It has now been just over 2 months here in Malawi, I have had lots of diverse learning opportunities in fact since writing my last blog I have been much busier than expected, particularly since my first month here was a little slower.
The main project I am working through at the organization is based on Tax justice and the provision of gender-responsive public services through education financing.
Through this project, I mainly worked on creating deliverables and researching. I worked on creating a child-friendly manual to explain tax justice and gender-responsive education; I have attended many meetings including parliamentary meetings, meetings at the ministry of gender and at the ministry of youth. I have worked on a terms of reference for the International Day of the Girl Child Commemorations in Malawi; I was even in charge of the social media twitter feed for the global youth climate strike for my organization.
Despite most of these learning experiences being based in the office or within Lilongwe itself, my learning experiences have gone beyond the office as well with a few field trips, meetings, events, etc. I had the chance to visit a few field sites as well. I visited the district of Nchisi where the organization were conducting interface meetings between girls at primary school and their duty bearers, such as ministers of gender and others who can help make their schools more gender-responsive.
Visiting these schools and listening to these girls and their experiences was eye-opening and went beyond the statistics and data about girl’s education that I was reading and researching while at the office. During the field visits, I was able to interview the girls, schoolteachers and even ministers to find out more about the situation in Malawi for girls. This was really helpful for me to learn more about the work that the organization does, as well as learn more about the conditions these girls face and work towards my final deliverables.
I have learnt a lot from my time in Malawi, from the work of the organization and the way it functions, as well as from the people I have met at the organization, within the realm of international development, as well as from others I have met in Malawi.
Internships are a great time to learn and grow in many ways. Through the organization, I was given a chance to learn more about what gender-responsive education should look like and learn more about creating a suitable model for gender-responsive education.
The International Educational Development Program 