Workshop Title:
Being a high school student among the poorest of the very poor
Workshop Description and Topic:
In the Western countries we often speak about student poverty, but would you like to get an insight into what poverty really looks like among students in Malawi?
Rev. Sonja Jakobsson from Finland participated in the Third International Conference of Chaplaincy in Higher Education in Malawi last summer, upon which she visited the Ekwendeni College of Health Sciences. She shares a touching video compilation of her trip.
Rev. Margaret Kalimajira tunes in from Ekwendeni village in Malawi to talk about the dire needs of young students who struggle for an educated future while belonging themselves to the poorest of the very poor.
Presenter’s Biography, highlighting your professional background:
Rev. Sonja Jakobsson is a University Chaplain for the Swedish speaking minority at the University of Helsinki, as well as for Hanken School of Economics and Arcada University of Applied Sciences. Sonja has formerly worked for 10 years as a pastor for the Finnish speaking minority in Sweden. She also has a Master’s degree in Translation and Interpreting of Spanish, Finnish and Swedish. She has studied and worked in Spain.
Rev. Margaret Kalimanjira is a Chaplain at the Ekwendeni College of Health Sciences in Mzuzu district, Malawi. She is the first female priest in the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian, Synod of Livingstonia, to become the chaplain of a Higher Education Institution. She was once the moderator of the presbytery, the advisor of the presbytery women’s guild, the advisor of the presbytery Sunday school, the chair person of the Synod Chaplaincy Department, the chair person of Women in Faith in the Northern part of Malawi, since 2012 till now under the Public Affairs Committee. Once the Executive member of the CCAP Synod of Livingstonia, the Executive member of the Council of Chaplaincy Ministry (COCHAM) in Malawi. The holder of Bachelor of Theology and Religious studies, Master’s Degree of Theology and Religious studies obtained from the University of Jerusalem in India. An ordained minister of the word and sacrament in the CCAP Synod of Livingstonia, the treasurer of the Women Ministers Organization.
Margaret participated in the IACHE Global Conference in 2022 in Sheffield, UK, which is where Sonja and she met. The friendship has since then evolved into a fruitful cooperation in trying to prevent needy students at the Ekwendeni College of Health Sciences from having to drop out of their studies due to unpaid school fees.
Maximum Number of Participants for the Workshop:
No limitations to number of participants.
Any special considerations for participants, such as mobility requirements:
The workshop is entirely online. No mobility requirements.
Please, provide the participants with the possibility to ask questions in real-time to the presenters. For the time being it has been planned that we join and interact with the participants on the Teams platform, whereas the video will be shown through a YouTube link (because it does not run well on Teams). When it is time to run the video, please be prepared to do so on location! Sonja will send the link of the video once she has finished all its details.
Indication of whether the workshop contains any religious content, specifying the religious affiliation, if applicable:
We speak from a Christian point of view, but our main focus is on poverty. We have no religious content other than filmed sequences of prayers and morning devotions in the video that Sonja will show.