History

The story of our coming of AGE…

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 because the family could not afford the $156 dollars a year that the local secondary school cost nor could they afford the uniforms, books and supplies required.

AGE Founder Xanthe Ackerman with committee and original scholars in Bowa Village

In an incredible show of support and generosity, readers spontaneously sent funds to help the girls of Bowa, so Xanthe and AGE volunteer Ulemu Chiluzi returned to the village to set up a community-managed scholarship fund. A group of ten village women, 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.

In that first year, all the girls in the Bowa village who were of high school age were selected to be AGE Africa’s first cohort of scholars–6 students total. The Bowa Scholars have shown their dedication by pursuing their education despite tremendous pressure to leave school and get married–the last of these first students graduated last year, thanks to the support of our donor community and especially to the first readers of Xanthe’s article.

Since 2005, AGE Africa has worked in a variety of school environments providing scholarships to girls. We now support students from many rural villages across Malawi at four partner schools. What began as a vision for the futures of eight young women from a single village, has grown into a vision for girls nationwide. In 2008 AGE transferred its scholars from private schools where the education was expensive, and the quality mediocre, into quality public boarding schools where broad-based impact on educational policy would be possible in the long term. Based on the findings from a 2009 baseline survey, in 2010 AGE Africa designed and piloted two separate tracks of extra-curricular programming. The baseline survey showed that for the most impoverished students, career guidance and life skills education could be as important as financial support of a scholarship.

Today Advancing Girls’ Education in Africa supports dozens of girls’ scholarships at four public schools in Malawi. We provide students with reproductive health, leadership and career guidance programming, helping each scholar develop the skills and knowledge they need to stay in school and graduate. AGE works with a talented Malawian staff, alongside US volunteers to deliver our programs. By providing material and moral support, AGE gives students in Malawi the chance to be the first girls in their village to graduate from high school, breaking generations of illiteracy and providing opportunity for entire families in the years to come.