Engineering: The Engineer’s Call to Lake Malawi

There is something common about the waves, fishes, sand, rocks, and all the non-human features of Lake Malawi: their universal ignorance about what may soon befall their home, the fresh waters that have sustained them for ages.


Confirmed reports have it that it has pleased human beings to declare Lake Malawi a ‘suspect’. The State ‘accuses’ the lake of hiding one of the most sought-after commodities in the world- oil- in its underground belly. While this may, to natural resources-cupped Malawi, be an opportunity in the waiting; it is, to non-human inhabitants of the lake, a predicament.


Such a double predicament because, even if the water inhabitants and stand-still features had the will to know, and the brains to mind, no human being would still have bothered to seek their consent!


But, still unknown to them, there is one section of human beings that minds on their behalf- the engineer. Engineering- defined as the discipline, art, skill, profession and technology of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes- has proven to be such an important discipline in oil exploration.


Non-human mongers of Lake Malawi- dead or alive- would be happy- if they had the senses- to learn that the engineer has always stood up to their defense during feasibility studies. In such cases, engineers have not only helped by offering suggestions on equipment and analyzing samples; they have also helped assess the impact of human activities on the environment.



This is why Dr. Matthews Mtumbuka, president for the Malawi Institution of Engineers (MIE), believes that the local engineer will be crucial to Lake Malawi oil exploration exercises.


“Oil exploration and production is a very complex area and many disciplines of engineering are required. First of all, the equipment that is used for oil exploration requires engineers,” Mtumbuka says.


That is not all.


“Beyond that, when geologists find samples and conduct their analysis, they will, then, pass on their works to engineers to conduct engineering analyses. Oil engineers will quantify how much oil may be expected on the ground based on characteristics they see on the samples.


“Most importantly, the engineers will also quantify how much of the oil may be extracted, based on such characteristics as the porosity of material where oil is- depending on pressure patterns and many other characteristics.


“Engineers will also be involved in drilling and operating wells that would be used in further verifying initial findings as well as, eventually, the wells that would be used in the actual production of oil,” Mtumbuka adds.


But the typical engineer does not stop there as, during the production phase, engineers are, again, heavily involved in the installation of sophisticated equipment used in oil extraction and refinery. But the engineer’s job will be incomplete if he doesn’t get involved in the installation of pipeline systems used for oil transportation, among other activities.


In all cases, the engineer is the driver. May the driver, please, declare his position on oil exploration in Lake Malawi?


“MIE strongly supports the drive to explore oil in Malawi, and Malawian engineers will work to contribute positively towards efforts to find lasting solutions to forex and economic sustainability challenges facing the nation,” Mtumbuka declares.



The voice of a confident man, really. Does he think the Malawian engineer has what it takes, though?



“First, let us be frank here. The vast majority of Malawian engineers were trained at the University of Malawi’s Polytechnic. At the Poly, there are three main disciplines of engineering – civil, electrical and mechanical engineering. None of them is directly related to some of the core engineering disciplines required for oil exploration and production.



“Civil and mechanical engineering may help in drilling wells, but they will still need some more training in well-engineering. Electrical engineers may help in instrumentation and process engineering but, again, they will need some more training before they can work on oil platforms.



“In short, I see that, as we run the oil exploration project, in parallel, we urgently need a training programme. In the short term, existing engineers need to be sent for (such) short term specialized training (as) one year master’s degrees that help them major in the different specialized fields relating to oil operations.



“(These specialized fields include) reservoir engineering, well-engineering, process engineering, petroleum engineering,” Mtumbuka says, suggesting that, in the long term, the Poly should be equipped with requisite resources to incorporate oil exploration and production engineering courses.



But this does not question the credentials of the local engineer in national development. In fact, there is so much work for the engineer in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS).


At a workshop organized for business journalists by MIE in November 2010, the then Principal Secretary for Economic Planning and Development told stunned journalists that, out of the nine major themes of the MGDS, six of them were directly related to, and dependent on, the practice of engineering.



Mtumbuka elaborates: “Specifically, engineers are involved in the planning, designing and implementation of technical solutions to national problems relating to such areas as transportation on land, water and in air; relating to utilities such as water and electricity, housing, irrigation, manufacturing as well as telecommunications, among many other specialized engineering fields.



“Engineers are the people who design and put in place systems and structures that enable operations and production in all these areas. Engineers also manage the support, maintenance and modification of these systems when in operation.”



In the face of all these responsibilities, it comes as a surprise that MIE was born just recently, on December 4, 1998. Yet Malawi attained independence in 1964, and adopted multiparty system of politics in 1994. Could this explain the country’s sorry state of under-development?



The good news is that MIE is here to stay, according to Mtumbuka, mainly because the institution has set itself a target: to act as a voice, a platform, and centre for information and technological knowledge- sharing for different categories of engineers and technicians practicing in Malawi.



“The main objective of MIE is to advance the science and practice of engineering, thereby enhancing the contribution of engineering professionals to the social economic development of Malawi. MIE works hand in hand with the Malawi Board of Engineers, established under the Engineers Act (Cap 53.03) of the Laws of Malawi. MIE also works closely with the Malawi Government to influence policy for national social and economic development,” Mtumbuka says.



His hope is that, with MIE affiliated to the World Federation of Engineering Organisations, Commonwealth Engineers Council, African Engineers Forum, and the Federation of African Engineering Organisations, the country stands to benefit from knowledge sharing.



Close links with the Institution of Engineers Tanzania, Zimbabwe Institution of Engineers, a horde of institutions of Engineers in South Africa, and the Engineering Institution of Zambia, could also help the Malawian engineer come out clean in the Lake Malawi exploration exercise.



It is, in a way, the labour of perfection.

Primary Justice: Formal system overwhelmed as chiefs’ courts go dry

Traditional Authority (T/A) Kanduku remembers fondly how he used to settle so many cases, sometimes touching the cylinder of 20 a week, at his court in Mwanza district; now he either sits all day long basking in the sun or tender to his chickens as cases become more and more elusive.


“I am a worried man because the formal justice system is eating up much of the cases we (traditional leaders) used to settle in the recent past. Imagine a whole magistrates’ court handling cases of crop or chicken theft, and in the end meting a five-year sentence on the offender. This is breaking our communities instead of uniting people,” says Kanduku.


Initially, dispute-resolution institutions comprise of two categories: the primary justice system –which refers to the way people resolve conflicts, access justice, and address issues within their cultural set up using their own resources – and the formal justice system, an obligatory constitutional requirement that falls under the judiciary.


The Malawi constitution also supports the peaceful settlement of disputes as a principle of national policy under section 13, which also addresses such issues as gender equality, nutrition, health, the environment, rural life, education, disability rights, children, the family, elderly, international relations, peaceful settlement of disputes, administration of justice, economic management, public trust and good governance.


Kanduku blames the situation on formal courts’ zeal for “petty” cases, a development he says has led to loss of respect for chiefs as feuding community members opt for the courts at the expense of their credibility.


“When people opt for these courts the impression created is that we chiefs are corrupt, biased, and so incompetent that they cannot resolve these issues; as a result our subjects no longer respect us, no longer believe in us. This trend must change and courts should start referring petty issues back to us. In fact, only cases with referral letters from either the senior chief, T/A, group village headman, or village headman should be entertained in order to reduce the backload of cases in our courts,” he opines.


He is not alone in this predicament as T/A Nthache, also from the same district, is facing the same problem. He used to preside over an average of 30 community disputes a month but now settles a maximum of three on a troublesome month.


Nthache says the trend baffles him because the formal justice system is almost over-stretched with cases, mostly from his very subjects.


“The worrying thing about this development is that most of the victims are women and children; there have been increased cases of rape, incest, home-based violence, animal and crop theft, and even deliberate damage to property. In some cases, the offenders have gone on to commit grievous crimes because they know that once caught they will be tried in a court that is very far away from their area.


“What Malawians must realize is that when a case has been settled using traditional means like chiefs, it acts as a deterrent because culprits don’t want to be tried in the presence of their fellow community members as they feel ashamed and disgraced. This works because the role of us chiefs is to settle disputes and bring people together again. People who offend each other even shake hands, but formal courts: their duty is to judge and have nothing to do with reconciliation,” says Nthache.


He attributes the current upsurge of political cases in Malawian courts to the same problem, where society becomes more and more inconsiderate about chiefs’ role in community disputer management, arguing political bickering starts at community level through such acts as banning some political parties from addressing public rallies in some villages, but because people overlook the responsibility of traditional leaders in solving such issues the problems grow and overcrowd formal court systems.


Mwanza District Commissioner, Paul Kalilombe, attributes the whole problem to lack of collaboration and proper case referral mechanisms between traditional leaders and formal courts, as well as various district stakeholders –community policing members, social welfare official, health officials, magistrate courts’ officials, marriage counselors, police personnel, and religious leaders –mainly because they work in isolation.


“But this will be a thing of the past following the introduction of an initiative, the Malawi Primary Justice Programme that has been launched and aims at building the capacity of chiefs, and other players. Through it, these people will be oriented and trained in case handling, management and as filing as you know that most of our chiefs face the problem of case records management. In fact, if you asked most of our traditional leaders about cases they handled in 1998, they won’t be able to furnish you with the records.


“It is hoped that the biggest beneficiaries will be women and children because this category of society continues to face the brunt of violence, sexual abuse, battering and other incidences of human rights abuse. Our chiefs will also begin to treat such issues seriously, unlike in the past where they used to be treated as domestic incidences, even when the woman or child lost a body organ,” says Kalilombe.


According to the District Commissioner, the tendency by district, as well as national organisations, to work in isolation with the aim of enjoying monopoly over donor funds has contributed to the problem of lack of coordination as more and more organisations shun integrated efforts due to self-serving purposes, albeit at the expense of women and children.


The programme is being funded by the British Department for International Development (DFID) through the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) but is being implemented by the Association of Progressive Women. But the Mwanza District Assembly is the legal holder as the programme falls under the Local Government component.


Noel Msiska, Mwanza District Coordinator for the Primary Justice Programme, reveals that 80 to 90 per cent of the Malawian population has access to the primary justice system and that, to that effect, there is urgent need to train traditional leaders, especially on how best they can handle human rights abuses against women and children. Most chiefs, he says, still lag behind in terms of human rights knowledge and case referral systems hence community members’ loss of trust in them.


Says Msiska: “The majority of Malawians, especially in rural areas, only have access to the informal justice system due to several factors and these include: “inadequate legal personnel, one lawyer representing 40 000 people; the dissolution of the traditional courts, which has further widened the gap between those who have access to the formal justice system and those who have not; and poverty. It is cheaper to go to a village court than the High or magistrate court, considering the high legal costs in a country where over half the population lives below the poverty line.”

Six months ago, Chief Justice Amastazia Msosa acknowledged that the justice system was plagued by a mountain of unresolved cases, promising to do her best to clear the case backlog.

Six months later, nothing has changed!

Maternal Mortality and Morbidity: Beating death to the speed

Death, the robber of daily breath, has slower days, too; days so slow a bicycle travels faster.


Clever minds merely attach carts to such bicycles during death’s slower days, load the sick before conditions worsen, and rush to the nearest health facility. Chances are that the sick will more likely be embraced by hospital wards than the jaws of death- beating death to the speed.


Sounds strange? This knowledge has been widespread in Malawi, spanning from the days of the ox-cart, when pregnant women, the seriously ill, among others, depended on community goodwill and human-animal (donkeys/cattle) relationship to tame death.


At least until the beef cattle owner realized that, beaten more often at the back, the beef animal develops thick skin and fetches little in kilos at the market. You beat the cow and you squeeze some meet ‘into’ the animal, hitting oneself in the pocket.


Cattle are also scarce these days, apart from earning hefty head prices- and so the bicycle took over. The Centre for Reproductive Heath (CRH), a department at the College of Medicine (a constituent college of the University of Malawi) in Blantyre was among the institutions to buy into the idea.


A pilot project on bicycle ambulances was born in Makanjira and Nkumba areas in Mangochi. This was time, in early 2000s, when well-founded fears about high mortality and morbidity rates animated the nation.


There was a decree- silent decree confirmed by the Demographic Heath Survey of 1998- that, out of 100, 000 births, some 894 Malawian citizens had to die. Just like that.


“This is too high a rate”, complained the then CRH executive director Dr. Agnes Chimbiri “It is too high a rate we cannot attain sustainable, social-economic development. The woman, more than men, contributes a lot to national development.”


While the Malawian father is still very much the patriarch, it is the woman who controls the home, crop fields, and life.


Hers were sentiments made with logic and a modicum of documented evidence Traditional Authority Makanjira had no more task than to concur:


“We can only achieve real well-being by investing in the health-needs of our women. It is good that Mangochi is among the districts exploring the use of bicycle ambulances,” Makanjira said at the time.


Today, women continue to die. What does not continue, however, is Dr. Chimbiri at CRH; She now is at the United Nations Development Programme (Malawi office), taking the message home, perhaps, that for development to live by its name, is must wear the ordinary woman’s face.


This development begins at the maternity wing.


What has changed, also, is that new innovations on how to utilize bicycle ambulances are emerging- this time around from strange destinations, Take, for instance, The Netherlands. Anything Malawian about the Netherlands?


“Very well so,” quips Roel Barkhof, chairperson for a Dutch foundation called Transport4Transport. This is a foundation that promotes innovative transport technologies in a bid to speed up the time it takes one, in this case pregnant women, to reach health centres and get their lives back.


“He who cares for you, and your health, is a friend in deed; it goes beyond blood. It is something that has to do with the inner connection. In that respect, there are so many things Malawian about Holland, and many thing Holland about being Malawian. We are all striving for good life. Well-being.”


Transport4Transport foundation is an arm of Wagenborg, a profit-making organization registered in the Netherlands. The later uses part of its financial resources and staff (who work for the foundation as volunteers) to help improve healthcare delivery systems in such countries as Malawi.


“Malawi is the only country we are working in. We want to help improve people’s lives, and this includes those with physical challenges. So far, we have funded the production of over 400 carts for bicycle ambulances and spend 280 Euro (about K54, 320) on each,” said Be Vam der Weide, foundation treasurer.


The two were in Malawi to gauge progress on activities they bankroll and, among other charity organizations, visited Stephanos, Liebemzell and Maikhanda- marking their third visit to Malawi since 2007, when they set their heart on Malawi and never want to pluck it back.


Barkhof and Weide came so silently, physically. But their actions, as good actions do, spoke louder than words and reached the ears of Reen Kachere- Minister responsible for the Elderly and People with Disabilities- at Capital Hill.


Kachere quickly asked for a meeting on Friday, July 9, 2010.


Among others, the minister said she wanted to exploit the possibility of using Transport4Transport’s kind financial hand to produce carts for physically challenged people wishing- not to reach the hospital faster this time around, but- to venture into small scale businesses!


“Mobility has always been a challenge for most people with disabilities, and this is because most of them lack amenities such as wheelchairs. Those with wheelchairs also face more challenges in terms of transport: they fail to carry bulky goods. We feel like these people could help us in that regard,” said Kachere.


Kachere said, given such opportunities, the physically challenged can operate door-to-door businesses- in the process uplifting their social-economic status.


As it stands now, most of them sit in the country’s streets looking for ‘today’, daily bread. Kachere says this is not the best way to live one’s life.


“It is my hope that, once these carts become available to these people, they will begin to live productive lives. Productive life is characterized by progress; there is no progress in looking for arms. It’s opportunities like business that offer the possibility of human progress,” said Kachere.


She envisages a time when every wheelchair shall have a cart attached to it; in the cart, goods and other materials that add value to life- supporting the one in front of the cart.


This is hope. Yet, it all started with a dream, then vision, of one Peter Meijer. In February 2009, he decided to come to Malawi with his family and venture into bicycle-carts’ production.


He opened shop on the fringes of Chemussa and termed his business ‘Sakaramento’. The locals set up bicycle taxis and call them ‘Sacramento. It all means bicycle transport.


Meijer then came across Barkhof and Weide through the internet, and so begun the process of hope for many.


Said Meijer: “We produce two kinds of carts: CareCar (bicycle ambulance) and TengaCar (transport cart). The Care Car is a bicycle adapted to transport patients and pregnant women to healthcare facilities in rural settings. It has sun and rain protectors to safeguard the life of the patient.”


It is the TengaCar that Kachere is interested in because, as a push and bicycle cart, the physically challenged and elderly can carry goods in high volumes. What with a recommended maximum load of 150 kilograms- the equivalent of three 50 kg bags of maize, rice, or beans.


Sakaramenta is also doing a social service. It encourages its workers to go for further education, both secondary and technical, offsetting 80 per cent of the costs. That is why the organization closes at 4 O’clock during weekdays to give people the chance to go to school.


Blessings Kachepa of Matimati Village, T/A Njema, Mulanje dropped out of Muloza Community Secondary School’s Form 2 class due to lack of funds. He now has the future back, having secured the opportunity to attend Form 3 at Chirimba Night School.


“I have been given the world again; school means everything to me,” he said.


Sentiments shared by Hassan Isaac, 27. Though he has no Malawi School Certificate of Education certificate, he now pursues a Refrigeration and Air-conditioning course.


In November, he will be sitting for Malawi Trade Test examinations.


It is change happening. It has happened for the hands behind the carts; will it not happen for those using the carts?


“It will (work.), surely,” Kachere can be hopefully stubborn.

Politics and Governance: Malawian Women Eye Influential Political Positions

Her features, which vindicate her uneasy alliance with traditional gender stereotypes, give her away.



“I have always felt that men use gender stereotypes as an excuse to hide their weaknesses and victimize women,” says Gladys Mangani, one of the few women who contested in the Local Government Elections (LGE) of 2000 and failed.



But, unperturbed by her tumble 13 years ago, Mangani vows to fight on to the better, or bitter, end. She says she is poised to contest in the LGEs expected to run simultaneously with the Presidential and Parliamentary elections of 2014.



Mangani, who hails from the area of Sub Traditional Authority (ST/A) Mpunga in Chiradzulu, draws his inspiration from ST/A Mpunga- a woman who has defied the odds to subdue even men when she pronounces judgement.



Mpunga herself has done little to douse Mangani’s interest to try her luck in an unfair world dominated by foulmouthed, resource rich men.



“I encourage women in my area to try their luck in leadership positions. I believe that women, as people who appreciate the challenges posed by issues such as lack of access to portable water, the long distances children walk to get to the nearest school and hunger at the household level, stand a better chance of resolving our challenges than men,” says Mpunga.



That is how Mangani has managed to shrug off the shame of falling once (in 2000) and managed, with bright eyes, to wave time’s attritions aside.



Mangani is one of the women from Chiradzulu and Zomba Cluster who are part of a network of 2000 women across Malawi that have started benefitting from interventions aimed at equipping them with skills and knowledge to be effective candidates in the 2014 LGEs, thanks to efforts by the Active Learning Centre and Women’s Legal Resources Centre, Ministry of Gender and the NGO Gender Coordination Network. It is being funded by the Scottish Government, through its International Development Fund (Malawi).



Taken on board in ‘Mphavu kwa Amayi’ (The Empowering of Malawian Women as Leaders) Project, the women have been targeted after realising that local governments are responsible for the delivery of public services such as education, health and water – areas that require a strong women’s voice if development targets are to be met.



Women have largely failed to leave their mark in politics, so much so that, during the LGEs of 2000, only 69 women were elected across Malawi, representing 8.3 percent. A performance study on 2009’s 50-50 campaign showed that an early lead-in time is essential to identify and properly prepare women to stand as candidates.



There are 34 local government areas in which councils have been established. Each council is divided into wards – from where councilors are elected. Currently, there are four city councils, two municipalities and 28 districts.



Councilors are viewed as the key to meeting the objectives of decentralisation- a process by which central government gradually transfers some of its political power, responsibilities and financial resources to local government- as provided for in Section 146 of the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi and the Local Government Act.



Gender, Children, and Social Welfare Minister, Anitta Kalinde, says, as a party to several regional and international instruments that promote gender equality, equity and women empowerment, Malawi has an obligation to empower women.



Malawi is party to party to instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, 1987; the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, 1995; the Sadc Gender and Development Declaration, 1997; and its Addendum on the Prevention and Elimination of Violence Against Women and Children, 1998.



“In order to operationalise the instruments, the Government of Malawi established the National Gender Machinery which is My Ministry, integrated gender in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy II, which is the investment framework for national development,” says Kalinde.



Kalinde says her ministry has developed Gender Mainstreaming Guidelines for budgets and the public sector as a tool in ensuring that more women are in decision making positions at all the levels. She observes that poverty and gender-based violence have a female face and efforts to achieve sustainable and equitable development cannot be realized if women are not at par with their male counterparts.



Elizabeth Phiri, one of first-timers interested to run in the 2014 LGEs says, for women to get access to big leadership roles such as that of legislator, minister, or head of state, they need to “build their fences from the ground” by standing in LGEs.



“The advantage with being a councilor is that these (councilors) are people who live in the area they represent, and know and understand the concerns of the people living there. The other thing is that there are no academic qualifications required for a councilor,” says Phiri, who hails from Chiwaula Village in Zomba.

Improving Girls' Right to Education: The Case of Malawi

Her childhood goal was to beat her parents' levels of education and grab the opportunities that education promises.


But, as has become the norm among school-going girls from the area of Traditional Authority Juma in Mulanje, her present situation is a canvass of failed dreams, a development attributed to the day 15-year-old Juliet Kalima decided to desert the place where joy resides- the classroom- and venture into the world on uncertainties far beyond.


Today, those wishing to appreciate her predicament just have to visit Namphongo Market on a market day (Thursday) and they will be hit by the full force of illiteracy levels among girls. The market, located a stone-throw away from Juma’s courts, is congested with girl-vendors, mostly aged between 10 and 18.


Kalima revealed in mid-April that she was forced to drop out of school after getting pregnant in Standard 7.


“That is two years ago. I used to school at Chambe Primary School but was forced out because, they said, they wanted me to deliver and take care of the baby first, yet they left the boy who impregnated me in school,” Kalima said.


That was 13 months ago. Today, having successfully delivered, Kalima said she has no intention of going back to school.


“I am married now, but not to the boy who impregnated me. He told me he wanted to finish school first and I thought that I could not wait for that. I married a business man who, thankfully, happens to be an understanding,” Kalima said, before adding:


“He is the one who gave me K20, 000 to venture into my small scale business of selling pieces of clothes here.”


But, while dropping out of school may, to many, mark the beginning of the loss of all the future promises, that is not the case with Kalima, as she professes to be happy.


It is, therefore, another school drop-out, 17-year-old Agnes Mbulaje who, in tandem with the saying that it is the “the dead who, under the world’s rough pelt, sink into the blindness of despair”, has a sad tale to tell.


“I fell pregnant while in Standard 8, but the man who impregnated meabandoned me a year later on the pretext that I was too young,” Mbulaje said.


However, all may not be lost because the youth themselves, through Tiyamike Youth Alliance for Social Development (Tiyasode), are trying to reverse the situation in Namphongo.


Tiyasode Executive Director, Simon Walima, said the organisation has, since its establishment in 2005, tried to reach out to the girls through clubs such as Luwangwa Girls Club, Malire Girls Club, Timvane Girls Club, Langizo Youth Club, Tayamba Youth Club, Tithandizane Youth Club, Ayin, and Lonjezo Girls Club.


“We have tried, through livelihhod and disaster risk management programmes to reverse the situation. We have tried to run a resource centre for youth, provide vocational training and promote girls education, as well as reafforestation and advocacy programmes on the elimination of harmful cultural practices. Little by little, we are seeing changes, but that is not happening quick enough,” Walima said.


So pathetic is the situation that Mulanje District Youth Officer, Daud Chikwanje, has expressed concern that, if not checked, the situation could go out of hand.


“Namphungo is known for all the bad things in the district. We have issues of high school drop-out rates, early marriages, defilement. We even have parents who offer Standard 6 pupils as wives to teachers,” Chikwanje said.


This year alone, revealed Chikwanje, six girls had dropped out of school at Namphungo Community Day Secondary School, while 23 pupils from Standard 4 to 8 had dropped out of school in the past year alone.


The Ministry of Education has, meanwhile, decried the trend.


“We have noted that many girls are dropping out (of school) on different grounds such as pregnancy, lack of school fees, especially at secondary level, early marriages in other areas of the country, and other factors,” said ministry spokesperson Lindiwe Chide.


She said the ministry was pinning on the bursary scheme, which has a cash transfer component that caters for out-of-school needs; the re-admission policy, which encourages girls to go back to school after delivery, and; role modeling programmes that use female professionals within the vicinity of target girls to promote the retention of girls in school.


“You may wish to note that some of the girls drop out (of school) just because they do not have models who can inspire them in their areas,” Chide said, adding that mother groups, which are established in schools and are managed by school management committees, were also assisting the ministry’s cause.


Chide hoped that these programmes, along with the school meals programme, would help make the classroom attractive to the girl child.


A 2010 report compiled by Advancing Girls Education in Africa (Age Africa) and titled ‘The State of Girl’s Education in Malawi’ quotes a 2010 World Bank report which indicates that, of the 27 percent of girls that enroll in secondary schools in Malawi, only 13 percent end up attending secondary education.


It adds that only 13 percent of the girls finish the 4 years of secondary school, while only 5 percent of women nationally have passed their Malawi School Certificate of Education examinations.


“In Malawi, gender inequity in educational enrolment is evidenced by the relative under-enrollment of girls in secondary education. In rural areas alone, girls are outnumbered 10:1 by their male counterparts. Girls also consistently perform worse in national examinations and face dropout at a much higher rate,” reads part of the Age Africa report.


The report blames the situation on gender-based violence, inability to pay school fees, poor quality education, lack of knowledge and resources around sexual and reproductive health issues, lack of female role models, long distance to school, among others.


Observing that high school education was not free in Malawi, the report says a girls’ likelihood of attending and staying in school depends in large part on her ability to pay both fees and associated costs (uniforms, examination fees, supplies), ability to get to school, and the girl’s ability to avoid pregnancy and access to accurate information about her own sexual and reproductive.


Another research, released in August 2009 and conducted by G. Holkamp of Hogeschool Windesheim and titled “Reasons for Girl Drop-Out in Malawi’ indicates that there’s a high drop-out rate in Malawi, especially among girls.


“In 2008, 360, 771 learners were enrolled in primary schools of Malawi in total. Of those learners, 37 percent dropped out,” says the report.


The report also cites early marriages and pregnancies, poverty (orphans), lack of parental care, bad school condition and health problems as some of the reasons fueling the trend.


On the surface, these statistics ma appear as if they were dark shadows on a long, winding road to victory but, on the ground, Chide says things are ticking.

Permaculture: Making Problems Edible

Is there anything that strikes people more than the seven-letter word ‘problem’? Can there be such a thing as ‘immunity’ to problems?


Ask Mugove Walter Nyika who, at 53, is supposed to know problems better, and he will tell you in the face that there is no such thing as a problem in Permaculture. The Rescope Regional (East and Southern Africa) Coordinator even has the audacity to stand up for his assertion.


“I am talking of Permaculture here, and not any other branch of Agriculture,” Nyika says.


The Permaculture Institute, an educational institution based in the United States of America, defines Permaculture as “an ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor” that “teaches us how to build natural homes, grow our own food, restore diminished landscapes and ecosystems, catch rainwater, build communities and much more”.


Nyika says, in Permaculture, problems that plague other forms of farming are turned into food for predators, thereby promoting food sovereignty.


“For example, when we deal with the issue of Natural Pest and Disease Management- which is one of the key characteristics of a Permaculture landscape- we look at predator and prey systems. In Permaculture, we don’t say we have a problem of snails; we say there is lack of ducks (which prey on snails), Nyika says.


In the same vein, there are no pests in Permaculture; just lack of predators. Because there is nothing on earth that has no predator, Nyika challenges that nothing goes out of hand in the world of natural pest and disease management.


Rescope, spurred on by the righteousness of its anti-Agricultural -problems cause, last year embarked on a project dubbed ‘Growing Resilient School Communities’, which targets learners in primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions. The initiative is being bankrolled by the German organisation, Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst e.V. (The German Pentecostal Church Development Service).


Nyika says learners are targeted because they are not yet corrupted by experience and, therefore, stand a better chance of absorbing new ideas. He says schools also serve as centres of community meetings, offering people the chance to tap from new ideas.


Among other districts, the organisation is working with 18 partner organisations in Chikhwawa, Blantyre, Ntcheu, Nkhatabay, Mzimba, Karonga, Lilongwe, Thyolo, and Mangochi.


Rescope Project Coordinator, Chifundo Khokwa, says they were spurred into action after the 2006 National School Health and Nutrition Baseline (NSHNB) survey revealed that, of the 2,935 out of 3 million school-aged children (aged between five and 10 years) surveyed, 54 percent had anaemia, 50 percent had Iodine deficiency problems.


This represented an increase in the number of school-age children suffering from Anaemia, an ailment that borders on diet because in 2001, the National Micronutrient Survey revealed that 22 percent of school-aged children had anaemia. However, the survey findings indicated progress in terms of the number of children that faced Iodine-deficiency problems because the 2001 survey pegged the figure at 64 percent, while the 2006 survey found that only 50 percent faced the problem.


But the relative improvement in Vitamin A deficiency cases was blighted by NSHNB findings that 30 percent of school-aged children were stunted;,18 percent underweight, 30 percent never ate breakfast, 19 percent had bilharzias, nine percent had intestinal worms, 20 percent had malaria parasites, while 34 percent had reported illness in the past two weeks!


“We settled for Permaculture because it fits into one of the components in the School Health and Nutrition Strategy 2008 – 2018, and this is (the component of) eating healthy. Permaculture can help the country attain food sovereignty, which happens when a household is able to meet all its food requirements,” Khokwa says.


The overall goal of the School Health and Nutrition Strategy- formulated by the Ministries of Education, Science and Technology; Agriculture and Food Security; and Health- is that Malawi should have healthy, well-nourished school-aged children who can fulfill their optimum learning potential by 2015. It plans to achieve this by ensuring that children enjoy good health and eat balanced, nutritious diets.


Already, Permaculture has registered positive changes in the lives of pupils at Thunga Primary School in Thyolo, where pupils are putting hither to bare land to good use by planting trees and food crops. So far, 40 schools already benefitted from Permaculture knowledge during the pilot phase in 2007. It was funded by GTZ.


Nyika, Khokwa and their team have been working with Primary Education Advisors and School Health Nutrition (SHN) Coordinators in a number of districts to achieve their goals. Mighty Kayoyo, SHN Coordinator from Mzimba South District Education Zone, is one of the people who benefitted to new Permaculture knowledge, and waxes lyric about its wonders.


“These interventions are changing us, and helping us to go back to our nature. You see, beauty is not all about growing flowers at school. We can grow crops, too,” says Kayoyo.


These sentiments are shared by Anna Chauluka, Primary Education Advisor for Koche Zone in Mangochi, who says school officials have, in the past, contributed to soil degradation by encouraging pupils to lacerate grass and throw the materials away. Like Chauluka, Lilongwe Rural East (Malikha Zone) Primary Education Advisor, Elizabeth Chalowelera, rues the energy educators have lost promoting conventional agriculture systems.


The problem with conventional agriculture, Nyika will tell you, is that it feeds the plant and not the soil.


“They (farmers) treat the plant as a patient admitted at, say, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital. They give the plant a lot of nutrient feeds and neglect the soil that anchors the plant. In Permaculture, you do not feed the plant; you feed the soil which, in turn, feeds the plant. After that, you keep the process going by turning to the soil what came from the soil,” Nyika says.


So, while it has been argued that the ground of man’s joy has a shallow surface that is within problems’ reach, building it on the hard edifice of Permaculture is the only way of making the joy long-lasting.

Community Participation: Turning the Puppets Into HIV Battlefronts

She went to the Lunzu Voluntary HIV Counseling and Testing (VCT) centre as a level-headed woman of the world, but soon became a desolate insomniac because, as she discovered, listening to the counselor’s message demanded the repression of all her powerful instincts.


Beatrice knew, from the pre-blood testing counseling session, that to visit a VCT centre was to prepare for two possible things: an HIV-negative or HIV-positive) sero-status result.


As the counselor went about unraveling her age, relationship status, love life history, among others- their voice was a communion…until that final message, after the results, left a bitter taste in Beatrice’s mouth.


“It was difficult when I first learned about my HIV sero-status,” Beatrice says.


She says learning about it had the force of alienating her from everything in the world, and that happiness lost its originality.


“My body became smaller; I have put up weight now,” Beatrice says.


Today, facing Beatrice- a shy, sensitive woman who once just wanted to refine herself by getting out of existence- is an opportunity to appreciate that there is life- healthy life- after realising that HIV exists in one’s body.



That how it felt like when Beatrice shared her story with people those that gathered at Lunzu Community Centre Ground in mid-August, as part of a project-tour conducted by Pastor Matimelo Sinatra, who ministers at Kings Community Church in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Matimelo was in Malawi in his capacity as Africa Director for ‘E3 Initiative’, a United Kingdom-based Christian charity.


Matimelo visited an E3 Initiative-funded ‘Restoring Hope’ project run by the Word Alive Commission for Relief and Development (Wacrad) through Lunzu Pastors Fraternal.



Beatrice told the gathering that she is now over the sadness that plagued her life in those early days.



“I am fine now, and take care of my baby. It’s because of the psycho-social support I receive, I think,” Beatrice says.



Lunzu Pastors Fraternal chairperson, Bishop Stuart Chikwatu, says members of the clergy have become front-line combatants in the battle against HIV and Aids.



“Churches now provide counseling and psycho-social support. They have also helped reduce incidences of HIV-based stigma and discrimination,” Chikwatu says.



These are views shared by Wacrad’s director, Phoebe Nyasulu, who says the initiative has put communities in a better position to respond to socio-economic challenges posed by HIV and Aids. She says the people of Blantyre (T/A Makata, Kapeni, Somba, Lundu), Lilongwe, and Mzimba, have also changed their attitude towards HIV-positive people.



“Since 2007, we have built grassroots’ churches capacities, helped link these people up with other organisations, imparted business skills to them so that they can be able to secure loans. All these efforts make the initiative self-sustaining, even after the current funding phases out in February 2013,” Nyasulu says.



On his part, Matimelo says the indigenous church is key to solving challenges facing Africa. He says E3 has over 20 projects in various parts of Africa including Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Kenya, Swaziland, Brazil, Philippines and India.



“Local African churches are often the most effective means of transforming communities. They are best-placed to meet local needs because they understand the issues first-hand and can offer sustainable solutions. Their members are motivated and committed to serving their community and responding to practical, emotional and spiritual needs, as they share the love of God,” Matimelo says.



He asks people not to underrate indigenous churches.



“(Of course) the 'typical' church leaders of today are very different to those of a century ago. Rather than being white, western, educated, professional and middle-class, they are non-western, have limited formal education and are often self-supporting. But it is these local leaders that are E3 Initiative’s concern,” Matimelo says.



Indeed, Beatrice is a typical example of what local church leaders can achieve. She was full of hope at Lunzu that day. After offering people- including Blantyre District HIV and Aids Coordinator, Loveness Chikumba- an insight into how her life has been, she left the microphone to the director of ceremonies. And left the podium.



Just, then, her baby- left with female friends sitting under the black plastic tent- cried. Beatrice walked towards her, grabbed her tenderly, took her behind the tent, and sat on a yellow plastic chair under a mango tree.



The breast-feeding started. She was so positive about life. So positive about her baby’s future, too. Life goes on.

When The Ombudsman's Office Fails: The Case of Malawi

...Govt institutions snub determinations by Ombudsman



For 12 years, interdicted primary school teacher Emmanuel Samson Mtambalika from Dedza has tried different methods of arbitration before finally settling to seek justice at the Ombudsman.


His crime? He was fired in 2008 for not reporting for his Ministry of Education duties for two months, ostensibly because he travelled to the village to take care of his ailing father.


“I had bid my immediate supervisor bye but, somehow, he forgot to report to his bosses,” Mtambalika said.

His regret is that he subjected himself to the terms of the employer
on principles which he never examined properly. He alleges that his bosses were
later to use the same to victimise him.

He is one of the people who have faith in the Office of the Ombudsman. “I believe one day, justice will be done and I will go back to my teaching post.”


Constitutional body

The Office of the Ombudsman is a constitutional body, established by the 1994 Constitution of Malawi. It became "operational" in 1996, and may investigate “cases where it is alleged that any person has suffered injustice, and it does not appear that there is any remedy reasonably available by way of proceeding in the court or by way of appeal from a court or where there is no other practicable remedy".


While public servants continue to flock to the Ombudsman’s office for remedial action, legal commentators have warned that the success rate of determinations made by this institution will continue to be low because dissatisfied individuals cannot refer defied determinations to the courts.


The Ombudsman has been struggling to enforce its determinations, with a number of government ministries competing for positions on the non-compliance list.


Justice Link executive director, Justin Dzonzi, said the issue of determinations is compounded by the fact that dissatisfied individuals may not contest delays to honour determinations made in their favour in the formal justice system.



“The major weakness with the Office of the Ombudsman is that determinations do not have the force of the law; a determination is not like a court judgement,” Dzonzi said.

Dzonzi said the only path the Ombudsman could take to make sure that public institutions are honouring determinations is to report them to Parliament.


He said the tendency to defy determinations had “watered down” the
Ombudsman’s role in society.


Describing the practice of defying determinations as a violation of human rights, Dzonzi said failure to honour determinations violated the affected individuals’ right to access administrative justice.


Lawyer Joseph Kamkwasi said the government was violating the Constitution by not honouring the determinations , saying the office was “constitutionally set up.”



Raping constitution

“However, the problem with the Constitution is that it does not spell out punishment to be meted out to those who defy determinations. Otherwise, the government is raping the very Constitution it claims to uphold,” Kamkwasi said.


He accused politicians of deliberately violating the Constitutions because they know that they would not be taken to task for doing so. He said Malawi needed to emulate the example of Pakistan, where the Prime Minister was recently taken to court on contempt of court charges.


“But the main problem is that some of the cases that are referred to the Ombudsman’s office are Statute Barred, meaning that the timeframe within which they would have been referred to court has elapsed.


“For example, we all know that defamation cases can only be taken to court within six years of their occurrence, after which such cases become Statute Barred,” he said.


“This is the case with some of the cases that are referred to the Ombudsman for determination. Most of them took place during the time of the one party regime, and this limits the options available to affected individuals,” Kamkwasi said.


Kamkwasi urges the government to respect the determinations, saying it did not make sense for the government to arrest people on charges of violating provisions of the Constitution, only for it to be in the forefront disregarding the same.


Ombudsman Tujilane Chizumila told journalists in June last year that a number of government departments were not honouring the determinations.


By June last year, various government ministries had not complied with 252 determinations. Of these, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology had defied 44; 32 were defied by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development; 16 cases by the Ministry of health; nine cases by the Ministry of Natural Resources; while 24 were disregarded by the Malawi Police Service, among others.


An appraisal of the Office of the Ombudsman in Malawi commissioned by
the Royal Norwegian Embassy and carried out by Bård A. Andreassen (UiO) and Thor Oftedal and published in Norad collected reviews 5/2007 concluded that the Office is an important governance institution in terms of enhancing a public awareness about the misuse of public office.


It said the office opened about 500-600 cases every year, and had reduced the backlog of cases by about 400 in 2006.


Said part of the report: “ The office grapples with significant institutional weaknesses, which need to be resolved.”


The report added that external aid will not alone resolve these weaknesses.


“Key challenges are enhancing financial control and introduce transparent rules for management and strategic/cost-efficient use of resources. Financial commitment from the Malawi Government is essential to achieving long term financial sustainability; the Office should focus on producing and improving the system of case reporting statistics that reflect the case load, processing and conclusion of cases on a continuous basis”.


Among other donors, Office of the Ombudsman has received funding from
Norway and Sweden since year 2000.


Malawi is, however, not the only African country facing problems in
enforcing the Ombudsman’s determinations.


A paper entitled ‘The Ombudsman Phenomenon in African States Public Services’ written by Dr.Mukoro Akpomuvire of the Department of Local Government Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, indicates that “The office of the ombudsman in the public service of African States, has over the years been wobbling in its performance”.


“The reasons being largely as a result of over-centralization of government, bureaucratisation and the unwillingness of government to become truly democratic. The resultant effect has been that many citizens in African States cannot meaningfully seek redress against maladministration nor can they complain about poor governance and
services delivery,” writes Akpomuvire.


He proposes that public servants in African states should be perceived
as existing to help citizens and not to make their lives difficult.


He also says the Ombudsman’s office needs to be strengthened so that all
the tenets of a credible public service would be seen to be present and working to the advantage of all, developments that would help put a check on government activities in the interest of the citizens, and thus help to address the problems of human rights abuses, lack of accountability and the absence of good governance.



The number of countries with ombudsman institutions in sub-Sahara Africa
increased from six (Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Sudan, Nigeria and Zimbabwe) in the late 1980s to about a dozen in 1995, with Malawi, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa among the newcomers.

Malawi's Struggles to Accommodate Deaf People in Its Healthcare Delivery System

A tense hush falls over the consulting room whenever Bryson Chimenya seeks medical attention at the country’s health facilities.


It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Zingwangwa Health Centre in Blantyre- located some five minutes away from his house in Zingwangwa Township- has become a destination so far away, courtesy of communication challenges.


“I hope I will now be able to go to Zingwangwa Health Centre with the assurance that I will be assisted,” Chimenya, speaking through interpreter Bruno Mwase, recently told a group of health workers in Blantyre.


Mwase, the interpreter, is the programme officer at Malawi National Association of the Deaf (Manad).


Even though Chimenya is the executive director at Manad- a not-so-ordinary position, he continues to face a horde of challenges, mainly bordering on people’s disregard for Sign Language.


His sentiments that he would like to one day go to his nearest health centre and access health services without facing communication gaps aptly summarises the challenges faced by deaf people in the country.


According to the 2008 Population and Housing Census, the country has 86,000 people with hearing challenges. Of the 86, 000, 5,000 are registered members of Manad, and benefit from its advocacy work in all the 30 districts of the country.


Chimenya says the platform in the country is strewn with huddles for deaf people. This means that, for an organisation like Manad- which was formed in 1992 and got registered under Trustees Incorporation Act in 1996- it is a sign that the road is still long and winding.





Against the odds

For a long time, deaf people in the country have been left behind in issues of national development.


This, according to one of the people who advocates for the rights of deaf people, Juliana Mwase, is because “Firstly, Deafness is an invisible disability. It is difficult to identify on sight unless one attempts to communicate with an affected person”.


This, she says, is exacerbated by the problem of communication break-down.


“Deaf people rely on Sign Language for communication but this Sign language is unpopular, unrecognized and under-developed, which puts the deaf at a disadvantage because Sign language is their only mode of communication,” she points out.


All these challenges abound despite the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Article 29 and Malawi Disability Act Sections 17 and 18 having provisions that promote the participation of deaf people in national affairs.





Paving the way

Despite these unfavourable conditions, the Manad programme officer says efforts are being made to level the playing field for deaf people in the country.


He cites the promotion of Sign Language as a means of communication and the implementation of income-generating projects for its members as some of the activities that have raised the status of deaf people.


He says increased corroboration with organizations such as the World Federation of the Deaf and the Federation of Disability Organisations in Malawi has also helped expose challenges encountered by the deaf in their daily endeavours.


“We want Malawi to be a society in which the deaf enjoy equal opportunities,” he says. “At the moment, we are implementing an HIV/Aids Awareness and Prevention Project after observing that deaf people have been facing challenges when they want to access Voluntary Counseling and Testing services,” he says.


He says, as part of the initiative, HIV and Aids counselors and other health workers have been sensitised with the aim of getting rid of the huddles so commonplace in the country.


Currently being implemented in the seven districts of Blantyre, Mangochi, Lilongwe, Ntchisi, Salima, Mzimba and Karonga, the National Aids Commission-funded initiative started in April this year and is expected to run for one year.


“Our aim is to produce HIV and Aids materials, conduct awareness campaigns among the deaf community and schools that accommodate deaf students, and train 60 medical workers in Sign Language. We are also training deaf peer educators,” he says.


One of the people who have acquired skills in Sign Language, Blantyre-based Robert Malitoni, equates being ignorant about Sign Language to “living in the dark”.


“Knowing Sign Language makes communication easy. Before I knew sign language, I thought I did not need it, but my view of life has changed now,” Malitoni says.


Malitoni says it does not make sense to live with deaf people and, yet, fail to understand them, something he says is tantamount to being there, yet so far away.


On his part, Chimenya hopes that these efforts will go a long way in increasing the deaf community’s access to essential services including medical care.


“After we trained 20 healthcare workers from Blantyre and Mangochi in Sign Language recently, I started to feel that I can now go to Zingwangwa Health Centre and enjoy access to medical attention like everyone else. With some of those trained coming from Zingwangwa (Health Centre), I feel I stand a better chance of being assisted,” Chimenya says.


Indeed, Chimenya hopes for an end to the days when deaf people could be so near, “yet, so far away”.

Maternal mortality: Malawi’s Steps Towards 115 Deaths

A decree, introduced in the country without the involvement of the National Assembly, the Legislature and the Judiciary, has come to be embraced without the slightest hint of protest; a decree that, out of 100, 000 expectant women, 460 have to die!


Still, 100, 000 women still fall pregnant and hope against the statistics that they will live! Such is the paradox facing Malawi’s safe motherhood scene.


“The situation is so ironic that it could easily be equated to the frantic efforts of family members who cannot face up to the reality that their relative is technically dead, and advises medical workers to keep their man on life support machine on the fallacious reasoning that it is better to have a dead relative alive than live with the memories of a dead one,” Michael Mandele Chanza, a Malawian sexual reproductive health expert who works in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, observed in a writen response on Thursday.


But Mandele-Chanza was quick to point out that balancing the efforts between hope and fact can be a strange, and great, battle, observing, however, that it was imperative for Malawians to be deeply sensible of the imposibility of achieving a zero-mortality rate in the world.


Maternal mortality ratio is the number of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth, per 100,000 live births. The data are estimated with a regression model using information on fertility, birth attendants, and HIV prevalence.


“But, somewhere along the line, we come to accept and embrace the fact that it is natural to die. But death becomes painful when it occurs without medical workers’ best efforts and, in the case of pregnant women, it pains when they die because they did not go to the hospital in time, or proclastinated. It is painful because they (the women) did not give medical practitioners a chance to put their best efforts,” Mandele-Chanza added.


He said, while death will always prick the skin of people, it was still possible to minimise cases of unnecessary deaths, and pointed at increasing access to healthcare services as one of the strategies through which maternal mortality rates can be reigned in.


However, while the Ministry of Health has been providig Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) services, including maternal and new-born health care, since independence in 1964, the death rate shows no sign of abating.


Information on Safe Motherhood, sourced from the Ministry of Health, indicated that, despite all efforts, the maternal mortality remains at 675 per 100, 000 live births, with 56 percent of the deaths occuring in the Southern Region, 26 percent in the Central Region, and 17 percent in the Northern Region of Malawi.


That means, while one in every 2,400 women were at risk of dying in the course of giving birth in the United States of America, it is a totally different case in Malawi, where one out of every 36 pregnant women have to throw the ghost away in the ironic process of giving life.


“This is mainly because of poor infrastructure and accessibility problems,” Catherine Gotani-Hara, the Health Minister, said on Monday last week. “But we are doing our best to reverse the situation.”


Among other strategies, Hara cites the ban imposed on TBAs, and renewed efforts to construct building and shelter meant for the accommodation of pregnant women and their guardians as good examples.


However, Gotani-Hara acknowledged that the ban on TBAs had attracted its own problems.


“One of the problems with are grappling with is that of congestion. The ban (imposed on TBAs) has lead to an upsurge in the number of women who flock to the hospital as time for labour approaches. Our position, however, is that it is better to have women at the hospital than at home. We don’t want women to die while delivering at home,” Gotani-Hara said.


The International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics reported on its website in April that the maternal mortality rate in Malawi registered a “significant decrease in 2012-13”, observing that the rate had been “reduced from 675 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births to 460 per 100,000”.


However, the change is not happening fast enough to meet the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal 5, which seeks to reduce global maternal mortality rates to “one-quarter of 1990 levels by 2015”.


To many countries, even those that speak the same language, one-quarter means different figures.


For instance, President Joyce Banda told people who gathered at Ntcheu District Hospital’s dusty grounds on Monday that, for Malawi, the one-quarter means reducing the death rate from 460 to 115 death per 100, 000 deaths.


The Maternal mortality ratio in Malawi was last reported at 460 in 2010, according to a World Bank report published in 2012.


“But, while we have managed to reduce the rate to 460- this is a figure based on latest United Nations findings, by the way- it is still unacceptable that women should die in the process of giving birth. Even the 115 (deaths) target established in the Millennium Development Goals is also unacceptable,” Banda said.


Banda said she could not comprehend how pregnancy among local women marks the departure point from peace-of-the-mind to anxiety. She said, in developed countries, labour time was hopeful time, as characterised by purchases of clothes before the child is born- locally mocked as Kugula Mbereko Mwana Asadabadwe.


Banda, then, shared her own life story, and disclosed that she nearly died while giving birth in 1984.


“I suffered from post-partum haemorage and lost a lot of blood. I was only saved by the timely intervention of my husband’s gaenacologist friend, Dr. John Chiphangu after my husband sought him out,” Banda told a touched audience.


For her troubles in 1984, she spent seven days in hospital. And, for her troubles, she said she was glad to inherit the mantle when she was appointed African Union’s Goodwill Ambassador of Safe Motherhood.


The President said, without the gaenacologist’s effort, he would not have become President, and would merely have been a part of the obscure statistics of women who succumb to maternal complications.


The United Nations Population Fund, in a report released last week, observed that the Millennium Development Goals "most off track" for the scheme's 2015 target are those "directly linked to gender equality".


But Senior Chief Kwataine, chairperson for the Presidential Initiative on Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood, is confident that Malawi can bridge the gap between MDGs targets directly linked to gender equality and those that are not directly linked to the same.


“We have engaged an extra-gear, including the construction of shelters to ensure close monitoring of pregnant mothers and encouragement to seek quality maternal health care,” Kwataine said on Monday.


Kwataine said, in addition, the initiative is courting the private sector to train 1, 000 community midwives, the cosntruction of 130 maternity waiting shelters, and the training of 20, 000 traditional leaders.


“It’s a tall order, yes, but it can be achieved. That’s what we are doing at the moment: removing the huddles one step at a time, until we make one grand step and travel a thousand metres in our quest to stem maternal mortality rates,” Kwataine said.


Before that is achieved, however, 675 (is it 460?) have to die!

Health Care Delivery: Districts Without Amenities, The Case of Phalombe

The living suffer, and the dead still pay the price.

This is how Simeon Mawira, chairperson for Phalombe Multi-stakeholders Committee, sums the situation in Phalombe.

“We have never had a district hospital ever since Phalombe was declared a district hospital,” Mawira says.

However, Mawira says the situation has been compounded by the fact that the government has, since the 2007/08 fiscal year, allocated funding to go towards the construction of the hospital but nothing seems to materialise.



Letter from Phalombe residents

Feeling shortchanged, Phalombe residents have taken the initiative to follow up on what has been, or not been, happening. One of their strategies has been to write a letter, thus reads as follows:

Kuchokera ku: Phalombe Multi-Stakeholders Committee

Phalombe District

27th May 2013




Kupita Kwa: The District Commissioner

Phalombe District Council

P/Bag 32

Phalombe




Bwana,

CHIPATALA CHACHIKULU CHA BOMA LA PHALOMBE



Ife a Phalombe Multi-stakeholders Committee tachita kafukufuku wa mavuto a mdera la boma la Phalombe, tapeza kuti tilibe chipatala chachikulu cha boma la Phalombe.



Choncho tili kukupemphani kuti mutiuzire anthu awo kuti tikomane nawo.



Bwana DC, DPD, DHO, DSWO, DCDO, Umunthu Project Ambassador, T/A Nkhumba, T/A Nazombe, t/a Jenala.




In short, this summarises the perplexity of Phalombe residents.





Promises without fruits

Traditional Authority (T/A) Kaduya, one of the traditional leaders concerned with delays to construct the hospital, wonders why the government is failing to make good its promise despite compensating people who used to cultivate the land allocated for the hospital.


“Now, these people cannot cultivate on that land, yet the land is staying idle,” Kaduya laments.


During the 2007/08 budget, the hospital was allocated K350 million, while K262 million went towards the same cause in the 2010/11 budget- a trend that continued to the 2012/13 national budget.

Still, shrubs thrive at the piece of land allotted for the hospital.


It is not surprising, therefore, that even T/A Nazombe and Mkhumba have joined the fray.


Nazombe says pregnant women have been highly affected, citing rising cases of women who die on their way to the hospital.


“We need a hospital as soon as possible. Our lives are in danger,” Nazombe says.





Official version

However, Phalombe District Health Officer, Dr. Alexander Chijuwa, while acknowledging that some budgetary allocations have been made towards the hospital, says plans to construct Phalombe hospital are still alive.


“From my understanding, the hospital is supposed to be constructed using funds from an international bank. I understand that there were issues to do with consultants, and this is what delayed the process,” Chijuwa says.


The DHO says after some challenges in hiring consultants, things had now reached an advanced stage, hoping that the hospital would still be constructed.


Chijuwa reveals that his office pays K5 million each month for people to access services at Holy Family Hospital.

He, however, says Holy Family is sometimes overwhelmed with patients that some are sent to Phalombe District Hospital or Zomba Central Hospital.


“In the end, you see that we spend more on fuel, taking people to Mulanje and Zomba in our ambulances. All of us will benefit from the (district) hospital,” Chijuwa says.


On why nothing has been done with the funding that has been allocated towards the construction of the hospital, Chijuwa says sometimes budget allocations are mere projections. This means that, “sometimes, the government may allocate some funding but fail to get the funds from the sources it hoped would give it the funds”.


The situation in Phalombe has prompted Diocesan Secretary for the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (Blantyre Arch-Diocese) to ask Phalombe communities not to give up on the hospital.


“Since people have identified the lack of a hospital as one of the greatest challenges facing them, there is need for collaborative efforts so that this dream is realised,” Kampango says.


Kampango’s sentiments are echoed by CCJP’s National Monitoring and Evaluation Cordinator, Paul Sakanda. He says there is need to enhance citizens participation for accountable responsive governance in Malawi, lauding the people for taking the initiative.


“In the 12 districts where we are running a Tilitonse-funded project called ‘Enhanced Citizen Participation for Accountable and Responsive Governance in Malawi’, we have seen community members take necessary action to ensure that development is realised,” Sakanda says.


But, while the Phalombe people are still waiting for the day they will have a district hospital, Enock Masasa, one of the residents, says he will never get used to the idea of sending dead bodies to either Mulanje or Zomba for storage.


“Why should we, as the living, suffer, as well as the dead? It’s very unfair,” Masasa says.

Infrastructural Development: The Ugly Face of Vandalism in Malawi

“There minds are not occupied by any strong feeling. Of course, they retain the human form but retain none of its character,” says, Evang Linley Mbeta, Mbayani Clinic chairperson.


Her mind, like that of Member of Parliament Felix Njawala, has been troubled by the rate of vandalism at Mbayani Maternity and Clinic, a brain child of former Parliamentarian Jan Jaap Sonke, who convinced the European Union and Foundation Kabula in The Netherlands to come to the rescue of Mbayani people by constructing a health centre.


Mbeta says what troubles her most is the fact that no one among the vandals gets troubled with an uneasy consciousness of their folly.


“Our hospital project would have been finished by now, but vandals descended on the facility, going away with ceiling boards, switches, sockets, among others. This has derailed development in the constituency,” Mbeta says.


Mbeta says, for their anti-development acts, the vandals are inconsiderate enough to objects, not of pity or horror, but of ridicule. She says it is difficult to understand this form of unrequisited love.


So grave is the problem of vandalism that Mbeta and other committee members have engaged members of the neighbourhood watch and guards in a bid to safeguard the facility and ensure that the right of people to health services is not compromised.


Lucy Mapande, one of the community members, says the acts of vandalism could deter would-be well-wishers and discourage further development works in the area.


“Under normal circumstances, I expected us, the people of Mbayani and surrounding areas, to be happy with the construction of a health facility. It is, therefore, a shame that some irrational people have vandalised some of the things. If it is freedom, I don’t know what it is because freedom consists of being ruled by reason and in living for the goal of mankind,” Mapande says.


Mapande says it was high time community members became involved in the provision of security for the facility.


The good news is that even group village headman Mbayani is aware of the vandalism situation, and has been imploring subjects to guard the facility as if their life depended on it.


“The truth, of course, is that the lives of my subjects depends on the health facility. Remember, a health facility is there to give comfort to those who, without specialized medical help, would simply die and be buried. Our life depends on the facility and we will do everything possible to safeguard it,” Mbayani says.


Parliamentarian Felix Njawala also says he is aware of the problem, saying, however, that mechanisms have been put in place to ensure that no cases of vandalism occur again.


“It is, in deed, true that we have suffered from cases of vandalism, with property worth K3 million vandalised to date. So far, we have spent K1 million replacing stolen items that include ceiling boards, switches, sockets, and the cost of items we are yet to replace could well exceed K2 million. So, in total, we have really lost about K3 million worth of property to vandalism,” Njawala says.


Njawala slams those behind the acts, saying their actions were putting the lives of pregnant women in jeopardy.


He says vandalism is the main reason behind the opening of the Out-Patients Department (OPD) at Mbayani Maternity and Clinic. He says, on one hand, vandalism has delayed the project since committee members spend time and resources replacing damaged property while, on the other hand, it has led to the pre-mature opening of the OPD due to fears that further delays could offer the vandals room to wreck more havoc.


“The sad thing is that Mbayani is a location of low-income earners, and, for a long time, women have had challenges travelling to the nearest health centres of Chilomoni and Ndirande. These women travel five or more kilometres on foot and, in some cases, some women deliver on their way to the hospital,” Njawala says.


He says, in some cases, patients from the area are turned back at Ndirande Health Centre and Chilomoni Health, necessitating the need for their own health facility.


Njawala says it is imperative for people to realise that every community without laws, and every facility maintained by nothing better than chance, must inevitably fall into the pit of under-development, describing vandalism as a sign of a society that fails to guard its own interests.


“But we will overcome this. We have already started safeguarding the property. We are serious about reducing the distance to the nearest health centre in this area but, of course, community members have to play their rightful role by realising that they own the property,” Njawala says.

Early Childhood in Malawi: Building the Future Through Fun, Play

There are no sharp metals where the kids sharpen their cognitive skills.


Save for the snaky noise of vehicles travelling through the Ndirande-Chinseu Road and Blantyre-Magalasi Road, or the intermittent bursts of laughter or song choruses emanating from Blantyre Girls Primary School close by, the kids live in their own orb: an orb filled not with sharp metals but voices that scream happiness in the air on both still and windy days.


Apart from the noise, the place is strewn with make-believe creatures, including dolls, taking the form of human beings and animals. There are also traces of hope which, though not visible on the playgrounds and in the rooms where the kids pass their time, can be traced in the caretakers’ faces!


“Hope. It is hope that the future will be better that keeps us going. Otherwise (apart from the outpouring of hope), the funds have not been forthcoming,” says George Gwengwe, an old hand in Early Childhood Development (ECD).]


Gwengwe, who is the Executive Director the Association of Early Childhood Development in Malawi (AECDM), observes that Early Childhood Development programmes suffer from an age-old ailment called ‘resource suffocation’, a trend that, as experience has taught him, spells only ‘doom’ and ‘trouble’.


“It is as simple as this: You neglect ECD, you neglect the future. That’s what we have been doing in Malawi, actually. In the end, when we produce politicians who do not think critically, politicians who think along the lines of a child, we complain. No, we should not complain. When some politicians behave in incomprehensible ways, what it tells you is that they were not exposed to ECD,” says Gwengwe.


He equates ECD to a well that never goes dry, saying, once a child is exposed to ECD between the ages of zero to five years, a seed of knowledge is planted in them, a seed that will continue to germinate for life, turning people into timeless critical thinkers.


It is the seemingly little actions such as the innocent moments when boys and girls flex their hand muscles after getting turn on the see-saw, when they splash imaginary peddles of sand from the cleanly swept concrete floor while others shave’ imaginary beards from their chins, that define the future.



Gwengwe says that’s all there is to the, otherwise, comic absurdity to the place: building leaders of tomorrow in a systenmatic way by letting toddlers understand the world just a small piece of it at a time!



May be Gwengwe is right, after all, because, despite the kids being sorrounded by breathless beings all over the place, none of the dolls is missing their heads , or arms, or legs. The toddlers are so careful that they do not expose their ‘playmates’ to intentional defacement or any systematic depredation. It is like, as Gwengwe aptly observes, they are mature already!


What this does is to inspire hopes that the toddlers may, really, be the total sum of the country’s hope and investment in the future.





Broken bridges to success

For the time being, however, ECD seems to be an ambitious project that, somehow, seems not to take off.



While lauding the government for showing interest in ECD education, AECDM Board Chairperson, Foster Kholowa, observes that efforts being taken by the sector were being hampered by reduced funding.



“Apart from funding, the other key issue is access. Not many kids are able to access ECD education. By ECD education, we do not talk of centre-based services only; instead, we also talk of rparenting programmes, as well as programmes meant for children during their early primary education years,” Kholowa said.



Kholowa, a lecture at Chancellor College- a constituent college of the Uiversity of Malawi- asks the ministry to increase funding meant for EDC.


He says, apart from facing the challenge of meagre funding, the country is hit by the shortage of caregivers, with only 26, 000 personnel available to cater for a population of four million kids.



One of the country’s male caregivers in a world dominated by women, Kennedy Kholowa from Nsanje, says there is need to support caregivers who work on voluntary basis.



Kholowa also calls for a change of attitude towards male caregivers, saying some community members ridicule them for “grabbing” the roles of women in society.



Fortunately, challenges like these, and many others being faced by the sector, are well-known by the parent ministry. Principal Secretary for Gender, Children and Social Welfare, Mary Shawa, says ECD is key to national development, and cites the example of one of her own children who benefitted from the same and soured to greater heights in education.



“Teachers would always talk about how intelligent my kid was that it did not come as a surprise to me when a number of teachers asked us to allow them to put the child in more senior classes. Our child even went to Chancellor and did well there, and we attribute all this to ECD,” says Shawa.



Shawa says a nation that values ECD has greater chances of developing because funds that would have been channeled towards pupils who repeat in classes are channeled towards other areas of development.



She adds that, “among other advantages, ECD helps us identify gifted children at a tender age, thereby increasing our chances of nurturing them into geniuses”, and thus leaders of tomorrow.



However, Shawa acknowledges that efforts to scale up ECD education are being hampered by the challenge of caregivers’ shortage. She says, out of 26, 000 caregivers, only 16 percent are trained.



This means 10 out of every 100 caregivers do not know modules that are covered by trained caregivers. These include child development, play and early learning materials and equipment, learning through play, planning and organising the learning environment, child health and care, child hygiene and environtal care, child nutrition and care, children’s rights and their welfare, care and development of children with special needs, EDC centre management and partnerships.



“Malawi has four million kids aged between one and eight years that need ECD education but only 38 percent of these kids are currently being reached,” says Shawa.



Shawa reiterates the government’s commitment to improving the situation, saying it has put in place strategies that would help it reach 70 percent of the population eligible for ECD education.



This means that, when the 70 out of every 100 kids that are left out finally get their day in the sun, they, too, will learn how to play in the midst of a thousand replicas of human beings and animals without breaking their (the replicas) heads, and arms, and legs!

Marital Rape: Taming the Waves of Marital Rape

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Malawi Fails To Tap From Natural Resources

The unkempt grass stirs restlessly in the background, as the multi-directional winds produce snaky noise in the after-math of their collision against tree-leaves.


Sometimes, a careless mouse will be seen to loiter around, playing into the path of a hungry snake. If the mouse gets eaten; nobody cares, it was not known to the Blantyre City Assembly (BCA). If the snake suffers at the murderous heel of man; nobody cares, it trespassed on BCA’s land.


In an ideal situation, the place where mice now come and go, and snakes play attack-and-hide under dry, brown leaves, was not supposed to degenerate into this state of nobody’s land because, when lawlessness dominates where control was supposed to be the norm, it becomes nothing short of systematic failure.


This is the state on Njamba Freedom Park (NFP). On paper, the park belongs to BCA but, in effect, belongs to the trees, the ants, mice, snakes, birds, and rabbits. These natural features literally take care of NFP- fertilizing it with their dung, and, in the absence of piped water from BCA and water drops from the skies, supporting organic life with their waste waters.


NFP, home to a wide range of animals and supposed recreation centre for Blantyre city residents, is in a neglected form of sorts, and serves as a reminder that, for all BCA best efforts, the place remains underdeveloped.


Year in, year out, BCA’s Department of Parks and Wildlife has been singing one song: the song of promise to, among other things, improve the environment at the Park and make it as close to nature as it could be. It is a song whose chorus remains the May 1989 visit by head of the worldwide Catholic Church, Pope John Paul 11.


Hopes were raised, then, that Njamba- being the choice place where upon the Catholic Church’s head trod- could become a place of world tourism attraction. Councilor Luke Jumbe, one of the famous Blantyre city fathers in the 1990s, had grand plans for the park, just like the people who succeeded him. But nothing really materializes for NFP.


Sand miners go about their business, drawing sand from the small river that cuts through the park- yet, both sand and river they do not own. They make no attempt to pay anything on the assumption that- looking at the neglect manifested in the withering grass, brown-leafed trees, and the human mongering- Njamba is nobody’s land.


And, quiet recently, others have gotten into this habit of parking vehicles in the park’s grounds, trampling upon the unwatered grass left to fend for itself by the City fathers who only care for their children, the people in the city, and not the natural resources that literally bring fresh air to the land.


However, BCA chief executive officer, Ted Nandolo, says time is ripe in reverse the deteriorating standards of NFP.


“We have big plans for all aspects of city development. We can develop our parks into revenue-generating sites. Our development budget for 2011/2012, amounting to K473, 855, 309, has provisions for infrastructure, environmental, maintenance and education programmes,” Nandolo says.


If not for the sake of Blantyre residents, at least the city authorities will do it for their own good. In November last year, BCA established the Directorate of Commerce, Trade and Industry headed by Dennis Chinseu.


The Directorate is not a cash-cow because, in the first place, it is not a cow per se. But Blantyre city has facilities whose revenue-generating capacities resemble the productive capacities of a cow.


“We are looking at things like city rates, recreation fees, and city parking fees as some of the ways of generating revenue,” Chinseu, who hastens that parks fall under this category, says.


Chinseu says this is the reason BCA wants to exploit all possible avenues of revenue, including such activities as business licencing, collection of property rates and recreation fees in all of the assembly’s parks.


“With this, we hope to be able to supplement the funds we get from property rates. 90 percent of the funds we generate come from property rates,’ Chinseu said.


As the City fathers reposition themselves to ‘fish’ from more ponds, apart from the deep waters of property rates, Blantyre residents can look west and find solace. There is a place, some 9 km west of Blantyre Central Business District, called Michiru Hill. The hill plays host to Michiru Conservation Park.


The park is home to a variety of wildlife, making it a tourist destination of magnanimous experiences and never-fading memories. Just that, as Senior Park and Wildlife Assistant Gracious Changani would have it, not many people seem to be aware of this place.


But, each passing day, Changani looks at the Branchystegia woodland, reptiles, birds, and a variety of mammals. Common among the mammals are hyenas, who are so fortunate to have a cave named after them. The ‘Hyena Caves, made of granite, are believed to have formed some 50 million years ago.


Studies suggest that, 50 million years ago, Michiru Conservation Park was not a park; it was a valley. Somehow, the stones fell from the mountains, and filled the valley below. In the process, new homes were formed and found, and new animals became proud owners of these ‘homes’. At Michiru, the homes can be anything: caves, trees, stones, running water- anything that can sustain life.


Today, Michiru Conservation Park is a place so naturally demarcated (without human intervention) that pythons craw the days away in the upper part of the park, rock hyraxes have made the middle part nothing but their abode, while the lower layers, so carefully punctuated by caves, are the domain of the nocturnal hyenas.


“Michiru Conservation Park is a very beautiful place. Malawians should visit this place and appreciate the beauty,” Changani says.


But, in a way, Michiru also suffers from human ills. But, unlike the neglect that has characterized life at Njamba, its greatest challenge is poaching.


The bad thing about poaching is that it is against good intentions. After all, all parks and conservation sites are like legislation: founded upon the principle of mutual love, care, and concession.


Which leaves one wondering: Why can’t Malawians appreciate this common sense, and leave nature to be what it was meant to be? How can people in authority fail to do their part, and expect nature to flourish?

After all, there is a thin line between poaching and neglect; they both border on neglect.


But, even against people and authorities’ best efforts, Malawi continues to reel under a myriad of challenges in the quest to take care of its botanic resources, and improve on the variety of the botanic endowments it has.


Take, for instance, the case of equipment. Malawi does not have a multi-purpose laboratory necessary to examine the chemical composition of most of its botanic resources, a development that transpired into little knowledge about the wide variety of botanic life endemic to the country.


This, in effect, renders the country vulnerable to theft of its would-be botanic patents as people posing as tourists would easily siphon indigenous knowledge from a friendly but unsuspecting people which may later be patented in their name, leaving Malawi perpetually stuck in the woods of poverty.


While people like Prof. James Seyani have tried, through the National Herbarium and Botanic Gardens of Malawi, to do their best, the lack of a state-of-the-art, all encompassing laboratory is hindering efforts to examine all of the country’s botanic resources and deter business-minded visitors from profiteering from the country’s botanic resources.


Of course, plans are under way to establish one such laboratory, but it may be a time.


What is needed, in its absence, is the need for Malawians not to publicize indigenous knowledge to prevent it from getting into the wrong hands- people who may end up protecting our own botanic resources using patent laws.


Reason: Traditional knowledge is becoming a billion-Dollar phenomenon around the world and needs to be safeguarded. This is true for Malawians who go to such countries as South Africa to sell herbal concoctions and other traditional medicine.
It would become easy for such people to pass out the knit-gritty details pertaining to the prowess of their medicine, in the process exposing Malawi to theft of its invaluable botanical resources.


Just such a thing happened in Chipata , Zambia, two years ago. A European national was bewildered by a plant that acted as an anesthetic and was being used by local people when removing teeth using the traditional hand method. Perplexed, he asked the locals how the herb worked, and where it could be found- knowledge he later took back home. He has, since, patented the plant and its chemical components.


People, including Zambians, now find their own concoction- now out of their hands and control, anyway- in up market London shops.


The use of botanical resources stolen from African countries and, later, registered as protected patents has raised moral questions over the moral responsibility of pharmaceutical companies, who happen to be the major customers and beneficiaries to such fraudulent deals.


These companies cough millions of Euros to get the nod to use the stolen patents ,a trend that also leads way to exorbitant drug prices as the pharmaceutical companies seek to off-set some of the costs incurred in production of such products.


So, the theft of this knowledge could be disastrous for Malawi, a country- if not the only one in the world- to have no comprehensive analysis of its botanical resources.
It is like wishing away your own cash, really; and, then, asking for a third hand to bail you out of biting poverty.