By Fostina Mkandawire

Salima, September 6, Mana: National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE) has equipped female political aspirants with political leadership skills to boost their confidence ahead of the 2025 general elections.

Speaking on Thursday during a three-day training called “Campaign School Training” organized by NICE together with the Centre for Civil Society Strengthening (CCSS), District Civic Education Officer, Queen Mataya highlighted that the training is aimed at sharpening the female aspirant's political skills.

Mataya said their goal is to see female political aspirants succeeding in the 2025 general elections through their training and enable them to have better chances of overcoming difficulties they will encounter within the country's political landscape.

"The training will strengthen aspirants whether they are beginning their career, or are more experienced and looking to sharpen their skills or generally interested in learning more about political participation and leadership," she said.

She said young women leaders have been excluded from key political and decision-making spaces and the situation can be attributed to challenges they face.

"Women face many limitations within political parties and communities to attain positions and to be voted for during elections. In Salima, there is zero presentation of a female Member of Parliament (MP), we want to change this anomaly by encouraging women to contest as MP's," she said.

Programmes Officer at CCSS, Mercy Chikadza said female aspirants need to be supported for them to build the much-needed confidence.

Chikadza underscored the importance of collaboration between Civil Society Organizations to rally behind women as one way of ending some of the gaps that are hindering women to go for positions of power.

"We established that financial challenges continue to hinder women from contesting for political positions. The training will equip women with public speaking and campaign development skills and further for them to do a needs assessment in their communities,” she said.

Member of Parliament aspirant for Salima South Constituency, Alice Kumanda said the training is timely as she is geared to put up a fierce fight against male contenders in her constituency.

She encouraged other women to be bold enough and contest in upcoming elections saying anything is possible, so long as there is focus and resilience.

35 female aspirants have shown interest in Salima district to contest in the 2025 elections and seven out of the 35 will contest as Members of Parliament while the rest as Ward Councilors.