EPM’s Corporate Affairs Manager Rabson Kachilele told Zodiak Online that education is one of the company’s areas of interest realizing that it determines one’s future.

“We operate in a region that was hit by the Tropical Cyclone Freddy and our operations were affected. We also responded to the disaster through provision of relief food and non-food items to the affected households and in addition we rehabilitated Muluzi Bridge in Mulanje district which cost us around K28.5 million but this did not stop us from implementing our planned projects,” said Kachilele.

He spoke on Friday when the company handed over a classroom and a change room to Kabichi Community Day Secondary School and Kabichi Primary School respectively in Mulanje district.

Deputy Head Teacher of Kabichi CDSS Phoebe Gomiwa told Zodiak Online that the school has five old classrooms that have breeze blocks with poor light and ventilations which she said are not conducive for both learning and teaching.   

“We therefore thank EPM for providing us with this modern classroom that has glass windows,” said Gomiwa.

At Kabichi Primary School, Deputy Head Teacher Samson Issa expressed hope that the change room which EPM has constructed there will reduce the failure rate among girls currently at 39% to below 10%.

“Some adolescent girls do not attend classes when they are menstruating and this affect their performance during examinations,” said Issa.

Concurring with her teacher, 13 year old Victoria Thosola who is in standard eight said girls were not comfortable to come to school when in menstrual period as the school had no change room and she said this will now be a thing of the past following the construction of the facility at the school.

“We are very grateful to EPM for this structure and I urge my fellow girls to realize that menstruation is a condition for every woman and this should not at all cost be a barrier to our education,” said Victoria.

According to Kachilele, the company spent K10 million on classroom project and K6 million on change room.