Today's portrait is of Theresa Kachindamoto. I had never heard of her before today, but she's a new hero as of this morning, when I read an article about how, after she came to power as the senior chief of the tribes in the Monkey Bay area of Malawi, she decided that she would enforce a law that has been ignored, even though it was enacted in 2015: She ended the practice of child marriage for girls under 18.
Not only did she start enforcing it, she went retroactive: She went from tribe to tribe, enlisting the other sub-chiefs in her plan, dismissing those who held out against her, and ultimately annulling some 850 marriages between men and their child brides. Then she told the girls' ex-husbands or parents to take care of their children (some girls as young as 12 already had babies), and sent all the girls back to school!
It's nice to read, for a change, about someone in power who is acting for the greater good. Here is the Chief!
This is the end of my portraits, for now—tomorrow begins the 30x30 Direct Watercolor Challenge, which lasts throughout the month of June. Unless...I get brave enough to do a portrait without an underdrawing. Wait and see!
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