17-06-2019 | di COOPI

Malawi, Lucy Lupale: Now we know our rights

Land management, gender issues, nutrition best practices and HIV awareness were the main topics discussed during a cycle of awareness campaigns during our "Strengthening the resilience of vulnerable communities in Salima and Mangochi districts" project, funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS).

As Floriana Bucca, Head of Mission of COOPI in Malawi, points out, "This cycle of awareness campaigns aimed to disseminate information and key notions on different social aspects that directly involve beneficiaries, especially women, to promote their development and empowerment, both at family and community level”.

Among the participants, Lucy Lapale was one of them. She joined the cycle of awareness campaigns, which increased her awareness on women’s rights.

“My name is Lucy Lupale from Bitikalanje Irrigation Scheme, with the awareness campaigns we have learnt a lot of things. Our families are now happy, our children are happy too and so we are as women because we have our land secured and no one can grab it from us.

No one can grab our land now because we know where to go with such cases, even people are now afraid to grab land from any widow because from the awareness campaigns you conducted they learnt that grabbing land is a crime.

People are also no longer afraid to go for HIV testing as they used to before the awareness campaigns. Previously, new couples could enter into marriage without knowing each other’s HIV status but now they go for HIV testing and later they decide whether to marry or not depending on their HIV results and this has reduced new infections.

My own husband never believed I could make decisions in our family. Previously, he used to get all the money into his pocket after selling our farm produce. I could not control him. After we learnt about Gender, he now makes sure I am involved in every activity and we can now notice a great change in our family.

Things are really moving on well. All is because of the awareness campaigns that COOPI has conducted".