JAPAN and the WORLD Magazine JANUARY ISSUE 2016 #Issue 14 | Page 28

SAWAKO NEVIN
WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
Centre. Seibo is currently introducing some
of the beneficiary nurseries on their Facebook
Page (facebook.com/seibojapan). You will
be surprised to know that as little as 60 yen can
provide a child with a school meal.
You are actively involved in other
projects in Malawi such as “Send
your girl to school”or protection
and conservation of wild life parks.
How does your position as the wife
of British Commissioner help you to
fulfil your own goals and ambitions?
‘Send Your Girls to School’ is my own
campaign’s song project to promote girls
education. The song is called ‘Msungwana
Shaina (Girl, Shine)’, which I made with
Malawi’s superstar Lucius Banda. I discovered
through my work with JOCA that there is a
group of women in villages who discourage
their girls from going to school when they turn
8-9 years old and instead getting them ready for
marriage. Girls’ parents look for a wealthy older
husband and receive money in exchange for the
young brides. Girls’ early marriage is a serious
problem in Malawi causing a high dropout rate
from school, teenage pregnancy, severe poverty
for women, and, at the national level, the rapid
increase in population, which is hindering
economic growth. The song tries to change
older generation’s traditional mind-set against
educating girls. It goes ‘Girls can do lots more
than house chores, Send your girls to school,
Give them time to grow, Give them time to think
what’s best for them, Let your girls shine. For
the bright future of girls, for the bright future of
Malawi’. The song is now played by UN agencies
including UNICEF and UN Women. Whenever
they have girls’ empowerment activities, and the
message is spreading. Please watch the music
video on YouTube ‘msungwana shaina’.
Another project I started here is a fundraising
‘Lilongwe Dream Dinner’ to support a local
NGO Girls Empowerment Network (GENET).
GENET tries to empower girls through a variety
of projects including a ‘reusable sanitary pads’
initiative. Most of the girls can’t go to school
whenever they menstruating just because they
don’t have sanitary pads. This is one of the factors
leading to girls’ high dropout rates. GENET
distributes a set of handmade washable sanitary
pads to adolescent girls so they can go to school
during the period. In order to draw people’s
attention to this important issue, I wanted to
organise a fundraising dinner. We don’t have
many good restaurants here and therefore
ambassadors’ residences are said to serve the
best food in town. I spoke to four ambassadors,
including my husband, and got their chefs to cook
a course to make a nice four-course dinner. The
first ‘Dream Dinner’ took place at our residence
in October 2015 with a starter course (sushi)
cooked by the Japanese Ambassador’s chef, a fish
course by Norwegian, a meat course by British
and a dessert by American. It turned out to a big
success. We raised US$4,600, which is enough to
provide 500 girls with a set of pads and a hygiene
training session. I’m planning to organise ‘Dream
Dinner 2’ in 2016 so we can help more girls.
27 // JANUARY 2016
Sawako with her husband Michael (left) and Malawi’s No 1 musician Lucius Banda (middle).
Along with promotion of girls’
education, animal protection
has always been my personal
priority in Malawi. I recently
started working as a volunteer
at Lilongwe Wildlife Trust in
Malawi to help with their anti-
poaching projects.
Along with promotion of girls’ education,
animal protection has always been my
personal priority in Malawi.
I recently
started working as a volunteer at Lilongwe
Wildlife Trust in Malawi to help with their
anti-poaching projects. Poaching of elephants
and illegal ivory trade are big problems in
M