Headmistress of St Mary’s Karonga Girls Secondary School came back beaming with excitement upon her arrival from her first foray outside of Malawi after spending a month visiting Portland, Oregan.

Martha Chizumila Nyondo had the opportunity to visit the University of Portland as part of a trip organised by the fundraiser behind the school’s construction.

Though her school has been supported by Next Generation Africa and unconnected.org in its digital advancements, she saw the potential of integrating technology into academia, most notably how it “encourages individual learning”.

She explained that every student has got a laptop or a tablet which the lecturer beams slides or notes onto their individual screen, so each one of them is able to follow the lesson at their own pace.

Though a trip set up to help Martha gain knowledge that could be applied to her work, she had plenty of opportunities to gain new experiences.

She laughed recounting tales of her travels, especially when describing her first experience boarding an aeroplane.

“It was a bit frightening; I was a bit nervous at some point, somewhere we had turbulence.

“Portland is very beautiful, vegetation well taken care of, I arrived at the best of the year, all of the trees were just blooming and then the city was very beautiful, but the weather was not friendly, it was so cold.”

She continued: “I had a chance to go to the mountain to experience the snow and I was so courageous I was even able to throw the snowballs!”

Having first arrived in Karonga for her teacher training in 1996, after growing up in Chitipa, Martha explained that very little has changed or developed in the district since her arrival.

Before joining the school as Headmistress in 2016, Martha had previously worked for many years as a teacher trainer.

That is not to say that the 51-year-old does not get pleasure from working closely with young people and contributing directly to their development.

She said: “I enjoy teaching, I like taking through a student that has no knowledge about something and you impart the knowledge in them, they apply the knowledge and you see them succeeding in life, that becomes a pride, because now I say ‘this is what I have made’.”

Though she of course informally trains the teachers, such as computer teacher Wisdom, for the continued professional development, her focus is now on responding directly to the ample challenges facing the young girls.

As a girls’ school there are challenges which are of course gender specific that the school is doing its best to respond to.

“Some of them will get married as early as possible after getting pregnant, as young as 13 or 14.

Thanks to a government policy that enables re-admission, girls have the opportunity to come back to Malawi should they fall pregnant which Martha believes is important as “they should be able to achieve their potential despite having these challenges.”

Other issues that girls face surrounding sex are not just family planning but also sexual violence and sexual health.

“I have one student who got pregnant and claims she was raped,” Martha explained, “They are well-protected in the school but they are not protected in their homes, so issues of rape would be reported when they get home for vacation and come back.”

There are subjects taught at St Mary’s that address sexual health education and thanks to the addition of the internet at the school the girls can educate themselves further about risks that they might be exposed to.

“Knowledge is power so if they have more information, they are more protected because they know.”

From her own experience has a mother of five, with her youngest child Rosaria being her only daughter, she acknowledges that girls do not tend to have it easy in Malawi.

Though her 20-year-old girl is now flourishing studying medicine, Martha remembers a three-month period that she had to spend away from the family as Rosaria was in primary school in which her little girl took care of her older brothers doing the majority of the domestic chores.

She is very proud of her for overcoming the extra challenges she faced as a girl and is now thriving in her studies.

A lot of the girls at St Mary’s however might not be able to fulfil their potential due to a myriad of other problems many confront, ranging from behavioural challenges due to difficult home lives, imposter syndrome and other psychological issues.

“There are so many challenges, in the first place economic challenges, most of them are coming from very poor backgrounds, but they are blessed, intelligent and they happen to be in a national secondary school, where when they come here looking at their social status they feel like they are in the wrong place, they feel like they don’t fit to be in the school and then it becomes difficult for them to concentrate in the school because they are focused on some basic needs they don’t have that others have,” said Martha.

That feeling of being undeserving, or feelings of isolation and detachment cannot just come from the economic disparity between some students but also in terms of academic achievement.

However, the introduction of the computer lab, WiFi and Next Generation Africa’s Xulendo programme helps to bridge the gap between students due to the independent learning Martha was raving about after returning from the University of Portland.

This is because after classes students have the opportunity to access materials they did not fully understand in class and can therefore learn at their own pace.

Martha’s biggest dream for her students is that they can excel in their lives after finishing school.

Now with the integration of digital technology in the school Martha has new hopes.

“Not all of them can be in the agriculture sector, some will be there and some will be out for other professions,” she continued, “I would also love the girls to do computer sciences because they are exposed and they have all the resources; if they utilise the chance that they have here I see them progressing in professions like computer science and engineering.”