The AfricaNews articles of FRAZER POTANI
Alcohol draining Malawi’s development resources
Stewart was a heavy goods vehicle driver based in Lilongwe and used to travel alot-transporting goods between Malawi and the country's neighbors. - Unexpectedly, about 12 months ago some developments happened that changed his life.
He overwhelmingly lost his weight, used to often feel dizzy, urinate and experience an excessive thirst.
Further Stewart used to feel very tired, his vision sometimes was blurred and would even sweat profusely at night.
“After losing weight I rushed to the conclusion that I was HIV positive before even going for the test to know if I had the virus or not because honestly speaking drinking alcohol and chasing women was part of my life during my …Malawi: Some heroines forgotten in disaster fight
Since time immemorial during every rainy season between October and March 59-year-old Gracia Alimenda and her family in Traditional Authority (T/A) Mbenje in Nsanje District, southern Malawi sharing boundary with Mozambique abandoned their home for fear of being swept away by floods. - Since time immemorial during every rainy season between October and March 59-year-old Gracia Alimenda and her family in Traditional Authority (T/A) Mbenje in Nsanje District, southern Malawi sharing boundary with Mozambique abandoned their home for fear of being swept away by floods.
Nsanje and Chikhwawa districts in Southern Region of the country are flood-prone areas due to their geographical location nea…Malawi: Laughing at hunger on empty stomach
She felt weak in her legs after on several days sleeping on an empty stomach because she had literally nothing to eat within her household. But her face beamed with hope that she would this day have something to fill in her stomach after the country's first citizen a longside a representative of an organization that had donated 50 Kg bags of maize flour to government for free distribution to the needy placed one on her gray haired head. - This was 72-year-old Alineti Kachere an old woman from Traditional Authority (T/A) Mwanza’s Area benefiting from a food handouts distribution exercise in the lakeshore district of Salima (90 Km from Lilongwe) recently.
And concerned that while…Life saving power in washing hands
Friday December 14, 2007 is an unforgettable day in the life of 29-year-old Rachell Mulauli from Bembeke Area in Dedza District, 90 Km away from Malawi's capital, Lilongwe. A group of people gathered at her hut following the death of her 3-year-old daughter, Sellina. - “She contracted diarrhoea and cholera after both drinking contaminated water and eating some mangoes without washing them and her hands respectively,” recalled Mulauli, a mother of five, with agony in her voice.
One can easily understand why Rachell to this very day is still haunted by her late daughter’s death because it would have been avoided.
According to UNICEF Malawians have better access to…Malawi: Population, climate change to swallow nature
Each day is always tiresome for 58-year-old widow Lucia Kamchepa in Traditional Authority (T/A) Kuntaja in Blantyre, southern Malawi. As a woman, she works for many hours within her two-bed roomed grass thatched hut she calls home and several kilometers away from it soon after getting up early in the morning but sleeps just for a few hours. - “Every day I have to walk for 5 Km to fetch some water from a well the only source of water for drinking and cooking in my village,” said the mother of 6 and 14 grandchildren adding that sometimes the water source dries up annually during dry season between August and December.
“…and apart from fetching water, I also have to w…Lack of social amenities poses danger
Imagine that each time you have to answer to a call of nature in your home village in Africa you have to, using your bare hands quickly dig a toilet to relieve yourself Then while digging your toilet your fingers land on feaces proving that the place had already been used as a toilet! Or just have a picture that you are a mother of five and after a day long time preparing your garden for the next planting season you recall that you left not even a single drop of water home for drinking and cooking. - Then in the evening you pick your large Mtsuko (clay pot) and rush to a lake near your village to draw some water for drinking and cooking only to discover some human excreta in your pot the nex…Malawi: Some laws fueling HIV/AIDS infections
Malawi has to repeal some of laws, policies and practices that are infringing Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHRs) of citizens including some groups that are vulnerable to HIV and AIDS infections. Yes! If there is one of Malawi's successful stories in HIV and AIDS fight then is the reduction of the number of People Living With HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) in the over 13 million plus population due to some strategies in the fight against the pandemic in place. - The former Nutrition, HIV and AIDS Principal Secretary (PS) now PS for Ministry of Gender, Mary Shawa, attributed successes attained in HIV and AIDS fight in Malawi to donor support including from the Global Fund.
She disclosed…Digging Malawi out of water problems
Villagers watched while filled with great excitement as the visitors were busy engaged in the process aimed at rescuing the natives from drinking dirty water. Yes! Under the Big Dig Project drilling of a borehole took place in Bokola Village which has changed lives of the communities forever. - And 36-year-old Zaina Filipo from Bokola Village which is in Traditional Authority (T/A) Mwanza in Salima District on the shores of Lake Malawi in the central region of the country could not miss to witness the borehole drilling event.
Residents in Salima located 90 Km from Malawi's capital Lilongwe struggle to access safe Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities to the extent that some …Malawi:Beautiful destination with limping tourism
A stout French-Canadian, Dominique Blanchard, 41, is on leave and decides visiting Malawi after being tipped by a friend at home [Canada] who had visited Malawi earlier that this southern African nation is rich in tourist attraction centres and heritage. Blanchard, a social scientist then decides to travel from his home town of Quebec situated about 480 Km from one of Canada's big cities, Montreal through connection flights to visit Malawi to explore the southern African state's beautiful sceneries and social heritage. - And through connection flights, Blanchard finds himself in the magnificent Kruger National Park in South Africa where he spends three days en route to Malawi.
L…Blood for sale in Malawi
When on Thursday March 10 last year AfricaNews.com highlighted that Malawi' s public hospitals were thirsty for blood to help all stakeholders including policy makers in the health sector in the tiny southern African nation take drastic measures to improve the situation, the story might have just been taken lightly. This has now come up with a price. - “There are risks and costs to a programme of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”-late US president John F. Kennedy.
As if true to late Kennedy’s wise statement over a year down the line, failure to address the blood shortage in Malawi’s public hospitals ha…Remembering shining face of late Meles Zenawi
He was supposed to host African leaders from all corners of the continent after an African Union (AU) Summit that was to take place in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe was rescheduled to his country's capital also AU Headquarters, Addis Ababa after Lilongwe declared that she was not ready to host Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir wanted by the International Criminal Court on alleged war crimes. - However, this one of the sons of Africa, the late 57-year-old Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, who bailed out his country from the dilapidated ruins of civil war by transforming it into one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies vanished from public eye in June this year, and…Malawi: A path for men only
Imagine your family member is dead and you have sent your two siblings to inform relatives 5 Km away only the two to go missing! But later the two are discovered still alive however, after being circumcised without their own consent! This actually happened to Shadreck Chitimbe of Ndirande Township in Malawi's sole commercial city of Blantyre. - Shadreck’s siblings Sydney Chitimbe, nine and Harrison Somanje, 11, went missing after being sent to deliver a funeral message to relatives staying around Soche Quarry, 5 Km away from home in Blantyre.
Kingsley Sabuleni, 20, Kasim Samson 16, Mabvuto Masache, 20, Wasili Mndala 15 and Peter Nyambi, 28 of Misesa in Blantyre abducted Sydney…Brain drain affects Malawi’s health service delivery
Nurses, midwives, doctors, clinicians and health workers in general do also feel some pains because, like all other human beings on the planet, they are made up of three Bs namely Blood, Brain and Bones! Yes! While these professionals have to treat and care for patients with empathy, therefore, they also deserve a dignified life to sustain their bodies, minds and souls if they have to serve the sick professionally and ethically to save lives. - This is why after for instance taking into account that she could not bear the pains of routine unending experiences of stress emanating from heavy pressure of work against being paid low wages in a ward at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) in Lilongwe ov…Malawi: Strike leaves capital city’s taps dry
Her husband had no choice soon after climbing out of the bed but get dressed and bath himself in a perfume spray before leaving home for office because there was not even a single drop of water in any of the containers available in the house. And after waking up early in the morning the woman had while armed with a 10-litre plastic bucket struggled to get some water. - “This was after moving from water kiosk to kiosk and house to house in search for water within the neighbourhood because all the taps were dry. Lucky enough I managed to fill my bucket with water at Area 13 Market which is over 5 Km from where I live,” said 36-year-old Sellina Kayembe from Chilinde Township in Mala…Malawi sits on untapped gold
Fruits and vegetables contain magic and power of transforming women relying on their husbands on everything including bringing food on the table into breadwinners. To prove it, one just has to visit Magomero in Chiradzuru about 40 Km from Malawi's commercial city, Blantyre in the south. - Here one meets Magomero Food Processing Enterprise (MFPE), a 10-member women group established in 2002 and learns on how value addition on fruits and vegetables transformed them from just housewives into breadwinners.
“We preserve vegetables by drying them, and process fruits to produce drinks (juice), wine and other products such as jam from bananas, malambe (baobab fruit) including mangoes …Malawi: Acquiring AIDS amid shields against HIV
The time is 16:52 p.m. as a crowd watches a group of women in white blouses and black skirts kneeling around a fresh tomb in a grave yard in Kawale 2 Township in Lilongwe City paying their final respect to their member. The women are members of a Women's Church Guild and conducting the last prayer after the burial of their colleague, 36-year-old Dorika a mother of seven who died few days ago from an HIV related infection after a long illness. - It all started after Dorika’s late 40-year-old husband, Williams contracting Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) from sex outside marriage after a drinking spree.
And when he went for an STD testing and treatment he was also diagnosed H…Who protects disabled women against violence, AIDS?
Just have a picture that you are a young woman who was born with a disability but an ambitious girl aiming high, at going to a nursing college after completing primary and secondary school to join your country's few nurses dressed in white uniform to treat patients in your country's short staffed public hospitals. However, your dream gets aborted and you get enclosed in a coffin after an early premature death following a long illness linked to HIV and AIDS after contracting the virus through a defilement ordeal. - Now stop imagining! This actually happened to the late Silvia then 14 years old, from a village in Phalombe District, southern Malawi.
It was not an easy road for the…Binding women in circles to banish hunger, poverty
Soon after Nellipe Mtete's husband died in Rumphi over 70km from Mzuzu city in northern Malawi her in-laws agreed to snatch away the 36 acres of land she had for many years with her late spouse produced crops for food and sale from. Mtete however, still possesses the land where she grows maize, potatoes, soya beans, tobacco with her children. - “I diversify in my farming because I have adequate land inherited from my late husband after ActionAid Malawi empowered me through RELECT Circles otherwise, it’s not easy for a woman to access land since grabbing deceased estates is very common here,” the 48-year-old widow told Africanews.com in April this year during an intera…Is mental slavery haunting Africa’s development?
The scramble for Africa: Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 to Divide Africa Meeting at the Berlin residence of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in 1884, the foreign ministers of 14 European powers and the United States established ground rules for the future exploitation of the "dark continent." Africans were not invited or made privy to their decisions. - The French dominated most of West Africa, and the British East and Southern Africa. The Belgians acquired the vast territory that became The Congo. The Germans held four colonies, one in each of the realm's regions. The Portuguese held a small colony in West Africa and two large ones in Southern Africa.
After colonial rule was f…Malawi: A life saving wonder called triage
When 19-months-old Baliyasi Samson entered in a ward with his mother Sayankhulana Sakala at Salima District Hospital in the lakeshore district of Salima (90 Km from Lilongwe) in central Malawi his life's thread was hanging on a thin line between life and death. The boy was in a coma but lucky because it had to take a team work spirit and a wonderful skill called triage by health workers at the hospital to save his life by resuscitating him to regain his health. - During Baliyasi’s treatment over a couple of days Salima District Hospital staff provided a strong insight into the intricacies of building a health system bit by bit, and just how vital it is to make sure all those bits …Malawi fights ignored but dangerous diseases
She stood up in the midst of health policy makers, civil society members including journalists with a purpose: to deliver an important message. Yes! On behalf of fellow students from Mount Sinai Private School in Lilongwe, a little but an eloquent English speaker, Juliet Ngwira delivered a message at a gathering pleading with Malawi Government authorities and its partners in development to take action on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) such as Cancer, Diabetes, Asthma, High Blood Pressure (HBP). - “We even appeal to parents throughout Malawi that for instance if they are diabetic and bread winners for the family but can’t take necessary measures to control their condition this c…OPINION: Why Malawi is attached Kamuzu
Friday July 6 this year marked 48 years since Malawi attained independence from Britain and whenever Malawians follow the country's historic journey from colonialism to independence the late former dictator, prime minister, first president, life president, father and founder also the country's statesman, Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda's name is attached to this important historic event and the country's history in general. - Yes! Whether one likes it or not Malawi’s Independence story shall never be full if late Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s name is detached from it.
From a son of a single mother following his father's death in 1913, to a migran…Women struggle to rinse hunger, poverty stains
Just looking at her one clearly appreciates that she is old and frail therefore in need of support for food, clothing and shelter to live comfortably in her last days. However, each passing day this 60-year-old woman Florence Mkandawire from Gowoyani Village, Chief Chikulamayembe's Area (Rumphi), over 80 Km from the country's third largest city, Mzuzu in the north struggles just to have one meal for her and other over a dozen mouths. - “Life is really very tough for me because I look after 16 orphans. Their parents died. I keep them and they all look up to me for all their needs. I get food for my family from farming and sometimes we sell part of the harvest to buy items like…Malawi: High fertility rate fuelling poverty
Malawi has to convince couples to bear few children or risk continuing to struggle to achieve social economic development at all levels to reduce levels of poverty currently outweighing the majority of the country's over 13 million population, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). - “Malawi is among the least developed countries with high fertility and rapidly growing population, high levels of unmet need for family planning. With an annual population growth rate of 2.8 percent, 5.7 children per woman, 139 people per square kilometer, Malawi has one of the highest growth rates and is amongst the most densely populated countries in sub-Saharan Africa,” said…Malawi: Ex president's son granted bail
The son to Malawi's former president Bakili Muluzi, Atupele Austin Muluzi, has been granted bail after his recent arrest by police allegedly for inciting violence after the lawenforcers stopped him from conducting political whistle stops and a political rally at Area 24 Township in Lilongwe. - Police threw tear gas canisters at Atupele’s United Democratic Front (UDF) supporters including Area 24 residents’ homes who were not part of the rally on Sunday last week.
The matter angered the UDF supporters who went on rampage setting ablaze Area 24 Police Unit, vandalizing lawenforcers’ houses including beating the policemen.
According to the young Muluzi’s lawye…Tension grips Mangochi, Malawi
Tension gripped Malawi's Lakeshore District of Mangochi [over 300 Km from Lilongwe] also opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) stronghold following the heavy increase of presence of policemen in uniform, plain clothes including Malawi Government Security Intelligence Service (SIS) personnel. - The tension mounted ahead of President Bingu wa Mutharika’s visit to the area to lead Malawi in joining the rest of the world in commemorating the World Water Day on Thursday.
“Since Monday this week after police were engaged in battle with UDF supporters in Lilongwe we have been experiencing an increase in the number policemen here,” Mangochi resident Plesley Liwago told A…Malawi’s government clears mist on drug safety
Malawi's government has assured citizens in the country that the drugs that were procured on behalf of the state by members of the donor community are safe. - One of the challenges that has emerged following the bad blood between Capital Hill in Lilongwe and its traditional donors is shortage of drugs in public hospitals after the development partners have withdrawn their budgetary support on allegations of the Bingu wa Mutharika administration’s failure to respect rule of law, good governance and human rights.
“The Ministry of Health and the Pharmacy, Medicines and Poisons Board [PMPB] would like to inform the general public and all District Health Officers that the dru…Waging war towards silencing malnutrition
To her it was a puzzle without a solution as her two-year-old daughter; Annette frequently fell sick without getting better. "I couldn't just understand the cause of her sickness. I therefore rushed to a conclusion that my daughter had been bewitched," 32-year-old Thandiwe from Chiwamba Area in Kasungu, over 120 Km from Lilongwe said. - She disclosed that she was disillusioned with treatments administered to Annette yet none of them worked.
“Then one day without further delays I decided to walk a 10 Km distance while carrying her on my back from my village to Chiwamba Health Centre,” Thandiwe said adding that it was at the health centre where Annette’s sic…Malawi: Rooting out HIV using mobile phones
In Malawi, a Non-Governmental-Organization (NGO), Development Aid from People to People (DAPP) has been using the mobile gadgets in the fight against HIV and AIDS in the Total Control of the Epidemic (TCE) Project. - “The project was started in 2009 by Humana NetherIands together with DAPP and involves field workers gathering information on HIV and AIDS in the catchment areas through interviewing clients. They then file the collected data to our centre where it is analyzed and stored for use by stakeholders,” said DAPP Programme Coordinator Florence Longwe.
Cecil Gada, a Field Officer involved in the collecting of data using mobile phones through interrogating clients in Thyo…UK doors closing for African nurses
Malawian and African nurses planning to emigrate to the United Kingdom (UK) to secure jobs with better working conditions than in their countries risk being discriminated and failing to secure employment. According to a recent research, there has been a sharp decline in the number of nurses from poor developing countries including Malawi and Africa migrating to the UK widely attributed to UK Immigration, tougher immigration controls on overseas nurses. - However, some researchers reveal that foreign nurses are shunning the UK due to some forms of discrimination against foreign nurses.
"It's more difficult for Malawian doctors to emigrate to the UK now, as the immigration rules c…Malawi: Male teachers turning into girl predators
Soon after teenage girl Titha had reached her puberty she got selected to start her Form One at a boarding secondary school in Chiradzuru, less than 40 Km from Blantyre in southern Malawi. And before she picked her travelling bag the girl's mother told her to always remember to concentrate in her studies, respect her teachers at her new school. - “Teachers will be your parents at that school in my absence. Further, please my daughter avoid associating yourself with members of bad company, I mean disobedient students at your new school," said Titha's mother as she gave her daughter some money for transport and other needs.
When Titha went to her school she practiced ju…Reaps from some healings of sick environment
The time is around 2 O'clock afternoon in Traditional Authority (T/A) Kuntaja's Area in Blantyre District, southern Malawi as a group of nine hands are busy taking bites of nsima (Malawi's staple food made of hard porridge from maize flour) from one food bowl and dipping into another with boiled Usipa fish in fried tomato soup as relish before inserting the mixture into open mouths. - This is 36-year-old widow Flossie Liwanga, her five children and three of her late sister (Milka) taking their lunch while sitting on a goatskin mat on the verandah of her muddy grass thatched hut she calls a house.
Liwanga and her family members are lucky to have food during this lean seaso…Strange statistical figures in Malawi
Not all development statistics and graphs compiled in book files by people in authority, who swim in leadership pools of comfort using tax payers paddles reflect what a common poor man has actually experienced right on the ground. Some figures need proper scrutiny because they are strange to a society's development agenda. - For example, Malawi government boasts that about 80 in every 100 people in Malawi’s over 13 million population are accessing safe clean water hence already beaten the 74 percent safe water Millenium Development Goal (MDG) target by 2015.
“Malawi is on course to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goal on water and sanitation by 2015,”…Malawi: Widow uses pepper to wipe her tears
Every day used to be a struggle for her especially to just get a single meal for survival with her children. But now it is history because with pepper, she wiped all her tears of hunger and poverty. Yes! When a dark curtain fell on Egifa Nambazo after her breadwinner, (husband) passed on leaving her with four children she was more like abandoned at cross roads without knowing the direction to take. - “I didn't know how I was going to feed them all. I had a very small house and no reliable source of income. I survived with the children by brewing and selling beer, as well as selling chilies from my garden,” said Nambazo adding that the money she made was too little for her to…Climate change to heap more burden on women
Forty-year-old George Chambuluka married with seven children from Malawi's Lower Shire region (covering Chikhwawa and Nsanje Districts) sharing boundary with Mozambique abandoned his wife and children including his ailing 70-year-old frail, sick mother some weeks ago. He travelled a distance of over 40 Km from his village to the country's sole commercial city, Blantyre after failing to provide food for his family due to climate change. - “After accessing the cheap government subsidized fertilizer last season I harvested literally nothing since my crops withered while in the garden before maturity due to drought as a result of climate change,” said Chambuluka.
He left…Malawi: Baiting lives with AIDS aid
As each day passes, 27-year-old widow Susan in Bangwe in Blantyre, Malawi, sub-Saharan Africa sees images of herself dead, enclosed in a wooden coffin carried by a crowd on the way to bury her in the township's graveyard leaving behind her two-year-old daughter Cynthia orphaned. - Over 24 months ago, while pregnant she was diagnosed HIV positive ; her CD4 count registered around 200. Since then, she swallows some Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) daily to prolong her life.
Susan collects her ARV pills from a nearby Limbe Health Centre in Blantyre which treats over 1,000 patients daily and provides the ARVs for free from Malawi Government with funding from the Global Fund for HIV and AIDS …Malawi to implement water strategy
In an effort to facilitate an increase of people accessing safe water in Malawi, that country's government has hired a British firm to help it develop a water infrastructure strategy in the Southern African country. - “WS Atkins will work with us to provide a framework for the implementation of economically, technically, environmentally and socially attractive water infrastructure investments in Malawi,” said Principal Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Sandram Maweru.
WS Atkins was according to Maweru chosen from six bidders vying for the contract.
“The British firm has been tasked with raising awareness over issues inclu…When donors are stoned, poor pay the price
If you think just doing the job you were employed for can not invite some trouble in your career then take a flight to London and ask one former British envoy to Malawi, Fergus Cochrane- Dyte. - Dyet was posted to Lilongwe not as a tourist but as a watchman for British tax payers and one day just did the job he was employed for-filing a message on what was actually happening in his working station (Malawi) to his government in Downing Street North West 10 in London through Foreign Secretary William Hague.
In the message which was delivered through a confidential diplomatic cable Dyet described how President Bingu wa Mutharika was becoming "increasingly autocratic and intolerant of c…Women still weep for power, resources for development
Just mention her name and anyone with a goodwill for this tiny, landlocked, poverty impoverished southern African state honestly agrees that she is one of few, humble daughters of substance and a role model for a girl child and fellow women at all levels in this country and even beyond the borders! - This great woman is Malawi’s Vice-President (VP) Joyce Hilda Banda whose qualities and past contributions including hardworking background had prior to the 2009 general elections, won President Bingu wa Mutharika’s heart to hand pick her as his running mate disregarding his fellow men in Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Banda has vast experiences that have contributed to Malaw…Malawi: Gold poisoning rescue operation starts
When 11-year-old Jack Mwanapwa lost his mother to HIV and AIDS at a tobacco estate in Kasungu, 120 Km away from Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, he still had hope to lean on his father's shoulder. Jack's father, Adrian left his home in Zomba in the south in the company of his late wife, Address 20 years ago to work at one of Kasungu's 22,000 registered tobacco estates in the centre in search for a better life. - But Jack, who was himself born HIV positive had his hope of leaning on his father evaporating into thin air because soon after his mother’s death his father remarried Eniffa and she ill-treated him and his father did nothing.
“Every time I fell sick, Aun…Nine die in northern Malawi demonstrations
Nine civilians have died in northern Malawi alone during the southern Africa nation's July 20 demonstrations against President Bingu wa Mutharika's administration's alleged poor governance, violation of human rights, disrespectful of the rule of law including failure to identify long term solutions for recurring forex and fuel shortages in the country. - All the dead victims were reported in Mzuzu's St John of God Clinic and Mzuzu Central Hospital in Mzuzu City in the northern part of Malawi.
"Eight of the victims died in hospital after sustaining serious injuries while one was brought already dead at the hospital,” Ministry of Health Spokesperson Henry Chi…Soldiers in Malawi ambush protesters
Since attaining Independence from Britain on July 6 1964 Malawi is known for peace, has never been at war hence presence of at least 20 soldiers patrolling streets is rare. The men in uniform have mainly been entertaining civilians with military displays during state functions. - However, on Wednesday fear gripped Area 23 Township in Lilongwe City when heavily armed Malawi Defense Force (MDF) personnel ambushed the suburb by surprise to restore order after Malawi Police Service (MPS) failed to contain the pressure from demonstrating civilians against President Bingu wa Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Government.
Thousands of civilians in Malawi demonstrated against Mu…MALAWI: Water has magic to improve lives
It is around 5a.m in the slums of Nkolokoti-Kachere in Malawi's sole commercial city, Blantyre. Despite the biting drizzle, Elida Mkando, has sneaked out of her matrimonial bed and got dressed while her husband is still asleep. In her hand is a 10-litre pail heading straight to join the python-like queue of females armed with buckets to draw water. - The water has been made possible by the Water Users Association (WUA) in Malawi. “We no longer get water from dirty streams,” said Fatima Misoya, a resident and water vendor in Nkolokoti.
Over half of Nkolokoti-Kacheres’ close to 40 water kiosks used to be run by public firm Blantyre Water Board (BWB) while others were …MALAWI: Baby dumping becomes rampant
Imagine that your mother has just brought you into this world. Then, instead of bringing you with that motherly love and care a mother is proudly known for, to later mature into a productive member of society, gets rid of you by dumping you in a public toilet. This nerve shaking activity has become rampant in Malawi. - The atrocities are being committed by mostly teenage mothers. A snap investigation reveals that among other things, increase in baby dumping and killing are as a result of frustrated young women.
“I had decided to strangle my three-month-old baby boy. But, after a second thought decided to dump him in a trench because he acted as an obstruction to my business. I am a…MALAWI: Rain for sale
If you think God holds all His divine powers, rights and patents to produce rainfall and let glorious gates in heaven open for it to fall elsewhere on earth to enable farmers produce food you better think twice. At least not in the case of Maleta Village in Malawi, where people pay for rains to fall. - The creator can produce rain and let it fall elsewhere on earth for farmers to produce in their gardens except in Maleta Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Kadewere in Chiradzuru less than 40 km from Malawi’s sole commercial city of Blantyre.
To villagers in Maleta and surrounding areas God and climate change do not exist because their 90-year-old Group Village Headman (GVH) Maleta…MALAWI: Sorrows of mothers
Barefooted 19-month-old Suzgo, in a dirty green piece of cloth improvised as a napkin and little naval blue blouse, while grinning, crawls on a dirty ground in her home, Symon Ndolo Village in Mzimba, northern Malawi towards her mud smeared Mickey Mouse doll in an orange dress. What she does not know is that her mother, Nyuma, had to die to let her live. - Yes! Behind Suzgo’s existence is a heartbreaking story of a mother losing her life to let her daughter live.
About 19 months ago, Nyuma’s friends and relatives buried her remains seven feet below in the village’s grave belly.
On her red earth tomb, a wooden cross still stands erect bearing three clearly marked dates…MALAWI: Boat earmarked as a floating clinic
It is a challenge for a lot of people living on the shores of Lake Malawi to access health facilities when they get sick. The lake is Africa's third largest and makes up one fifth of the country's total area. For most of the thousand miles of Lake Malawi's shoreline there is no road and access to health facilities for about four million residents living at the lakeside. - “When we are desperate for health care many of us travel by dugout canoes, risking the dangerous current storms and crocodile attacks to get to the nearest health centre,” said Orwin Totomkamwa Banda, a Chizumulu Island resident.
The island is on Lake Malawi just like its twin sister of Likoma …INTERVIEW: Gender head on Malawi’s progress
A Malawian high ranking civil servant Eric Ning'ang'a says despite Malawi Government making some positive developments on gender equality and women empowerment only negative issues continue to be highlighted. - He therefore, while admitting that there are some challenges in the course for Malawi and Africa to promote women’s rights and giving them opportunities, there is also a need to give credit where it is due if social economic development and poverty eradication are to be achieved.
He granted Africanews.com an interview to elaborate more.
Africanews.com: Can you please briefly describe who you are?
Ning’ang’a: I am an academician, politician and ph…MALAWI: ARVs can create over 4,000 jobs
HIV/AIDS might be a killer, however, has its positive side in Malawi. If the country is allowed to manufacture own life prolonging drugs - antiretroviral - for People Living with HIV/AIDS, over 4,000 Malawians could secure jobs, according to the Principal Secretary for Nutrition, HIV/AIDS Mary Shawa. - Securing a job is difficult in Malawi as Labour Minister Yunus Mussa said only 500,000 (4 per 100 people in the over 13 million population) are employed in the country.
Shawa said in 2009 President Bingu wa Mutharika directed that she and her team should do everything possible to enable Malawi start manufacturing its own Antiretroviral (ARV) drugs within the country.
“We have been…MALAWI: Hospitals thirsty for more blood
No surgeon puts on a green gown, strap a mask round the mouth and nose and effect an operation on a patient on the operation table in the theatre without first making sure there is an adequate amount of this liquid in this special hospital room. Blood gives life as it facilitates the smooth running of human body systems. - It helps the system break down food (digestion), movement of blood itself (circulation), human production (reproductive), breathing (respiratory) and nervous system which coordinates the brain with organs of the body to function properly.
Despite the importance of blood, in Malawi however, the country’s blood banks are always thirsty for more blood due to low bloo…Blocking women, blocking development
Imagine you are an energetic woman in early 40s and your country is to hold general elections and you pluck out courage to enter into historical books by choosing to run as its first ever female presidential candidate. This happened to one Loveness Gondwe during Malawi's May 19 2009 general election. - Out of all women in Malawi, Gondwe stood out as presidential candidate for the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) party to compete with men including Malawi Congress Party (MCP)’s John Tembo and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Bingu wa Mutharika.
But despite being the first woman to run for the highest office Gondwe was not fully supported even by fellow women.
Som…MALAWI: Freedom for sale
Malawians wishing to hold demonstrations in the country must first pay K2 million [over $13, 000] deposit to the Malawi Police Service (MPS), according to President Bingu wa Mutharika speaking over the weekend at the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) mass rally at the 25,000 capacity Kamuzu Stadium in Blantyre. - “Law or no law in place the money must be paid in cash before a demonstration in case property is damaged to cover for damaged property because government will not be responsible for such damages,” said Mutharika while clad in his party’s blue colours.
The President further challenged the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) who are planning to go into the street…MALAWI: Power cuts threaten lives
Five-year-old Rosetta from Nathenje, a rural settlement sharing boundary with Malawi's capital Lilongwe, is a lucky girl because something terrible would have happened to her life. Doctors recommended that she undergo surgical operation after a diagnosis revealed that she had a tumour in her large intestine. - When the day of her operation came she was placed on a theatre table at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) ready to be operated on.
However, as surgeons were preparing to put on their green surgical kits including strap masks round their mouths and put sterilized instruments to operate on the little girl, suddenly there was an electricity black-out forcing the operation postpon…Two worlds apart within one planet
The couple and their two children are based in Lamberth, United Kingdom (UK). In short they have a comfortable home filled with all necessary modern household items including four cars for use. They always have a nutritious breakfast, lunch and supper. They also have access to safe drinking water. When they fall sick, they get first class medical treatment. - Their children Jane, 18 and George, 15 are studying Law and Accountancy at Oxford University and North West London College respectively. Just recently, the man and his wife also bought five trucks that operate between the town of Reading and London in their country.
Their life is a paradise of prosperity on earth because they have a …MALAWI: Getting old is not a sin
At the end of each quarter of the year, Stella Mkwate, in her 30s, a Public Relations Officer (PRO) for a beverage manufacturing firm in Lilongwe goes to the supermarket for shopping before driving over 90 Km from Malawi's capital to visit her grandmother, Theodora Botolo in her 90s at home in Chinyamula Village in Dedza. Her love for the old woman mushroomed when she was just six. - Stella’s mother, Fiona, a retired government secondary school teacher in her 60s used to, during her teaching days take the then little girl to the old woman to experience both urban and rural life.
Her daughter did not enjoy her first visit to the village because she felt out of place to be close …MALAWI: Villagers heal sick environment
Just step your foot in villages in Traditional Authority T/A Kuntaja and neighbouring T/A Kapeni all in Middle Shire Area in Blantyre District, southern Malawi. Soon after arriving in these two areas your forehead, arm pits will turn into your body's own water springs through releasing sweat profusely due to fierce scorching sun rays. You would struggle to find a tree shade to escape the sun heat. - The two areas are suffering from climate change hangovers due to rampant environmental degradation activities such as deforestation, charcoal burning and poor land uses. The activities have borne bitter fruits such as rising temperatures and persistent droughts hence reducing food production…MALAWI: Fuel price hikes cripple populace
On Tuesday February 1 this year, Cleopatra Mwaluwafu, 33, a Customer Relations Manager for a bank in Lilongwe woke up from her bedroom at Area 47 in Lilongwe, and after breakfast got into her sky blue Toyota Carina saloon car. But as she drove to her office, she suddenly noted a red light on her car's dashboard, a sign of low fuel in the tank. - She pulled the car near a pump at a nearest filling station and a male attendant got a key from her, opened the tank cover, and inserted the pump’s nozzle.
Mwaluwafu pulled out four K500 bank notes (K2,000 or $13) from her blue purse and passed them to the attendant who filled 6.89 litres in her car’s tank at K290.00 per litre be…MALAWI: Turning tubers into delicious crisps
Ask anyone about the products Ntcheu district which is about 160 Km from Malawi's capital, Lilongwe is famous for and you will be told that this district also sharing common boundary with Malawi's neighbor, Mozambique, is popular due to Irish potatoes production. - But taking advantage of illiteracy levels among the Irish potato growers and the nutritious tubers’ abundance in Ntcheu’s Trading Centres, buyers from all walks of life more often exploit the farmers through offering them low prices for their produce on the market.
After their eyes got opened that they toil hard in the field to produce quality potatoes but get frustrated to sell their produce at a good pr…MALAWI: Why women need special loans
It happened on a Friday in January this year. While others in their low pitch voices at her funeral sympathized with her, others scorned her as her coffin was slowly being lowered in the seven feet grave in the slum of Mgona in Lilongwe, Malawi. "Surely had her uncle and aunt given the late girl a second chance in their mansion she would have possibly lived," said James Kankhwende, a retired locomotive driver in his late 60s. - “I don’t agree with you. This girl asked for her early death herself through contracting HIV and AIDS willingly. If she had love for her own life she would have not turned her own body into a cash machine through commercial sex work,” charg…MALAWI: Fishermen catching bees
Fishermen elsewhere on the planet are associated with canoes, boats, water and nets and of course fish catching. But due to low fish catches as a result of rising human population and fishing practices unfriendly to the environment in Lake Malawi, some fishermen in Nkhata Bay District, about 50 Km from Mzuzu (Malawi's major city in the northern region) are harvesting bees. - How? Apart from fishing, the fishermen are also engaged in beekeeping for honey production to supplement their meagre benefits from their fishing business.
In fact, the fishermen have an association to run the affairs of their beekeeping business.
Nkhata Bay Honey Producers Cooperative (NHPC) was formed in 200…MALAWI: Toiling without profit
The scorching sun rays pierce everywhere. Nevertheless, 48-year-old Gaston Muheriwa in Traditional Authority Kaduya's Area in Phalombe, southern Malawi bears with them as he watches his tenants busily transferring tobacco leaves from the field to the barn to prepare it for the 2011 sales tobacco season at Limbe Auction Floors in Blantyre City. - The energy to grow tobacco for this season stems from Muheriwa’s 100 bales bought at a good price of between $1.90 and $2.15 per Kg during 2010 as compared to 2009 sales season.
Just four years ago, after the tobacco sales season, Muheriwa was stuck in bad debts after incurring huge losses in tobacco business because all his sales incom…Malawi: Prisoners sue gov't over food
Four prisoners at the Maula Prison in the Lilongwe city of Malawi have dragged the Malawi Government to court for failing to provide them with adequate food and better conditions. Chrispin Sibande, a Principal Legal Officer with Malawi Human Rights Commission made the disclosure at a workshop. - The announcement follows Africa News’ investigative feature earlier this month highlighting how prisoners in Malawi are eating less food as compared to the former one party State of the late first president Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
“Insufficient budgetary allocations to prisons are making it difficult for authorities to provide not just adequate but also nutritious food to inmates,…Malawi: Government to track internet users
Malawi government is to, through its communication wing, the Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (Macra) soon start monitoring the operations of internet facilities where most people get unlawful materials to face the law. This is to avoid the spread of pornographic videos and pictures on the internet. - According to the state controlled Malawi News Agency (Mana) member of Parliamentary Committee on Media and Communications, Jonas Viyazgi last week took Macra to task to explain what the authority is doing to avoid increasing publications of unlawful materials including pornographic videos and pictures on the internet.
“There is always increasing publication of pornographic ma…
