First Discount House (FDH) Managing Director Mike Chiwalo Thursday took time off his busy schedule to mentor students at Monkey Bay Community Day Secondary school in Mangochi.
Chiwalo took time to encourage the students on the fruits of working hard and excelling in their studies saying the world now is looking for people with good qualifications.
“There are good things that are attached to your achievements especially when you have the required qualifications, companies will remunerate you properly, so do not lose focus in your studies so that you achieve your goals,” said Chiwalo.
He said the FDH Group started the mentorship programme with an aim of mentoring secondary students for them to become productive citizens.
“FDH, being a Malawian owned company, wants to help secondary school learners in the country to grow with entrepreneurship skills which can help them become huge players in the national economy. FDH Financial Holdings has put in place about K150 million to support the education sector in the country.”
“Apart from our general mentorship program, FDH also encourages its employees to adopt a secondary school learner and mentor him or her through career guidance and other aspects so that the learners might have a role model when pursuing education,” said Chiwalo.
During the mentorship event, First Discount House also donated K2 million to the school to be used for purchasing classroom desks.
“We discussed with the Monkey Bay CDSS officials to get their views on how we can assist them under our mentorship program and they asked for classroom desks. As a company we have a program called FDH Cares which is one of the key projects which we are implementing to help the government achieve sustainable development goals hence our donation today,” said Chiwalo.
He said through the FDH Cares program, FDH is sponsoring needy university students in the country as well as supporting some graduate youths with start-up capital for those with brilliant business ideas.
In his remarks, Head Teacher for Monkey Bay CDSS Mike Malasa described the donation as timely because it has managed to fill the gap which existed at the school.
Malasa said about 50 percent of the learners had no desks which was demotivating to them, hence the coming in of the desk will greatly improve performance for the learners.
“We are very grateful for this donation by FDH Financial Holdings. At the moment we are facing another shortage of classroom blocks such that we can appreciate if other partners come in to assist,” said Malasa.
Apart from Monkey Bay CDSS, FDH Holdings conducted similar mentorship sessions at Lunzu, St. Patrick’s and Ntcheu Secondary Schools.