History

While working as a project evaluator for CARE Malawi, Xanthe Scharff wrote What it's like to live on $1 a day for the Christian Science Monitor (July 2005). The article portrayed life in the Bowa village and focused on a local woman and her daughter, who was not attending school due to financial constraints. Readers spontaneously sent funds to help girls in Bowa, so Xanthe and AGE volunteer Ulemu Chiluzi went back to the village to set up a community-managed scholarship fund. A group of ten women, who had previously been trained in a CARE project, formed a committee to help govern the fund. The women elected leaders for the committee and wrote governing rules to ensure fairness and accountability in all scholarship fund activities.

AGE selected all the girls in the Bowa village that were in Standard 8 (roughly equivalent to the 8th grade in the US) or higher to be scholars. These girls have shown their dedication by pursuing their education despite tremendous pressure to leave school and get married. Their families have shown that they also value girls' education highly, as they had made great sacrifices to support their daughters thus far. The girls would not have been able to continue school after 8th grade because school fees at the secondary level are often more than the annual average earnings per person of $156. AGE now helps seven girls from Bowa, as well ten girls from the southern region in Malawi to attend secondary school. By providing material and moral support, AGE gives scholars in Malawi the chance to be the first girls in their village to graduate from high school.