Malawi Assemblies of God University Theatre for Development 2019 class visited Chigoneka C.D.S.S

Passionate about creating attitude and behavioral change amongst peers, Malawi Assemblies of God University Theatre for Development 2019 class visited Chigoneka C.D.S.S on 4^th December, 2019 to raise awareness through a drama performance. The performance, which was exceptionally received and applauded by the students at Chigoneka C.D.S.S emphasized on messages aimed at challenging attitude and behavior amongst students of Chigoneka Secondary School especially young girls who resort to sexual activities in order to meet their physical needs.

MAGU students performed a play titled The Last Chance which featured a story of a young girl named Faith (played by Gloria Mndoli), struggling with school fees and other necessities and is encouraged by her mother (played by Mbeliwe Bulambo) to get married as a way of running away from poverty. Faith eventually falls into a peer pressure trap and gets pregnant and is immediately withdrawn from school with no opportunity to return back to school upon delivery. The storyline of the drama was coupled with the story of a young male student named Dave (played by Gershom Ligodo), who managed to overcome drug and substance abuse addiction with support from his Head Teacher (played by Mcloud Chipeta). Through the character of Madame Kamanga (played by Tamika Mkandawire), the play widened its community awareness campaign by encouraging teachers to take up the role of reinforcing the Re-admission Policy which the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology introduced in 1993, but was revised and relaunched on 4th November 2018 with a banner of 18+ with the aim of supporting teen-mothers’ continuity of formal education.

The play performed at Chigoneka C.D.S.S. did not arise in a vacuum; rather, it was a product of a community contact assessment conducted on 10^th November by MAGU students with the aim of finding real situations and challenges faced by students at Chigoneka C.D.S.S. The drama performance was entirely staged on what the students had gathered during the research and the response of the audience was beyond exceptional and it marked the beginning of a strong partnership between MAGU and Chigoneka C.D.S.S.

Other roles of the play were performed by Anisha Bagus, Mirriam Chirwa, Tiyamike Thomu, Harry Chibwana and Catherine Kamputa, and the play was directed by Ms. Sympathy Mandoloma and produced by Mbeliwe Bulambo whilst Scene Design was set by Tadala Matalala and Mathews Miswati.