Après avoir assisté à la conférence de la jeune militante Memory Banda, mise à l’honneur dans le film Bigger than us, produit par Marion Cotillard, les élèves de spécialité Monde Contemporain de Mmes Fabregue et Le Huidoux ont écrit un article qui reprend les éléments donnés lors de son intervention.

Who is Memory Banda ? 

Memory Banda is a young woman from Malawi, which is situated in the South-East of Africa. Born in 1996, she has been an activist for the rights of women and children for thirteen years now. She has participated in a documentary- movie entitled « Bigger than us » released in 2021 and came to Lyon to talk about her life and project on November 22nd. She is a very enthusiastic and warm-hearted girl, who was happy to be among us. She has been inspired by Michelle Obama in her childhood and is as determined, creative and powerful as her. She is someone who will never give up and as such is the perfect example of the power of activism even in a small and desolate country like Malawi.

What is her fight?

Memory began her fight when her older sister was sent to an initiation camp for girls. She got pregnant after being raped by the man she would have to marry later. Then, Memory, when she was of age, refused to go and instead led the most impressive campaign « I will marry when I want », which counts as the most impressive achievements she has ever made- to modify the Malawian Constitution which allowed marriage at 15 to 18. Another great success was to close the girls’ initiation camps in Malawi and she would like to do the same for the boys’ ones.

She gives a lot of lectures and speeches to explain her fight and make people aware of the traditions and conservatism in Malawi, in Africa and around the world. She lays emphasis on the importance of education. Boys should be educated differently, because in their childhood they were told to act a certain way towards girls, for instance what she called the « toxic masculinity »  is « rape her and you will be a man », Memory said.

To spread her ideas, she has developed « talk groups » to help girls talk about their problems, to help them face their traumas, and make them realize taht they have the right to say no. These groups have multiplied everywhere and girls are starting to take action. Finally, she has created à foundation named Foundation for Girls Leadership with which she helps victims of abuse or forced marriage and raises awareness on sexual harassment. All in all, we think Memory is an inspiration because of how determined  and brave she is. She is a model and shows us  that we can acheive more than what we think we are capable of if we really want to.

What is her bigger project?

Having succeeded in changing the Constitution, which was a huge step forward, she realized that she wanted to go even further because there was still a lot to change.

Her biggest project is to help and encourage women and girls in Malawi to continue their studies after high school. This problem makes finding a job very difficult if not impossible. Helping them to continue their studies after high school and to specialize would give girls and women a chance to work and thus gain freedom, rights and independence.

Education being the major key for her, she would like to improve school condition for children by, for example, ensuring that they don’t study outside under trees or on the ground. In Malawi 55% of the population are illiterate and most of those 55% are women because they are forced to have children very young, “if a woman isn’t educated why would she feel the need to educate her children” (Memory Banda). According to her, education is necessary to teach values, for freedom, independence, and re-think the world because it opens the minds on the reality of the world and all the possibilities that are open to us.

After her tour in Europe for the movie “Bigger Than Us”, she’d like to spread the movie in Malawi to open the eyes of the population on the situation in the country and on the women’s situation. She believes that it would help to make things happen. She hopes that maybe it will help to change boys’ mentality and that more of them would become feminist.

In addition to that, she wants to change mentalities on forced marriages to stop it completely. But also, on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights as it is still illegal in Malawi.

Finally, she expressed her desire to work at the UN, she explains that she really wants to see how the decisions are made with so many countries and how compromises are made. It should also be noted that she dreams of meeting Malala as she finds her very inspiring.