Alice (taken from an interview held in 2008)

Alice has been at Alive and Kicking for over a year and it is her first real job. When young she was looked after by her uncle who paid her school fees in Livingston but when he died she had to drop out of school. It costs about 300,000 kwacha per year to go to a government school. After dropping out of school, she was trained by her aunt to be a tailor and one day she would like to use her tailoring skills to make her own clothes.

She now lives with her mum, her mum's five children and her own son who is 2 years old. She doesn't see the father of her child and he gives her no support. They rent a house with two rooms for 80,000kwacha per month. The house doesn't have electricity or a running tap so Alice will often collect water before work. she is the only person in the house with a job.

She is very proud to have a job which supports her family and feels really good to be working because she used to have nothing to do. Life was much harder when she wasn't working, although the work she does for Alive and Kicking is tiring.