By Brian Wasili,              

Mwanza, August 27, Mana:  Government has asked district councils in the country to identify resources for introduction and sustainability of Children’s Parliament in their respective councils as a way of providing a platform for children in Malawi to voice out their concerns to duty bearers.

Principal Secretary for Administration and Finance in the Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, Nwazi Nthambala made the appeal at the close of the Seventh Session of Children Parliament in Mwanza on Friday.

“Government is committed to ensuring that this initiative is expanded to all the districts which are yet to implement it so that the issues affecting children receive maximum attention by relevant authorities,” said Nthambala.

She commended Norad, through Save the Children International, for supporting Blantyre Synod Health and Development Commission to implement a project called Securing Children’s Rights through Education and Protection (SCREP).

The project, which has been implemented in Mwanza for five years, is expected to wind up its activities this year.

In his remarks, Member of Parliament for Mwanza Central, Nicholas Dausi pledged to support Children’s Parliament with Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to ensure sustainability of the parliament at constituency level.

“This will expand inclusion of children in rural areas in decision making to address obstacles which hinder their future,” said Dausi.

Mwanza District Council Chairperson, Emmanuel Kapawe said the council is committed to sustain Children’s Parliament beyond SCREP project in the district.

“We are in the process of identifying some reliable means of getting resources to sustain the programme in our district,” said Kapawe.

Speaker of the Children’s Parliament in Mwanza, Shekina Galuwapananji said inadequate teaching and learning materials, increased cases of child marriages and teenage pregnancies, child abuse, effects of climate change and environmental degradation and sustainability of children’s parliament in the district were some of the issues deliberated in the parliament.

“We are glad that our council started implementing some of the issues raised in the previous sessions. As such, we expect them to respond to the issues raised this year as well,” said 14-year-old Galuwapananji, a form two student at Ludzi Girls’ Secondary School in Mchinji.

Mwanza District Social Welfare Officer, Mary Msindwa said through the children’s voices the district registered a decrease in child marriage on top of her office and partners doing their best to end child marriages.

“The drastic drop in child marriage cases is because we engaged a multi sectoral approach. We teamed up with partners such as police, judiciary, education, health, information office and traditional leaders to raise awareness in the communities,” said Msindwa.

Save the Children International with funding from Norad is also supporting Neno, Mzimba South, Ntcheu and Ntchisi to implement Children’s Parliament.

The theme for this year’s Children’s Parliament in Mwanza was ‘Children voices matter.’