My name is Tamanda Marguerrite Kamunga. I am 17 years old and the first born in my family. My mother is a single mother and she is a small scale businesswoman.

I am in my second year at the University of Malawi, the Polytechnic which recently branched out to become the Malawi University of Applied Sciences. I am doing Mechanical Engineering.

Mechanical engineering is a very amazing program and I am so glad to be doing it. It has always been a dream of mine to be in the aviation sector but due to the fact that Malawi has no aviation schools and the tuition outside the country is very expensive, I decided to study mechanical engineering in Malawi and then try to apply for a masters degree in aviation outside the country. I feel like mechanical engineering is a very good program as it has a lot of untapped potential. A lot of people that do mechanical engineering in my country end up becoming car repairers and the highest post you can get with a mechanical engineering degree is a managerial position in a car company. With this in mind, I think that with the right knowledge and resources, I can be able to start a car manufacturing company in my country. School is not particularly difficult and it is not as hard as a lot of people think it is. It just requires diligence and effort.

One of the things I love about my program is that it is very challenging. It broadens your way of thinking and expands your knowledge on different things. It also enables you to be able to apply the different things you learn in class to the actual world.

Generally in Africa, to be successful and to be able to support the family, you have to be educated. My mother grew up in the village, where becoming educated was not important for a female. It was more important to get married and have children because the parents would get lobola. Due to this, she didn’t go far with her education. Being a single mother, it has been hard for her to support all of us.

Zikomo started sponsoring my accommodation fee last year in the second semester and continued this year with the tution fees. Thank you ZIKOMO, i am very grateful for it.