9 April 2022, Mchinji District, Malawi - Jeremiah Chafukira Lea Chunga, an Agriculture Extension Development Officer, AEDO, in Mkanda Extension Planning Area, EPA, Mchinji District, explains to teen mothers and adolescent girls how to weed a densely grown beans field by hand picking the weeds to avoid damaging the crop during a visit to Kaputu Junior Farmer Field and Life School for teen mothers and adolescent girls at Ngwelengwe Village.
Background information
The Government of Malawi in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with funding from the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) are implementing a project called "Action for teen mothers and adolescent girls", targeting 647.900 adolescent girls between 10-24 years of age in Mchinji and Dedza districts. Within the project, FAO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, is implementing a component called 'Empowering teen mothers and adolescent girls' in which the girls and also some boys in the targeted districts are given basic farming skills through Farmer Field and Life Schools (FFLS), a skills development and participatory extension methodology based on adult education principles to enable the participants gain skills in good agricultural production practices and expose them to essential life and entrepreneurial skills leading to decent independent livelihoods.
