Fischer To Parliament: A Figment of My Imagination of Football Player Fischer Kondowe's Journey to Parliament

So, Fischer Anong'a Kondowe wants to have a go at Parliament in the forthcoming (May 20, 2014) Parliamentary elections?


So, he wants to contest in Blantyre City South Constituency?


Here is what I think, and this is fiction.



You see, the intentions of The Parliament are, as purposefully instituted, drawn on a larger scale than small, individual scale- especially when the individual in question is one Fischer 'Anong'a' Kondowe.



Why do you think he is interested in running for office in Blantyre City South Constituency? ALLOW ME TO OFFER MY VIEWS WHILE, AT THE SAME TIME, IMAGINING WHAT COULD BE GOING ON IN THE MIND OF FISCHER KONDOWE RIGHT NOW. IT WILL BE CONFUSING AT TIMES BECAUSE THERE WILL BE NO CLEAR DISTINCTION BETWEEN WHAT I AM SAYING AND WHAT IS COMING FROM THE MIND OF THE IMAGINARY FISCHER KONDOWE. I AM JUST THINKING ALOUD. He could probably be thinking thus:


The moment one gets out of breath with running (on Match day and during training sessions), they can stop at Parliament building and pant a little, while the rest of the country calls them Honourable Members of Parliament.


The problem with this (Fischer's) line of thinking is that such people may not be in a position to contribute, meaningfully, to national discourse (debate, Parliamentary committee meetings etc). All they (such people) will be doing is reflecting that running up and down was not a pleasant thing since they earned their cash the hard way.


With Fischer's soccer career visibly on a downward spiral, all he could be thinking is that her miseries (ignited by the prospects that he may soon abandon the soccer pitch that has sustained him for years) are about to reach a pitch at which The Parliament is his only refuge.


So, all he could probably be thinking is: I will run straight away from the soccer pitch till I get to The Parliament Building through the ballot. There, at the building, there will certainly be cash goodies I need not run up-and-down-the-pitch for to get. Yes, there (at The Parliament Building), I will be safe from the rest of rival football fans who found fault with me all the time!


Of course, he will think of all the love he got from club coaches such as Gilbert Chirwa, Kinnah Phiri, Eddington Ngomano, Mabvuto Banda, Gerald Phiri, Lloyd Nkhwazi as she runs along (his eyes set on The Parliament), but he will reconcile himself to the idea of parting with them by determining that he would secretly send them letters just to let them know that he was happy and inspired while under their watch- emphasising that he will always love them so much, as long as he lives.


Putting these thoughts behind, Fischer continues running, stopping to pant every now and then; stopping to pant every time he gets out of breath. Fischer is so busy running that he hardly noticed that Tuesday, May 20, 2014 (Tripartite Elections day) came two days ago and quietly disappeared into the annals of history. Who could blame him for failing to observe it? (Three days before Tuesday, May 20, 2014, President Joyce Banda had announced on State-sponsored MBC TV and Radio 1 and 2 that May 20 would be a public holiday; with her communications' team emphasising that it had pleased Her Excellency to declare it a holiday, and that, without her, there was nobody who would have declared the day a public holiday. Long Live the President, the announcer's voice blared at the end of the public announcement). Nobody could, indeed, blame him because he never met anyone on the road as he ran to Parliament. In fact, in his haste for The Parliament Building, he forgot to pack his portable radio in his Big Bullets-labelled bag!


Today is Thursday, 22 May, 2014. The Tripartite Elections took place two days ago. Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec) officials have been lazy. How come the results re still not coming through, three days after the elections? No wonder, Malawi Congress Party presidential candidates Lazarus Chakwera, Democratic Progressive Party presidential hopeful Peter Mutharika, United Democratic Front and Alliance for Democracy joint presidential candidate, Atupele Muluzi, People's Progressive Movement presidential candidate Mark Katsonga, Chipani Cha Pfuko's presidential candidate Davies Katsonga, independent presidential candidate Thoko Banda, green-card holder James Nyondo and other presidential candidates are all demanding "to know the truth" and are fuming at the mouth, demanding the release of Parliamentary and Presidential results. They have learned, from the General Election of 1999, 2004, and 2009 that these 'delays' are a sign of gathering gloom on the Tripartite Elections field. More specifically, it is President Joyce Banda's quietness that gives them a sense of something hideously preternatural looming. At once, they develop the timidity of an active imagination.



Fischer does not care. He is so sure that he will get into The Parliament this time around, and keeps on running. Stopping here and there to pant and renew his energies. Then, he sees The Parliament Building from afar. His destination is in sight. He can see one heavily-guarded gate leading into the The Parliament Building's parking lot. He has heard, as he vied for the Blantyre City South Parliamentary seat, that our short, Chinese people put up one massive hell of a building at the City Centre in Lilongwe. May be the guards will deny him the opportunity to get in at this hour. But, this afternoon, after Mec chairperson Maxon Mbendera makes the life-changing announcement about who has won and who has fallen, he will 'earn' his right of entry. It must be today, Fischer assures himself.


"Using powers vested in me as chairperson of the Electoral Commission," Mbendera addresses an ecstatic audience at Comesa Hall Tally Centre in Blantyre, "I...". The air is heavy. The moment is here; to be lived, or hated. "Aaaaah, sorry ladies and gentlemen," Mbendera says, to the bewilderment of the Comesa Hall audience. "We apologise, but we forgot to include the Parliamentary results from Blantyre City South Constituency."


As Fischer walks towards The Parliament Building gate in Lilongwe, he eavesdrops a fiery debate among the three judge at the gate. "These folks are dunderheads. How can they forget to announce the results of Blantyre City South Constituency and, then, hold the nation to ransom by delaying the results of the Presidential election. Fotseki! Who do these people take us f.."


"Hey," Fischer interrupts the guards. "What's wrong with the Blantyre City South Constituency results. Are they saying..."


"Shut up you malnourished Rasta (man). Let's get the Parliamentary results from Blantyre City South Constituency first. The chairperson of the Electoral Commission is about to announce now." They give Fischer an old, brown sack to sit on. The radio set is placed some five metres away, at a distance safe enough (for the radio) to be left 'alone', but close enough to everyone's ears.


"Fischer Kondowe of Big Nyerere Progressive Front is the winner with 7, 689 votes. He is seconded by the..." Fischer has no time to listen. He commands the security guards to take him on a tour of The Parliament Building and show him the chair he will be sitting in. They rebuff him, with one of them bluntly telling him to contact the Office of the Speaker of the National Assembly. Angry, Fischer slaps one of the guards, calling him a filthy, old man who deserves a place at a shelter for the aged at Chifunga in Neno (he is probably talking about Neno Shelter for the Aged, managed by the Association of Progressive Women along the Blantyre-Mwanza Road. The guard does not take this insult lying down, and jumps on Fischer, throwing him to the ground. Fischer tries to wrestle with him, but realises he has run out of energy.


The running. The running. It has left him too exhausted that he can't even push an old man off his body! Sure, he will need five years to rest and regain his energy. He will need to relocate to another constituency so that his constituents will not drag him into exhaustion with their "unreasonable" requests! Aaah, he realises that the Electoral Commission chairperson's announcement has made him wiser now.


Suddenly, two men in ragged clothes appear on the scene. They have machetes in their hands. The guards, including the one who pinned Fischer down, rush to confront the two men. One of the men raises his hands in a half-whining, half-coaxing tone and asks if any of the guards has K20. He says they are beggars who are looking for money so they may eat that day. Fischer lambasts the two men, calling them all sorts of names, and reminding them that they have two hands.


"Those two hands are not there for nothing. Work. Fotseki! And, for your own information, this is The Parliament Building. Good-for-nothing people like you have no business here. This is for us, Honorable Members..."


"But you have not even be sworn-in! You..."


"Fotseki," Fischer tells the guard. "My people have elected me, and I am an MP, with or without being sworn-in. Fotseki!"


But, as Fischer fumed and fumed, one of the guards immediately draws out a K20 bank note and, with a smile, says, "I hope this will help".


Just then, Fischer realises why MPs behave differently when elected into office. He realises that, intoxicated with the little power they have got, MPs only see ragged clothes and shaggy clothes in their constituents. They, unlike on the soccer pitch, look at their constituents as good-for-nothing people (beggars even).


"I think the soccer pitch is better than The Parliament Building. In sports, you look at the supporters in ragged clothes as very important people who contribute to the team's success. In fact, it is them who pay gate fees and oil the finances of sports clubs. I think it will be different with being MP. It is like a sudden drop from simple peevishness to patronising instruction!" Fischer thought.


And it dawns on him that a, rather, disappointing journey has begun! The soccer pitch, in spite of the bareness of the hard surface, was his pretty home. And he was fond of the kit-boy who always took great care of his training jersey!


What a rapid modification of ideas even before being sworn-in as MP!

Lucius Banda’s two faces of ‘Time’

On the surface, the threads that form the spine of Lucius Banda’s ‘Time’ album seem to be such issues as love’s infallibility and blindness, the vanity of nationalism, hope, self-awareness, the perpetual search for money as a means of buying survival, among others. But I suppose that the impulse behind the work is an attempt to portray the jarring double-faces of ‘Time’ (in its literal sense).


In other words, the veteran musician’s album puts Malawi in the frame of a verandah-garden riddled with the impact of time (within relatively the same period of time) on two objects, namely: the individual person, and; the nation.


The individual personas, on one hand, share their experiences through the many solitary voices that riddle the musician’s 17 tracks. Sometimes, there are two personas in one song, if it’s a love song, and these personas respond to each other’s musings. The nation, on he other hand, has its aspirations, fears, hopes, and disappointments reflected by the title track, ‘Time’, which is, simply put, a stock-taking exercise aimed at gauging the gains and losses accumulated in the past 49 years of independence.


‘Time’, with its mood of dolorous lamentation, aptly captures the feelings of a people that attained independence from former colonial master, Britain, in 1964, only for the new leaders to sink the citizenry deeper in the mire. This strange sense of loss of place and hope comes after the so-called nationalists rescued the hitherto ‘clueless’ people from the colonial ‘enemies’.


This ‘national’ face of time is aptly reflected in the title track itself, especially when the persona who, like an elected representative of the people, queries: “Is it freedom of independence, or freedom of self-suffering? When will this country change? Who will develop it? 50 years of sovereignty and we still rely on donors to drive our economy?”


The short of it is that, whereas politics was supposed to be a smooth road, the tendency by politicians has been that, once the electorate puts them in power, things change for the worse and it feels as if they (voters) have paved the politicians’ road to hell. They, in turn, become another Lucipher, detached and exiled from the reality of poverty and helplessness that hovers all over the land.


That is why, when these two hidden faces of time are put together, they form a liturgy of despair, regrets, love’s invincibility, death, anger while, at the same time, offering hopeful moments of supplication for divine solicitude. Drawn on the past, these presences (poverty, hopelessness) endure- leaving a permanent mark on the people as they become hopeful and obdurate!


This makes the songs ring true, and sound closer to life.


And, just like in the previous 16 albums of Banda- especially the title tracks- the persona takes a swipe at the nation that is about to turn 50 years (in 2014), calling it a gathering of 15 million babies! A nation that is 50, but clings to its mother’s breast.


Apart from the general swipes that persona in Banda’s songs takes at the citizenry, politicians- and the adorable lyrics that decorate the flower bed of love, Lucius has severed ties with tradition by experimenting with a number of genres. Among them are Reggae, Ngoma, Beni and Manganje, Kwasakwasa blended with other genres, classic, among others.


This, it seems, has been done to accommodate the musician’s varied audience, and recapture the audience that takes unkindly to monotonous sounds.


What that has done, inevitably, is to portray the musician as a man of no identity (or a man of varied identities, sometimes conflicting)- making it more difficult to identify the veteran musician with one particular genre. It is like the same cook dipping 17 cooking sticks in one pot! Chances are that people won’t realise which stick cooked better.


For instance, while ‘Miss You Lucky Dube’ is a Reggae beat composed in memory of the fallen South African musician Dube, ‘Nancy’ throws Ngoni traditional beats, including a tinge of Ngoma, into the mix.


Then, there is ‘Wandikwatiradi’- a love song that recaps how the son of a cook who had resigned to staying in the boss’s boys’ quarters located at some hidden corner within the perimeter fence ends up marrying the boss’s daughter, to the chagrin of her parents- which is a slow beat whose seriousness gets lost in the unmistakable Kwasakwasa guitars in the evening of the track.


The trend is repeated in ‘Forever’, another love song that let’s us appreciate the gladness of a persona who finally weds a long-time lover. The track starts softly, only to dilute its beat into the energy-sapping Kwasakwasa.


The first-timer may also get confused with the track ‘Forever’, taking it for an English song when, in fact, ‘Forever’ is the only English word in the lyrics.


Otherwise, the musician has shown his music prowess by harmoniously mingling Chichewa with English in the track, ‘Tseketseke’- which features Piksy and is characterized by the unmistakable voice of a South African lady-backer pronounces as ‘Zeke-zeke’. One would be forgiven for thinking that ‘Tseketseke’ is a Chichewa beat. In fact, it is an English song whose only connection to Chichewa is the word Tseketseke in the chorus.


‘Usaope Akatchena’ is another captivating song, but chances are that the track may come under a barrage of criticism from feminists such as Jessie Kabwila. Kabwila chides songs that portray women as ‘recipients’ of men’s advances and overtures, and took a swipe a Banda’s song, ‘Wawa Angoni’ for portraying women as objects when it categorized them in the same group as beer, meat when it says in the chorus ‘…Kamkazi kali pambalipa/ Koimba nthungululu”.


‘Usaope Akatchena’ captures the story of a male persona who fell head-over-heals over a well-dressed women, but could not summon enough courage to approach her. As it turns out, the woman also fancied the man but, picking a leaf from society’s norms, failed to make her feelings known because only men are expected to propose love to a member of the opposite sex as dictated by culture.


Otherwise, this is another creative piece emanating from the great brain of Banda, cementing his reputation as one of Malawi’s greatest composers.


This love song- along with ‘Flora and Mavuto’, ‘Zidutswa za Mtima’, ‘Forever’, ‘Ndi Wanga’, ‘Usaope Akatchena’, ‘Tell Her I Love Her’, and ‘Wandiwatiradi’- makes love one of the dominant themes in ‘Time’. Religion also takes a prominent place in the album, though it is unclear whether this ‘gospelisation’ of Banda’s voice has anything to do with his being taken ill before ‘Time’s’ production or it is just a question of a veteran musician taking time to thank God for being with him throughout his 17 albums!


What else can one say, other than singing praising his creator, when he becomes the first Malawian to churn out 17 successful albums?


The most encouraging aspect about ‘Time’ is the way the musician plays around with old messages to shed new light on life, calling people to keep their faith when they tumble in ‘Paulendo’, a message he also advanced in ‘Cease Fire; album. And ‘Wandithawadi’ could as well be a creative extension to ‘Wandithawa’, in which a ‘dilly-daller’ saw his hopes disappear when the woman he had fancied all his life found herself in the embracing arms of another man.

When State-Run Media Thwart Democracy: What Happens?

Times come when, like El Nino winds that elude the meteorologists’ charts, the breezes of history unexpectedly accelerate and blow away the touchstones by which a people live.


It happened twice or thrice during the past century. In 1914, when the Reverend John Chilembwe staged a surprise uprising against Thangata system (bonded labour); between 1940 and 1964 when Malawians (Nyasas) got tired of their emotional moorings to colonial authorities and wanted independence. It ended in 1993 when people voted for multiparty democracy during a national referendum and for change during subsequent presidential and parliamentary elections in 1994..


The last episode was true of the post-independence African character of the 1990s, when authority got deconstructed from institutions to individuals and that, now freed from official restraint, people felt liberated enough to choose everything, including national leaders, for themselves.


Malawians have, since 1994 when they transformed their political landscape to a magnitude that signals nothing less than a fundamental mutation in the national character, voted for Members of Parliament (MPs) and a Head of State every five years.


On May19, 2009, Malawians voted again, signaling the fourth turn of democratic elections. This followed similar elections in 1994, 1999 and 2004, each process a new national experiment.


It thus becomes imperative, as is always the case with all human experiments, to ask the big questions: Where have we scored highly? What have been the challenges? In that order, not forgetting opportunities that exist and the way forward.


Running away from such questions could be tantamount to running away from future responsibility- a future as nearer as 2014 when Malawians go to the polls again, says political commentator Nandini Patel. She is one the first people to note that the country’s four elections have proved too predictable in other aspects and difficult to comprehend in other cases.


They (elections) have been predictable in terms of regional voting patterns and ruling parties’ conduct over state-run media; and difficult to comprehend when it comes to the issue of independents and how president Bingu wa Mutharika won over 60 per cent of the vote in 2009.


“Look at the elections in 1994, for instance. People voted on regional lines. This is evident in the fact that the eventual presidential winner, (United Democratic Front’s) Bakili Muluzi, got 42.2 per cent (South), Kamuzu Banda 33.5 per cent from his Central region stronghold and Chakufwa Chihana (Alliance for Democracy) with 18.9 per cent, mainly from the Northern region.


“This was almost repeated in 1999 when Muluzi got 51.37 per cent in the South, the Malawi Congress Party/Alliance for Democracy coalition 44.30 per cent in the Central and Northern region, respectively, and Kamlepo Kalua who got 1.43per cent of the national vote,” said Patel, a lecture at the Catholic University in Chiradzulu.


The scene was repeated in 2004, when UDF presidential candidate Bingu wa Mutharika chalked 35.89 per cent in the South, Malawi Congress Party’s (MCP) John Tembo 27.13 per cent and Gwanda Chakuamba of the Mgwirizano Coalition 25.72 per cent.


It was as if every new elections were a reinstatement of the saying that old habits die hard. But Patel says this was something that was doomed to change, anyway, though she acknowledges having doubted Afrobarometer’s opinion poll findings that pegged DPP’s Mutharika at over 60 per cent.


Patel looks at DPP and the way it plans to sustain its majority numbers in parliament after the 2014, 2019 and 2024 parliamentary elections as some of the yet-to-come trends people may not comprehend now. Time will unfold all things and decide whether the DPP treads the same decline paths as those parties before it: UDF and MCP..


The past four elections have had there fair of surprises, renditions, revisions, opportunities and challenges- only that some of the challenges refuse to go with the times, says Patel, pointing at the issue of state-run media during campaign.


David Bandawe, Chief Elections Officer (CEO) at the Electoral Commission (EC), acknowledges that every election has been a new experience, with its own challenges and opportunities. This is something he came to appreciate more just recently.


Bandawe has a friend at the Parachute Battalion, those patriotic guys who jump from the air for the sake of their beloved nation. The two happened to talk about jumping from the air during their most recent meeting when the man in uniform alluded something to the fact that ‘every jump is a new jump’, according to the EC CEO.


“So, too, are elections. Each and every election is a new experience, with unique challenges and opportunities. That is the reason we, at EC, are always trying to improve things,” says Bandawe.


EC has, in this respect, organized a meeting aimed at reviewing all independent electoral observers’ reports pertaining to the May19 elections; a development Chairperson Anastasia Msosa says will help solve some of the challenges.


The most outstanding challenge is the perceived abuse of state run media by those in power, observers say. But this is a challenge faced by political parties; EC, too, faces its own music.


Some of its challenges include increasing complaints from political parties, the legal environment in which the electoral body operates, budgeting constraints, complex processes leading to voter registration and voters roll verification, transportation hitches as well as registration periods corroding with the farming season or rains.


This notwithstanding, opposition political parties are, however, riled by the conduct of the electoral body. The EC appreciates the challenges, yes- charges Aford’s Secretary General Khwauli Msiska, who happens to be the party’s sole parliamentarian (Karonga Nyungwe constituency)- but what is it doing to address them?


“Nothing,”


Msiska said Mutharika’s high approval ratings at the ballot could be attributed to the public media which he accuses of over-blowing the president’s ‘obsequious’ charm, evasive assurances and elastic treatment of facts. He also thinks that ruling party cadres never told fibs exactly but made pronouncements that narrowed the isthmus between truth and expediency so that wishes were presented as action while mere reasoning became interchangeable with fact.


“That is the power of propaganda. A lie, repeated many times, becomes truth; this is the role state-run media played during campaign,” says Msiska.


Sentiments shared by Republican Party president Stanley Masauli He is ruthless in his verdict of the polls, something he says is derived from the way Malawi Broadcasting Corporation and Malawi Television behaved in the run up to the polls.


“These institutions violated the EC’s Code of Conduct and went away with it. So, I question: Were the elections free? Yes. (Were they) Fair? A big no. Credible? May be,” the voice of a man who fought hard to get his deregistered party (RP) back but failed to get his worth at the ballot.


The conduct of MBC and TVM could be the reason, perhaps, why MCP spokesperson Nancy Tembo insists that the opposition dominated parliament of the past five years could have been right, anyway, to deny TVM and MBC funding (not in the negative sense).


“I see nothing wrong with that,” said Tembo at a review meeting of the elections in Blantyre.. “In fact, I think that the decision has helped the two institutions become self reliant. They can do without any funding even now,” said Tembo.


Accusations of TVM/MBC perceived bias during the polls have not gone down well with DPP spokesperson, Hetherwick Ntaba. He says, though the opposition seems to blame the ruling party for every Sparrow that falls from the sky, the fact is that it is the magnetic personality and policies of Mutharika that turned him into a common denominator and visible agent of the convulsions that have transformed Malawi’s social-economic status for the past five years.


He says this is the reason people voted for Mutharika, and not because of the influence of state run media. He, however, says he finds it ironic that the same opposition that denied the two institutions funding could now stand on mountains and accuse them of not airing out their views.


“It is hypocritical. Let me also clear this myth that MBC and TVM are the only channels of campaign information; we have many other radio stations, most of whom did not give us an inch during campaign period,” says Ntaba, pointing at Joy FM.


All Rafiq Hajat, Executive Director for the Institute for Policy Interaction, does is laugh at both the opposition and ruling party.


“The opposition were in majority for the past five years but never amended the Communications Act thinking they would go into government on May19, 2009. The DPP is now in majority but will do nothing to change the Act, I tell you. The short of it is that the opposition is now crying over spilt milk and the DPP will one day cry. Isn’t that a good joke!?”


Laughs.

Sports: The Counterattack, As Children Fight Bullets With Balls

There were times- sometimes frequent and, sometimes, far between- when, as happens to people stolen in energy-supping activities, the kids paused on the dusty sports grounds to draw breath and regroup.


The children, gathered in their droves at Makata Primary School ground in Blantyre, are so sure that the impact of their seemingly little, local deed will be global in nature, and are here to commemorate the ‘Global Peace Games for Children and Youth 2012’. This is part of the global community’s efforts to destroy the seeds of war before they germinate into full-blown chaos.



In Malawi, activities marking ‘Global Peace Games for Children and Youth 2012’ are being spearheaded by Play Soccer Malawi, a grassroots’ educational programme that united children, youths and communities by promoting health, physical and social development through recreational sport. The organization is commemorating the event from September 21 to November 15.



Drawn from Makata, Chitsime, Namwalimwe, Nyambadwe, among other primary schools- each of the children’s teams wears a similar set of uniform to symbolize their unity in purpose.


“You see,” says Play Soccer Malawi executive director, Patricio Kulemeka, “children are the best agents of positive change in the world and, through sports, we can join hands with them to promote peace and meet Millennium Development Goals such as Goal 1 (eradicating extreme hunger and poverty) by connecting vulnerable individuals to community services and supports through sport-based outreach programs; Goal 2 (achieving universal primary education, by providing sport-based community education programs that provide alternative education opportunities for children who cannot attend school.



“Through sport we can also promote gender equality and women empowerment, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV and Aids, malaria, and non-communicable diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and facilitate the development of global partnership for development.”



Kulemeka banks his optimism on the ‘innocent’ nature of children who, unlike a man who has been dying for many days, and has become numb to the stench of the world, their minds are free from the corruption all-around.


On this ground, the kids- aged between five and 15- fought gallantly for a trophy they could not see on Monday, 9 October. Their trophy, peace, is more felt than seen.


“It is possible to win peace through sport. Fair play is one of the principles people can adopt to maintain world peace,” Kulemeka says.


His line of thinking is shared by the children who are here. For example, 15-year-old Maria Damisoni says she believes that sports’ balls and courtesy are more deadly in effect than military weapons! In her unconventional wisdom, she believes that there are so many ways of countering a war, and that the plan for war is not merely military.


“It can be through sports, too,” Damisoni says.


No wonder, some of the kids read messages whose gist is that the sacred land of the earth should not be the abode of war-mongers. War, they enthused, is more expensive than peace, and holds a vague terror for all people, the bravest included.


“Sport is key to unity. Even United Nations statutes mention sport as one of the most important tools in global development. That is why U-Sport signed an agreement with the African Union to employ sporting activities in the promotion of peace. Then, we also have Fifa Day, Fair Play Day.


“While we sometimes fail to come together, we are hoping that our children can learn to reconcile. To this effect, other mother body Play Soccer has for the past 12 years been engaging children, youths, community members to promote peace,” Kulemeka says.


That is how the local, Ndirande activities turn global. What’s more? They have the backing of the United Nations system. For instance, Special Adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace, Wilfried Lemke, acknowledges sport’s uniting power in this year’s message.



“The Global Peace Games for Children and Youth are a special opportunity to …strengthen the circle of friendship and solidarity for the ideals of peace and nonviolence within and among all nations and peoples.



“I strongly encourage you to practice the lessons of friendship, respect, and tolerance, which you learn during these Games to help to build peace and unity everywhere and to educate yourselves to learn how to make the world a better and healthier place. Sport can be a powerful vehicle to help teach the lessons and values that are needed. Sport brings you together to have fun, be active--- it helps you learn how to work together, and to grow healthy bodies and minds that can make you strong and educated leaders,” Lemke says.



Kulemeka cannot agree less: “For Play Soccer Malawi, this is what we try to achieve. Our programming combines education, sports, culture, citizenship and social inclusion. When we talk about sports, we automatically think of education. Sports and education are intrinsically linked and are of primary importance to the formation of children and youngsters.



“And it is precisely this synergy between sports and education that serves as the main foundation for the annual global peace.”



Indeed, the local organisation’s programmes show that there is more to sport than balling around as they address an array of issues, including nutrition, introduction to healthy bodies, immunizations, water, caring for the environment, fairness, sportsmanship, dealing with anger and frustration, rules of the game, friendship, teamwork, solidarity, self esteem and positive attitude, honesty, rights and responsibilities, respect and honour differences, basic first aid, respect for rules, leadership, equal opportunities, support for others, common illnesses, substances that affect health, among others.


For Fifa president Sepp Blatter, there is no teacher in tolerance than football. “I hope you will continue to use the games as a special opportunity to focus on all that football can teach us- the life skills of winning and losing with grace and dignity, of showing respect for others, practicing fair play, tolerance and understanding, learning team work and how to make your bodies healthy and strong”.


Blatter also asks people to “take action to improve health and education”.


Blatter, like Kulemeka, hopes that the children’s little deeds at Makata and around other dusty grounds in the world, will serve as a crying voice that, gradually, does not get swallowed up in the distance but acts as a silencer that will cover the violent crack of bayonets. Yes, a vibrant silence made more intense by the universal, peace trill of a millions of world children!

Reaping The Bitter Fruits of Neglecting Early Childhood Development

The system condemns them to failure at an early age, but the ramifications have a touch of patience because they largely manifest themselves when adulthood awns on the kids.


“We are talking of Early Childhood Development (ECD), one of the areas overlooked in Malawi’s national development policies,” says ECD expert, Charles Gwengwe.


In a country where only 1.5 million kids (aged between one and eight years) out of 4 million have access to ECD services, representing 38 percent, the situation is nothing short of a national disaster.


Gwengwe says Malawians have been sitting on a ticking bomb, in terms of preparing their children for life’s cognitive challenges, a development he says has a way of manifesting itself in development endeavours.


Gwengwe, who is the executive director for the Association of Early Childhood Development in Malawi, says what compounds the situation is the fact that caregivers are also in short supply.


“Our country, with its population of over 14 million people, only depends on 26, 000 caregivers to impart skills to 38 percent of the kids who are able to access ECD education at the moment,” Gwengwe says.


On the negative impact of neglecting ECD, Gwengwe says one of the effects is seen through the behaviour of politicians, whom he accuses of behaving in a strange way by, among other things, raising sentiments that do not add any value to national discourse.


He says most politicians behave he way they do because they did not have access to ECD in the early stages of their lives.


Child rights activist, Kenwilliams Mhango, says what has been happening in the country, in terms of access to ECD, can best be described as a “violation of human rights”, imploring the government to treat ECD as a critical area in national development.


“Child neglect takes many forms, including when we deny children their rights. Denying children access to learning opportunities is like condemning them to a precarious future. How can they develop if their foundation, in this case education, is shaky? Mhango queries.


Mhango, who is the country director for the African Network for the Protection and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect- (Anppcan) Malawi Chapter, observes that, for a long time, policy makers have regarded child abuse, neglect, child trafficking as the only challenges facing children, a development that had left other issues unattended to.


“Of course, we should continue the fight against the various forms of child abuse, but we should not neglect ECD. The problem is that most of the times we fight issues that have a clear negative bearing on child development and growth, including issues such as child trafficking, forgetting that we can also fight against abuse by taking a proactive approach. Increasing access to ECD is one way of taking such a proactive approach,” Mhango says.


He says organisations such as Anppcan-Malawi Chapter have tried to play their role by introduce child-friendly programmes, citing the implementation of ‘Child Social and Financial Education’ in Blantyre Rural and City as well as Uliwa in Karonga.


Mhango, who is also a board member of the Human Rights Consultative Committee- a grouping of over 90 human rights organisations- says the initiative just underlined the commitment of Non-Governmental Organisations towards the promotion of child rights.


“If we want development, we should initiate pro-child programmes while the children are at a tender age, and they will grow with the knowledge. As they grow with such progressive knowledge, the nation grows with them,” Mhango says.


Coincidentally, his sentiments are shared by Principal Secretary for Gender, Children and Social Welfare, Mary Shawa, who sees the value of ECD in national development.





Sealing the holes

“ECD helps us identify gifted children at a tender age, thereby increasing our chances of nurturing them into geniuses,” Shawa says.


While observing that the country only has 26, 000 caregivers, of which only 16 percent are trained, Shawa says the government has put in place programmes designed to reduce challenges faced by children in accessing learning opportunities between the ages of one year and eight years.


“Our target is to reach 70 percent of the population that is eligible for ECD education,” Shawa says.


Information sourced from www.africaecd.org, a website run by one of the organisations that promotes ECD in Africa, the story of ECD in Malawi dates back to 1964, “when the first ECD center was developed in Malawi”, further observing that efforts were being taken to improve the situation.


“With a growing realization of the importance of the early years for a child, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) in collaboration with the Government of Malawi and other partners are taking an active role in strengthening the programmes and services available to children aged 0 to 8 and their families,” observes a report on ECD.



Adds the report: “Since 1983, the Government of Malawi in partnership with Unicef and other partners have been drafting materials for Community Based Child Care and ECD Services. Although materials have been developed, it was felt that there was need to review and revise the materials in order to reflect a more integrated approach to early childhood, placing special emphasis on children 0 – 5 years.”



Indeed, as part of such efforts, the government launched the National Policy for Early Childhood Development and the National Policy on OVC On March 1, 2004. The National Policy on ECD aims at “promoting the provision of high quality ECD services to the Malawian children to ensure his/her survival, growth, and development that would lead to his/her active participation in national development”, among other things.


Apart from Unicef, Save the Children has also been running similar programmes since 2001, with the organisation’s Malawi website indicating that, “we support the government’s efforts to improve the quality of early childhood development by training caregivers and by strengthening management committees”.


“We are also testing new approaches to strengthen services for children under age 2 and continue to replicate enrichment activities for children ages 3-6. Currently, we are assisting more than 200 community-based childcare centers, each with an average enrollment of 50-70 children,” says the organisation.


Whether these efforts will tame Malawi’s political roving politicians remains to be seen, though.

Agriculture: Creating Fortune Out of The Soil

When three pairs of eyes see, in one object, three different things, and three people perceive a singular situation in different lights; it must be a different world, a strange world.


This situation bodes well where money becomes the object and people- the men and women who eke a living the hard way- become the subject. Money renders it a strange world in diverse ways- starting with what people believe is money, and the way non-hard-cash materials are turned into ‘money’.


Subsidized farm input can, for instance, be ‘money’ to ordinary people; unlike shares, treasury bills and bonds- the ‘money’ of business magnets.


It is all ‘money’.


For Sam Moyo, however, a resident of Soche Hill in Blantyre, all these are not money.


“To me, money means resources found in the soil. Things such as rocks and stone pebbles. The soil is my source of bread,” Moyo says.


For the past three years, he has known nothing but the soil as ‘money’, with which he feeds his family of five members.


“I have been selling non-precious and semi-precious rocks since March 2008. Sometimes I sell terrazzo, sand and simple rocks,” Moyo says.


But challenges are many because almost every situation- the sun, the cold, the winds, and the rains- serve as a ground for complaint.


“It is not easy, but I make it through. Though we have no formal schools for our trade, and I struggle to source capital for buying tools such as hummers, wheelbarrows, picks, levers, and metal bars, I manage to earn K18, 000 or more a month,” Moyo says.


Moyo said, contrary to perceptions that smashing rocks does not require financial investment, the business demands substantial capital. He said, for instance, that apprenticeship payments, and the purchase of such materials as hummers, wheelbarrows, picks, levers, and metal bars requires funds, in his case over K60, 000.


Matilda James and Violet Makwiza, who operate from Chemussa in Blantyre, said their lives have improved a lot since they ventured into the trade some two and eight years ago, respectively.


“Though my earnings do not exceed K18, 000 a month, I am able to supplement my husband’s income,” James says.


However, both James and Makwiza lamented the lack of capital in the trade, saying commercial banks are stingy with their cash.


There have been efforts by local assemblies, including city councils such as Blantyre, Lilongwe, Zomba, and Mzuzu to regulate small-scale sand mining activities, as well as rock smashing as one way of safeguarding the environment.


Despite all these challenges, artisanal mining remains the foundation of their survival edifice, the methodiser of their family stability, and mainspring of their daily hopes.


For a country short on minerals, small-scale mining has become a contributor to economic development. Malawi has no well-developed minerals industry, though there are potential heavy mineral sand, bauxite, phosphate, uranium and rare earth element deposits.


Mines and Minerals Act of 1981 stipulates that all minerals are vested in the President on behalf of the people of Malawi. The Commissioner for Mines and Minerals in the Ministry of Energy and Mining is empowered to administer the Act.


According to Malawi Government’s official website, www.malawi.gov.mw, the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Environment is currently “implementing Priority Number Five, which include (sic) Climate Change, Natural Resources and Environmental Management, and Priority Number Nine, which tackles Energy and Mining”.


However, the Ministry- which is mandated to provide policy guidance and direction on all matters concerning the country’s natural resources, energy and environmental management- does not elaborate the exact activities being undertaken, leaving people wishing to appreciate government’s efforts in the dark.


Small-scale mining has been part of human activity since time immemorial. As the book ‘That’s Life: Hilarious Collection of Quotable Quotes, Incredible Incidents, Comical Facts, and Amazing Blunders’ indicates, tradesmen and women in this industry have been subjected to jokes along the centuries.


The book features a 17th century epitaph written by an unknown individual, which reads:


A zealous locksmith died of late,

And did arrive at Heaven’s gate.

He stood without, and would not knock,

Because he meant to pick the lock.


An artisanal miner is, effectively, a subsistence miner. The industry, as manifested by Moyo and Banda, is made up of people who are not on the salary books of any company. Instead, the small-scale miner leads a lonely life, working independently panning and mining precious or semiprecious stones using their meager resources.


The tools used are mostly hand-tools, exactly what Banda and Moyo use. Because , world over, artisanal miners often work seasonally, Banda has a maize field that gives him between 10 to 12 50 kg bags of maize a year.


Exactly what ICMM says: “For example, crops are planted in the rainy season, and mining is pursued in the dry season. However, they also frequently travel to mining areas and work year round”.


ILO statistics put the figure of artisanal minors at between 13 and 20 million- men, women, and children- which explains the organisation’s concern with child labour issues. But these are estimates based on a count of players in 50 developing countries, and do not include artisanal miners in developed countries.


Activities range from precious stones’ panning in rivers to the development of small-scale working plants, activities that affect a wide range of issues, including environmental degradation, safety precautions, land tenure, and labour standards.


Globally, 12 percent (or 330 tonnes) of annual gold production is generated through artisanal mining. In Malawi, though, it is not gold that is mined: terrazzo, bauxite, among others, is the common fish. It is not clear whether the number of miners in increasing in Malawi but steady, and rising, gold prices (from US$274.45 at the start of 2002, to US$1229.88 in May 2010) has shifted their global numbers upwards.


While Malawian miners lack collaborative mechanisms, the Collaborative Group on Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (Casm), a global networking facility that aims at reducing poverty through improved environmental, social and economic performance of artisanal and small-scale mining in developing countries such as Malawi has been advocating for formalization of the sector.


Casm, which is headquartered at the World Bank premises in Washington and is currently chaired by the British Department for International Development, compiled a report in 2008 which, among others, suggested that the use of certificates of origin and ethical quality could raise the sector’s profile and stimulate sustainable development in artisanal mining communities.


So important is the issue that the International Labour Organisation (ILO), through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, incorporates mining and quarrying activities. ILO notes that artisanal mining is important not only for the right reasons.


The sector has been cited as one of the breeding grounds for child labour. ILO says child labour “can still be seen in small-scale mines of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even parts of Europe”.


Artisanal mining can also be a ground for conflict that pits small-scale, largely informal, miners against large larger mining companies, according to the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM).


“The fact that much of artisanal and small-scale mining activity occurs outside regulatory frameworks- whether illegal or not- can also present significant challenges for companies and regulators. There can be significant tension between artisanal and small-scale miners and their own governments- with companies caught in the middle,” reads part of ICMM’s guidance document.


The document, produced in collaboration with Communities and Small-Scale Mining, the International Finance Corporation’s Oil, Gas, and Mining Sustainable Community Development Fund, has helped ease simmering tension in over 20 countries, including Ghana.


In most cases, tensions arise when larger mining companies gain rights to develop deposits that are currently worked by artisanal miners, according to the ICMM report.

Malawi braces for climate change

MALAWI is said to be adapting well to changes in climatic conditions, thanks to agriculture capacity-building interventions targeting peri-urban communities in Chikhwawa and Mulanje districts, experts have said.


This was observed when University of Malawi’s Natural Resources and Environmental Centre (Narec) took Senior Programme Officer for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)-Canada, Dr. Evance Kituyi, on a tour of projects the centre has been funding in Chikhwawa and Mulanje district. The trip also included researchers from the University of Dar Salaam’s Institute of Resource Assessment.


Kituyi said he was impressed with how Malawi was responding to the global challenge of climate change by building the capacity of people in peri-urban areas.


“While we all realise that climate change has started to devastate communities the world over, as erratic rains continue to pose food security challenges, it is pleasing that communities in Malawi have started adapting to the phenomenon,” Kituyi said.


Kituyi said countries need to scale-up climate change mitigation interventions to avoid perpetuating resource disparities between the poor and the rich.


Among other interventions focusing on horticulture, Narec has been working with institutions such as Bvumbwe Research Station, a development that has enabled it introduce vegetable crops such as cabbage and onions in Chikhwawa, and winter cropping and vertical gardening in Mulanje.


While community members have been working through farmers’ clubs, some individual farmers have adopted the new technological innovations and have seen their incomes prop up by applying the new methods in their individual plots.


National team leader for Climate Change Adaptation in Africa (ACAA) Peri-Urban Inter-dependence Climate Change Project, Miriam Joshua, said appropriate use of technology, improved knowledge on financial transactions, and introduction of new crops have improved the financial and food security situation at the household level.


“We have built the capacity of farmers in adapting to climate change with the aim of helping them sustain (crop) production and save money. We have targeted peri-urban communities deliberately because we know that most projects target urban areas, and this renders peri-urban communities vulnerableto climate shocks,” Joshua said.


Joshua said, however, that, by improving the amount of disposable income among farmers, the initiative could also stem urban migration, which causes brain-drain in rural areas as sharp minds flock to cities such as Mzuzu, Lilongwe, Blantyre and Zomba.

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.