06 September 2005

ActionAid has brought 16-year-old Malawian schoolgirl Miriam Mhango and development specialist Collins Magalasi, the agency’s policy head in Malawi, to Britain in the run up to the forthcoming UN World Summit (New York 14-16 September), where world leaders will meet to discuss international development, terrorism and UN reform.

Miriam is a scholarship student at Stella Maris Catholic Mission School in Blantyre, Malawi’s second city, and is currently studying for the equivalent of GCSEs. After the death of her father six years ago, her family moved to the rural areas as they could no longer afford to live in town.

The only girl in a family of four children, Miriam is passionate about school. Drawing on her own experiences, she can talk eloquently about girls’ education and the need for free education. Although her mother has recently suffered from a stroke, Miriam considers herself lucky. In Malawi, families have to pay for secondary education and many girls leave school at 12 or 13.

Collins is a political economist. Before joining ActionAid, he was the executive director of the Malawi Economic Justice Network. He can talk about hunger, poverty and public policy in Malawi. He is also an expert on the politics of food, trade, debt and international finance as it relates to Africa.

Worldwide, over 100 million children have never attended school, and two thirds of them are girls.

Miriam said: “Malawi is poverty stricken and many people cannot afford to pay for their daughters to attend school. My dad was my role model and wanted me to do as well as possible. But without my scholarship it would be almost impossible for my mum to pay school fees. It’s so important that this Summit listens to young people like me, and gives African children a chance.”

Collins said: “Unless the World Summit agrees renewed action on more and better aid, debt relief and fair trade, the UN will miss its target of halving world poverty by 2015, and Africa will miss every development goal.”

In a new report Development Under Attack, ActionAid warns of millions of early deaths and millions of children denied an education unless Tony Blair and other world leaders block US moves to water down the millennium development goals at the World Summit.