Demographics

Bakhita is an All-girls school so as you might guess all of the students are girls.  The girls starting in Form 1 are as young as 12 and old as 17 so there really isn't a set age.  Most of them are around 13 or 14 so they are a little younger than freshman.  The girls from the college are also a wide range of ages.  Those that came right after secondary school are 17 or 18, but we have some starting a little older.  There is one 27 year old woman from Balaka who came back to school to get a better job to support her kids.  The is really nice, but shy and has some trouble in Business Math.  Having boarding allows us to have students from all over Malawi.  I think it is currently about half students from the Balaka area and half from other areas.  While we have poor students many of them coming from out of town are very well off.  Some of their parents came to pick them up for break in Cars that I would have been impressed to see in the states.  We have a scholarship program to help those who are unable to pay school fees.  It would be nice to help the poorest of the poor in the area which we are trying to do, but we need to find a way to actually get them to school which is difficult since many of them live out in the Bush with no phones or electricity.  It is a Catholic school but we have several students of other denominations and some Muslims as well.