Mphatso Baluwa Jimu, MAGGA National Coordinator, said the project was about preventing the consumption of drugs and alcohol amongst the youth.

We’ve been implementing this project since 2007 and by that time we started with only five zones. As of now, we’ve scaled up to thirteen zones. Basically the activities that are carried out in this project are those to do with life skills because we are looking at the youth,” said Jimu.

She said, among others, they are not just trying to preach to the youth about the effects of drug and alcohol abuse but rather they want them to make sound decisions on the matter on their own.

She said the project has been very successful.

“The project has really been successful in a way that for the youths that we started with, we haven’t received any complaint from their parents regarding their behaviour. Overall, great strides in behavioural change have been achieved in the areas that we have worked in.”

Jimu said the project has not been short of challenges. 

“The challenge has always been that, since we started, we tried to ask some stakeholders to try to ban or reduce the accessibility of alcohol on the market but it has not happened. The main challenge is that the cheap beer is accessible.

“The the other challenge of course is that there are less organisations in Malawi that are doing programs on alcohol abuse. The age limit on who should take alcohol in Malawi is not taken seriously, and that has been a challenge too plus culture, of course. Some cultures measure a real man by the amount of beer they consume such that those that don’t take beer are looked at as inferior.”