AGE Africa

Scholarships and Mentoring: Annually AGE Africa supports comprehensive scholarships for girls to attend public secondary schools in Malawi. In 2021 AGE Africa's scholarship programs supported 88 scholarships for high academically achieving girls at approximately 26 public secondary schools across five districts in Malawi's southern region. Whereas less than 6% of Malawian women hold a high school diploma nearly 95% of AGE Africa scholars complete four years of high school and 50% pursue tertiary education. Additionally AGE Africa's scholars receive access to AGE Africa's extracurricular program Creating Healthy Approaches to Success CHATS throughout the school year and attend an annual three-day girl retreat where they engage in intensive leadership workshops and cultivate important peer communities of support. In 2021 AGE Africa expanded its Let's CHATS Radio programming to all of Malawi reaching approximately 4 million girls.

Program Development Partnerships and Monitoring and Evaluation: AGE Africa is developing its programs partnerships and evaluation systems to include a data dashboard that will link to the Organization's website where supporters can review AGE Africa's impact. AGE Africa continued its membership in the National Girls Education Network and remains Chair of the Southern Region Chapter of the Council for Non-governmental organizations. AGE Africa continues to develop deep community-by-community relationships to improve grassroots support of girls' education and continues to refine evaluation data collection techniques and metrics.

CHATS Creating Healthy Approaches to Success: In light of Malawi's response to COVID-19 restrictions AGE Africa transitioned its CHATS life skills programming to a radio format that currently broadcasts episodes weekly on two local stations in Mangochi and Mulanje districts reaching a broader audience of thousands of listeners in the Southern and Central regions of Malawi spanning dozens of districts. The CHATS curriculum focuses on building girls' core competencies in communication and leadership while helping them acquire information critical to their success in overcoming challenges of navigating their education and the workforce. The curriculum also feathers sexual and reproductive health self-advocacy gender-based violence awareness and prevention entrepreneurship problem-solving and accessing higher education. Formulated into three one-year modules the CHATS curriculum is designed to evolve its content and scope as a girl matures and encounters new opportunities and challenges.