mady said that it a good thing that the government of Japan has pumped in such an amount of money to help improve the condition of Msunga Primary School.

“We are highly grateful for the grant that has been offered to the Malawi government because it will go a long way in addressing critical conditions that ministry of education is currently facing mainly in terms of infrastructure development,” said Mady.

John Gauna, Managing Director of JTI Leaf Malawi said that have been supporting Msunga Primary school since 2018 and they have managed to build classroom blocks, put in solar powered water systems to support the toilets which were also built by the organisation with the help from the government of Japan.

Msunga primary school was established in 1978 under the Youth Week Project and was letter graced with class blocks from Limbe leaf years later, the schools catchment area is 76 villages with over 2,500 school going children. Currently the school has 5 school blocks, 12 male teachers, 10 female teachers and 6 staff buildings.