Born 41 years ago Malita Chikhosi is happily married to Village Head man Funsani. They have three sons and live in Dowa district. Life before chicken production was difficult for Malita as she could not access money from her husband, who was the sole provider of the home. Due to cultural norms they never realized it was possible for husband and wives to sit together and plan for the family. Thanks to Self Help Africa who initiated a programme specifically to uplift lives of women economically, Malita joined a group of 10 women who received 200 hundred chickens. The group managed to keep them all alive and now they are selling cocks. In the group men were involved in constructing khola’s in a way of reinforcing families to work together and in the process there were discussions on gender equality.Currently the women are selling the chickens at an average price of MK 3,000.00 and managed to share MK 19,000 from cockerel sales in 4 weeks time. They are hoping to get MK 300,000 from the egg sales with which they will buy fertilizer for the maize gardens and pay school fees for their children. This has increased Malita’s confidence in decision making as she is able to plan together with her husband in a way teaching her husband the goodness of planning together.
She was quoted as saying “if all goes according to plan we will construct a house with iron sheets’
- This case study was prepared as part of the Gallery Exhibition to commemorate the visit of the President of the Republic of Ireland, His Excellency Michael D Higgins to Malawi in November 2014, and later to coincide with the launch of the 16 Days of Activism against GBV on November the 25th, 2014.
- Pictures taken by: Chipiliro Khonje