Chief Mbegani serious about bylaws on education in his community
Group Village Head Mbegani, from Traditional Authority Mwaulambia, said that the COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of problems in his area when schools were closed due to the pandemic as one of the ways of ensuring that the pandemic is controlled.
“Since students were staying home, many of them used to be beating each other and even spend most of their time in drinking places and others were walking at night which was very dangerous,” said Mbegani.
Mbegani said that he then established bylaws that denied children to be found in drinking places and even walking at night. He said that most of the children especially girls were being attacked at night by strangers which brought fear to my village.
“Parents in my village were being advised to be following the bylaws and that any parent whose child would be found in these drinking places and even walking at night would be given a punishment and all the parents agreed to the bylaws and this was achieved,” said Mbegani.
Apart from being found in drinking places and even walking at night, when the Government of Malawi announced the opening of the schools when the COVID-19 pandemic lessened, Mbegani said that he also added some bylaws against children being found in video shows during school times.
“I noted that when schools were opened, a lot of children were not going to school and spent most of their time in video shows which resulted in poor performances in class and even most of their parents complained about this,” said Mbegani
Mbegani said that he asked his community not to allow children to be found in video shows during school hours and if any person is found operating video shows in the village would be punished.
“The bylaw was that any person found operating video show in the community during the school hours would be punished where his or her video shows center would be closed,” said Mbegani.
On ensuring that there is no case of child marriage in his community, chief Mbegani said that he does enforce section 30 in his area so that they should know the consequences that come in when one violet this law in the constitution of Malawi.
“This section usually says that anyone who will be found marrying a child below the age of 18 would be arrested and this is a police case and deserves a tough punishment. I do inform my people that any parent who would be found receiving the money to marry off his or her child below the age of 18 would be arrested by the police,” said Mbegani.