MEDIA REACTION - INTERNATIONAL AID,

UNCLAS LILONGWE 000744 SIPDIS FOR AF/PD, AF/S, AF/RA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR KOCI KPAO MI SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION - INTERNATIONAL AID, LILONGWE ¶1. "Bush Touches Desperate Souls" ¶2. The independent daily, "The Daily Times" of August 24, 2005, carried a full page story/opinion piece by Malawian journalist, Isaac Masingati. Masingati hails the newly launched Ambassador's Girls Scholarship Program as a key to easing underprivileged girls' educational predicaments. Excerpts follow. ¶3. "Is there a relationship between the American President George Bush and two little girls, one in Rumphi and the other in Mulanje? None, skeptics would say, but Isaac Masingati found out one. ¶4. If you were to ask among the young of Limbuli bordering Mozambique in Mulanje, you would be amazed how the name George Bush easily slips through their lips. ¶5. He is reaching out to desperate and needy girls who would have dropped from school due to poverty by providing them with requirements that will keep them in class and away from early marriages. While their understanding of the American President varies from the film maestro Harrison Ford of Air Force One to the anti- terrorist buster . the children of Limbuli in Mulanje and Bolero in Rumphi do agree on one thing: whoever this man Bush is, he is a good man. ¶6. This is a national tragedy. Because of poverty, children of promise cannot stay in school and often end up commercial sex workers where they die of HIV/AIDS. Some become premature mothers who cannot provide for their children while the rest sneak into the tobacco and tea estates where they are harassed and abused by employers and fellow workers. Thanks to the Ambassador's Girls Scholarship Program (AGSP),such underprivileged girls are assisted with essential provisions to ease their educational predicaments. Eastham