Three School Health and Nutrition days are scheduled annually on the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) school calendar (in 2023, these are 3 March, 19 May and 22 September). They are intended to highlight the collaboration and linkages needed between the MoET and MoH as directed by Lesotho’s School Health and Nutrition Policy of 2018, because the promotion of the health of learners in schools is a critical step towards quality achievement in education.

On 3 March, to celebrate this relationship, a School Health and Nutrition Day was conducted by the MoET, in collaboration with Ministry of Health (MoH), and with the support of the FutureLife-Now! Programme. A total of 13 high schools in the Mafeteng district participated, where the FutureLife-Now! Programme is supporting schools.

The district education manager, Mahlompho Shaabe, delivered a word of appreciation, noting that she is indeed thankful to FutureLife-Now! for the support provided. It was her firm belief, she said, that learners would benefit from the health services to be provided that day.

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Addressing barriers to teaching and learning needs a holistic approach and is everyone’s responsibility.

With this in mind, between January and November 2022, the FutureLife-Now! Programme in Malawi ran Care and Support for Teaching and Learning (CSTL) School Community Workshops in its 10 pilot schools. These were aimed at improving education outcomes by bringing together all key stakeholders (teachers and other educators, those in management structures, parents, community leaders, health workers, child protection workers, forestry assistants, agriculture officers, police officers) to develop their knowledge, capacity and commitment to addressing barriers to teaching and learning.

Schools are now reaping the fruits of these workshops. Umbwi Secondary in Dedza is one such school. Here are some of the initiatives that are bringing benefits to all its learners, including those experiencing barriers to learning.

Health workers have commenced conducting talks on topics such as HIV&AIDS and other aspects of sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR); these have raised awareness and created demand for integrated SHRH, gender-based violence and HIV services, as well as strengthening the referral system between Umbwi Secondary and the Dedza District Hospital.

“The health talks have changed my life,” says Thokozani Alfred, the school’s head boy. “I now understand the SRHR package, its importance and how I can access the services. They have also cleared some myths and misconceptions about HIV&AIDS through provision of accurate information.”

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The following is a departure from our usual news stories. It’s a moving account of inspiration and transformation, written by Lumba Mwale (not her real name), a learner in one of the Zambia FutureLife-Now! schools.

It is often said that your past doesn’t have to determine your future, and this is very true for me. I have transformed from an ugly caterpillar to being a wonderful butterfly that is soaring above the ground. Here is my story.

I am now an 18-year-old girl. I come from a broken home.  My parents divorced when I was 10; after that, everything started going bad. My mother was a pastor and travelled a lot, but after she had a stroke she couldn’t do much anymore.  After she stopped work and my father left, my elder siblings started smoking and drinking, and things deteriorated in our family. Watching my family falling apart and we becoming a dysfunctional family tore me apart: it was something I had never anticipated.

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During the second last week of February, delegates from across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Region assembled in Durban to learn, to share best practices and to network at the annual Care and Support for Teaching (CSTL) and FutureLife-Now! Sharing Meeting.

Delegates during the breakaway session on ‘Sharing post-COVID challenges and good practices’ on Day 2 of the FutureLife-Now! Sharing Meeting

Over a hundred people participated, online and physically, with 14 of the 16 SADC Member States represented, as well as FutureLife-Now! partners such as UNITAR, UNICEF and Save the Children International.

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FutureLife-Now! schools in Zambia are greening their future, and it shows. The 10 schools have embarked on youth-led, climate change projects that include developing the necessary skills learners need to engage in tree-planting and vegetable gardens projects.

One of these schools, Mwembeshi Secondary, has set itself the target of planting 2 500 trees by the year 2025. The FutureLife-Now! Programme is helping to make this a reality by providing materials such as fertilizer, and implements like spades and hoes, irrigation pipes, shade-netting and seedlings. It also provided the school with 250 trees.

Learners at Mwembeshi Secondary School receiving awards for best food gardens and tree-planting.

In 2022, each of the approximately 300 learners in Grades 8, 9 and 10 was given a tree seedling to take care of. The learners pot the trees until they are ready to be transplanted in the ground, provide water and check them for pests. When necessary, they also re-pot the trees if they show signs of stress.

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Agriculture is the most important sector in Malawi’s economy. It employs over 80% of the population and contributes approximately 70% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. This means that the current price increase of chemical fertilizers has adversely affected a large part of Malawi’s population and has resulted in dire food shortages due to the poor harvests of many subsistence farmers.

Recognising this gap in the economy, and with the support from the FutureLife-Now! Programme, learners from Mbinzi Community Day Secondary School in the Lilongwe District have started producing low-cost and environmentally-friendly composted manure.

Mbinzi Community Day Secondary School learners mixing eco-friendly composted manure

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Lesotho’s Ministries of Education and Training and of Health have long recognized the importance of the linkages between them for aiding young people to access youth-friendly health services. Both have used the former’s Extracurricular Risk Reduction and Avoidance Handbook for Youth to assist learners and out-of-school youth to cope with the challenges they face growing up—such as developing positive relationships and protecting their sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR)—and to improve the situation they find themselves in their communities.

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In recent years, so much research, writing and action has been directed towards the girl child, but little or practically nothing was done for the boy child. In fact, the phrase “boy child” has only come to prominence recently. Even in the FutureLife-Now! schools, there is a lot of work done by other organizations specifically for girls. For example, one of these organizations has recently built a state-of-the-art girl’s toilet in one of the schools.

Such work is, of course, salutary and necessary, but FutureLife-Now! recognises that boys too have needs; they too are vulnerable. To truly address gender-inequality, those vulnerabilities also need to be addressed. Boys and young men feeling neglected later causes many of the gender-related problems that we see in our communities.

FutureLife-Now! in Zimbabwe started boys mentorship clubs, the main purpose of which was to give boys a platform to talk and discuss the issues that they face, and then to find solutions together. But the boys themselves need to be heard. So, here, in their voices, are what some of the young men, members of the mentorship clubs, have to say.

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Youth Action for Success and Development ,YASD has been conducting four research models to develop alternative fertilizers to drive a sustainable solution in eradicating poverty and food insecurity while improving livelihoods in the communities. Since 2019, YASD has been on the frontline promoting alternative solutions for organic farmers who constantly face rising input costs.

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The President of South Africa has officially cited the Care and Support for Teaching and Learning (CSTL) framework during his keynote address at the 2023 Basic Education Sector Lekgotla last week. He said: “Care and support for teaching and learning must be institutionalised as a tool to improve learner outcomes and retention rates.” In partnership with SADC and its Member States, and with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, MIET AFRICA developed and tested the CSTL model in response to the many vulnerabilities hindering the learning and development of children and youth in the SADC region, and in 2016,  the CSTL Policy Framework was adopted by the 16 SADC Ministers of Education. The Framework mandates Ministries of Education to mainstream care and support and provides guidelines for the provision of integrated services through their schools. The various care and support needs of learners are addressed through a policy framework of 10 pillars, namely: safety and protection, psychosocial support, nutrition, health, social welfare, material support, infrastructure, community participation, curriculum support, extra-curricular support.

The CSTL model is one which views all stakeholders as co-educators within a learning ecosystem. Ministries of Education create a policy environment that mandates, enables and supports the development of all schools as CSTL coordinating hubs that facilitate the provision of:

•  Services and support provided by a range of partners to ensure inclusion, retention and completion of school by vulnerable children and youth
• Quality, relevant 21st century education for agency to address pressing development challenges

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