By Martin Chiwanda

Machinga, August 2, Mana: Kapua Charity Climbers, a group from Finland which raises funds to support girls in the country has said inclusion of Sexual Reproductive Healthy Rights (SRHR) education in schools’ curriculum could play a huge role of reducing sexual violence.

The Group’s representative, Pia-Maria Lausas said they have noted with concern that most of the adolescent girls in the country have little knowledge of sexual violence and sexual reproductive healthy hence the call.

She was speaking on Tuesday when the group visited Kaombe Primary School in the area of Senior Chief Liwonde in Machinga to appreciate efforts being made by Centre for Youth Empowerment and Civic Education (CYECE), on empowering communities especially girls and women on issues to do elimination of all forms of violence in the district.

Lausas said her grouping wants to advocate that Sexual reproductive healthy rights and Gender Based Violence (GBV)be included in the school’s curriculum which would subsequently reduce all form of violence in the future.

"We want to advocate that issues to do with Sexual reproductive healthy rights and GBV be in the school’s curriculum. Once we begin to teach these little ones right from school, it will help to reduce sexual violence in the society," she said.

CYECE Executive Director, Lucky Mbewe said through empowerment initiative, the organization has established different strategies in schools and communities including youth clubs and village savings loans groups to give girls platform so that they can talk about issues that negatively contribute to their poor participation on issues that affect their lives.

"Our object is to empower communities to be self-reliant in developing sustainable strategies that protect women and girls from all forms of violence and allow a girl child to stay in school while we continue bringing awareness to communities on issues that affect them in attaining basic education," he said.

District Gender Officer for Machinga, Olive Msyamboza applauded CYECE for "Prevention of Sexual gender based violence in rural Malawi" project which the organization was implementing in the areas of Traditional Authority (TA) Liwonde, citing the project has tremendously improved the knowledge gap on gender related issues among communities.

"Prior to the inception of the project we had challenges such as child marriages, high school dropout rate, especially among primary girls due to early pregnancies which eventually lead to early marriages," she noted.