Voices Awake Girls Academy
Voices Awake Girls Academy
Every girl deserves the opportunity to learn, grow, and imagine a future filled with possibility.
In Malawi, too many girls leave school before completing their education. Poverty, child marriage, early pregnancy, exploitation, and harmful traditions can all stand between a girl and her future. At the same time, local schools are often few and overcrowded, making access to quality education even more difficult.
Voices Awake has spent years walking alongside girls as they overcome these barriers through education, mentoring, trauma-informed care, meals, tutoring, sponsorship, and a safe place to belong.
Now, we are taking a significant next step: building the Voices Awake Girls Academy.
A School Built on a Different Vision
Our dream is to create a secondary school for girls that doesn't simply provide an education—it communicates their worth from the moment they arrive.
Too often, communities experiencing poverty are expected to settle for whatever is available. Voices Awake Founder Vanessa Mwangala believes the girls of Malawi deserve something different.
"I wanted to build like I have a lot of resources at my disposal because just by the design of an interesting school than the norm, [it] will immediately motivate the girls to think different and aim for something different. The school design itself communicates excellence before academics start."
The Voices Awake Girls Academy is being designed around that belief.
We envision a school that is beautiful, inspiring, practical, and achievable—a place that shows every student who walks through its doors that excellence is for her, too.
This campus will be the first step toward Vanessa's larger vision of creating schools of excellence for girls across Malawi.
A Campus Designed for Girls to Thrive
In partnership with Conduit Collaborative, Voices Awake has developed a master plan for a purpose-built girls' secondary school campus in Salima, Malawi.
Designed to support learning, community, spiritual growth, and everyday life, the campus will include classrooms, science and computer facilities, a library, dining spaces, a chapel, administrative spaces, and areas for recreation and gathering.
Buildings are organized around welcoming outdoor spaces where students can connect, study, and play. The design also responds to Malawi's climate with shade, natural airflow, and covered walkways—creating a campus that is beautiful, comfortable, practical, and attainable to build.
Why Design Matters
For Voices Awake, this project is about more than constructing buildings. The environment itself is part of the education. We want every girl who enters the campus to experience beauty and excellence—and begin to imagine those same possibilities for her own life.
As Vanessa explains:
“I wanted a school that felt simple to achieve so that everyone feels like they can do great things with ease, visually beautiful because poor people deserve good things too, and yet something that wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg to build.”
In partnership with Conduit Collaborative, Voices Awake has translated this vision into a thoughtful, beautiful, and practical campus designed specifically for the girls who will learn and grow here—a place that communicates that they are valuable, capable, and worthy of opportunity.
The plans are taking shape. Now we need partners to help bring them to life.
Help Us Build the Voices Awake Girls Academy
This school represents more than classrooms.
It represents a safe place to learn.
A community where girls are supported.
An environment that communicates dignity and excellence.
And an opportunity for a new generation of young women to imagine a different future.
You can help make this vision a reality.
Your gift will help Voices Awake move from master plan to construction and create a school where girls in Malawi can receive an excellent education, discover their potential, and become women equipped to transform their families and communities.
