Gender Agenda Moving? Female Chief Justice En Malawi

On Friday morning the Malawi Parliament unanimously voted yes effectively confirming Justice Anastasia Msosa as the country's first ever female chief justice...my research is crapy but this lady might as well be the first if not only the the top five chief justices ever appointed in the world..of course not counting ancient civilization.

This means that Malawi has two females heading the two of the three branches of government, the executive being in the hands of Joyce Banda...even speaker of Parliament Chimunthu Banda spoke  about it saying he is now proud of Malawi.

Msosa has integrity. Out of 118 that voted, she got 117 votes. 1 abstained and I still wondering who that karanga is.

In her time as leader of the Malawi Electoral Commission, Msosa has never goofed...she is always cool and calm.

Whether this means the gender agenda is moving in Malawi is another issue because this is a poster position, patriachy is still the order of the day in Malawi...illiteracy and HIV all favour women.

Malawi insists South Korea knows of the labour export deal

It is Embarrassing. The Malawi government has shortlisted, interviewed and identified the 100,000 Malawians it wanted to send to South Korea, but South Korea says it doesn't know of any incoming Malawians.

Moon Sung Hwan, director at the Africa Division of South Korea's foreign affairs ministry told Bloomberg BusinessWeek that his government has not received any official request from Malawi on the issue.

The Koreans were reacting to a BBC story in which the minister of labour Eunice Makangala confirmed that there is a deal between the two countries, a deal which would see a 100,000 young Malawians being exported to Korea as migrant workers.

But the Malawi government Spokesperson, minister of information and Member of Parliament for Blantyre south, Moses Kunkuyu, insist there is a deal.

“The president travelled to South Korea, so did minister of labour. We did the advertising, the shortlisting and the interviewing. All these processes could not have happened without a basis. The president could not have launched this and said what she said.

“As for the comments from the said South Korean official, the do not come as a surprise. Locally people have been making noise saying South Korea is a war zone, that it treats immigrants as slaves, if Malawi was importing labour and someone said we were bad what would we do?” said Kunkuyu.

There have been media reports criticising the deal by highlighting the Amnesty International report which alleged that migrant workers in South Korea are treated like slaves, opposition MPs have also doubted the deal and dubbed it slavery.

Kunkuyu said Malawi is going ahead to prepare the people for the exercise. He said tomorrow people expected to be sent to Kuwait on a similar exercise are going to start orientations and those going to Dubai will follow.

President Joyce Banda's Spokesperson, Steven Nhlane, when asked in an email interview to explain the discrepancy in Joyce Banda's statements and those coming from South Korea referred me to a David Yun, at the Malawi Honorary Consul General to South Korea. Nhlane said Yun is the one who has been facilitating the deal.

I could not manage to get hold of the said Yun.

My theory? Seoul knows of the deal but hates the bad publicity. My verdict: let the youths go to Korea, they are better slaves there than in Malawi, without jobs.

Did you know they are now looking for graduates? South Korea rocks!

xo xo

Muta

Joyce Banda of Malawi versus Madonna of Material Girl: The War (No Comment)

STATE HOUSE—MALAWI

PRESS RELEASE—APRIL 10, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MADONNA'S CLAIMS, DEBATE AND STATE HOUSE RESPONSE

Claims and misgivings have been expressed by Pop Star, Madonna and her agents, against the Malawi Government and its leadership for not giving her the attention and courtesy that she thinks she merits and deserves during her recent trip to Malawi.

According to the claims, Madonna feels that the Malawi Government and its leadership should have abandoned everything and attended to her because she believes she is a music star turned benefactor who is doing Malawi good.

Besides, in the feeling of Madonna, the Malawi Government and its leadership should have rolled out a red carpet and blast the 21-gun salute in her honour because she believes that as a musician, the whiff of whose repute flies across international boundaries, she automatically is candidate for VVIP treatment.

For not receiving the attention and the graces that she believes she deserved, Madonna believes someone, not lesser in disposition than the President's sister, Mrs. Anjimile Mtila-Oponyo, has been pulling the strings against her following their earlier fallout bordering on a labour dispute.

State House has noted these claims and misgivings. State House has followed the debate incidental to these claims with keen interest, and would wish to respond as follows to put the record straight:

1.    Neither the President nor any official in her government denied Madonna any attention or courtesy during her recent visit to Malawi because as far as the administration is concerned there is no defined attention and courtesy that must be followed in respect of her.

2.    In any case, even if the defined parameters of attention and courtesy existed in respect of Madonna, the liberties of discretion to give or not to give that attention or courtesy would ordinarily and naturally remain the preserve of the host. Attention or courtesy is never demanded.

3.    Granted, Madonna has adopted two children from Malawi. According to the record, this gesture was humanitarian and of her accord. It, therefore, comes across as strange and depressing that for a humanitarian act, prompted only by her, Madonna wants Malawi to be forever chained to the obligation of gratitude. Kindness, as far as its ordinary meaning is concerned, is free and anonymous. If it can't be free and silent, it is not kindness; it is something else. Blackmail is the closest it becomes.

4.    Granted, Madonna is a famed international musician. But that does not impose an injunction of obligation on any government under whose territory Madonna finds herself, including Malawi, to give her state treatment. As stated earlier in this statement, such treatment, even if she deserved it, is discretionary not obligatory.

5.    It should be put on record that Madonna did not come to Malawi at the invitation of the President nor her government. In other words, she was neither the guest of the President nor of her government.

6.    For all that is known, she came to Malawi like any other visitor that feels like coming to Malawi. Such visitors don't have to meet with the President and are never amenable to state attention or graces.

7.    If the argument is that because she is an internationally renowned star, and, therefore, Madonna believes she deserved to be treated differently from other visiting foreigners, it is worth making her aware that Malawi has hosted many international stars, including Chuck Norris, Bono, David James, Rio Ferdinand and Gary Neville who have never demanded state attention or decorum despite their equally dazzling stature.

8.    Among the many things that Madonna needs to learn as a matter of urgency is the decency of telling the truth. For her to tell the whole world that she is building schools in Malawi when she has actually only contributed to the construction of classrooms is not compatible with manners of someone who thinks she deserves to be revered with state grandeur. The difference between a school and a class room should be the most obvious thing for a person demanding state courtesy to decipher.

9.    For her to accuse Mrs. Oponyo for indiscretions that have clearly arisen from her personal frustrations that her ego has not been massaged by the state is uncouth, and speaks volumes of a musician who desperately thinks she must generate recognition by bullying state officials instead of playing decent music on the stage.

10. For all that is known, Mrs. Oponyo has never been responsible for arranging state meetings with foreigners who are looking for those meetings. If Madonna was indeed a VVIP and a regular guest of State Governments as she wants to be seen and treated, she would have been familiar with procedures that have to be followed to get such meetings. They don't happen by simply sneaking into a country whose President and Government you scarcely desire to meet.

11. Even if Madonna followed the procedures to have her meetings with the President or government officials, the administration reserved all its rights to grant the meetings or not.

CONCLUSION

It must be noted that the President, Her Excellency Dr. Joyce Banda and her Government are ready to welcome any philanthropist seeking to assist in improving the welfare of the people of Malawi knowing that Her Excellency, herself, is a known philanthropist. However, acts of kindness must always remain as such; they must not smack of blackmail. In addition, let philanthropists not hold to ransom the President and any official of her Government because they showed some kindness to any Malawian.

CONTACT

Tusekele Mwanyongo

STATE HOUSE PRESS OFFICER                      

I have no regrets; Tembo looks back at his life lived so far

He has been at the head of the central bank, University of Malawi,  Press Corporation, he has been ministers and is considered to be the closest crony Kamuzu Banda has, so far he is the longest serving parliamentarian in Malawi and heads the opposition in Parliament, but that is far from being all that makes John Zenus Ungapake Tembo.

I landed an exclusive with John Tembo on condition that I will stick to my promise that I will not ask political questions; of course we both knew that was not true for a man like Tembo.

No regrets for me...

I was ushered into his Area 10 house’s living room at exactly 2:10 pm, I was made to wait for a couple of minutes and I wondered what the interview would be like, with the man that had been a politician over thirty years before I was born.

He is definitely a collector, his living room which spans the size of a volleyball court is laden with vintage ornaments, and four sets of Ivory block the fireplace, pure copper bowls and containers fill cabinets, gold plated gourds…

A painting the size of a three-quarter bed hangs over the fireplace, there are several over picture frames but among them, the biggest picture of a person is of Kamuzu, a youthful Kamuzu standing behind a chair and placing his hands on it, whoever lives in this house, I concluded, must love Kamuzu Banda.

“very close in as much as a politician, a president of a party later on of a nation…I became a very senior follower of Kamuzu and royal to him, I became a royal servant of Kamuzu which I am still, although he is late, I pledged royalty to him and I pledge royalty now, to him to the foundations of his policy in the party and in the government,” he said, slowly.

Those who say Kamuzu was dictator have wrong literature, to Tembo kamuzu was not a dictator, he was a nationalist and a fighter for freedom, democracy which today’s youths should actually emulate.

He said the fact that Kamuzu left his medicine practice in Ghana and Europe to liberate Malawians from bondage speaks of the man Kamuzu was.

Tembo sees little difference between the politics of 1961 and now and actually said democracy was there too it is why Kamuzu had a competitor of the United Federal Party member from Kasungu and himself opposed by a Mr. Mwase in his Dedza constituency.

Tembo had a smooth run in the thirty or so years Kamuzu Banda was in power, most of Kamuzu's friends fell out of grace and were exiled, and detained without explanations…I can cite the likes of Jen Mlanga and Focus Gwede.

After MCP was voted out of the limelight at the start of the 90s, Bakili Muluzi was to become of on John Tembo's worst nightmares, he was constantly telling Malawians that Tembo has blood on his hands  and knows something of the 1983 Mwanza murders in which four prominent cabinet ministers were mysteriously slain.

And yet Tembo was soon working with Bakili Muluzi, did he not feel bitter over the court hustles that the Muluzi regime dragged him through?

“Dr. Muluzi and I speak to each other now …if you ask him properly he will tell you that it was all wrong to accuse me of murder, I went through a lot of bad things in the opposition, I was arrested several times, went to jail several times I was acquitted in all of them.

"I think anybody who holds and maintains hatred in his heart is not a politician, he is a crook,” he said, then paused allowing me to take down his exact words.

But I was unconvinced, all this talk about Banda being a dictator about murders such as that of Mkwapatira Mhango has to have a basis, so if Kamuzu was not a dictator and Tembo clean in all the dark ages Decades Malawi went through, why is Kamuzu's name still crimson?

“It’s his political enemies beginning with the colonialists...after all the colonialists imprisoned Kamuzu and even sent him to Gweru in Rhodesia and knew later it was wrong this is why he became the first prime minister of this country they knew he was fighting for the poor,” said Tembo, briefly disturbed by a phone call.

The Manchester United fan, a mug sits on one of the shelves to certify his claim. He says he loves reading politics, sports and philosophy and has a lot of books in his private studies at his Area 10 and Blantyre residences.

His secretary Mrs. Chinangwa is busy seeing to parliamentary bills that Tembo will be seeing to as leader of opposition. But at 80, something looks normal; he looks 50 and still very active, active as a 35 year old. I had to ask, what is his survival kit made of?

Well, he used to play soccer and do athletics but that was in his youth.

“I live well, I eat well and I look after myself, I am active in life. Old age is what a person thinks about himself: Some people are old so early and some are young so late in life, it depends on the mental interest of the person,” He said, still inserting pauses in his speech stride.

Despite taking pride in his wife, Ruth who he said is a great cook and a professional dietician; he still maintained that food is just a small part of life.

And then he dwelt on his wife; he first met her when he was a university chap in Lesotho and her in secondary school and the next time he met her in London some years later, he could not wait another moment.

Was he ashy guy so as to meet a girl in college and wait till he was a minister to ask her out?

“A proposal is made when you are ready to propose marriage and when you propose marriage it means you know the person…at the time we were both mature, she is the one god chose for me. She is a magnanimous woman, very loving, very responsible and a very straight Christian,” said Tembo

After dating her for three years, he married her in 1969. He boast of her England trained culinary prowess, he married her while she worked as a dietician at a Leeds hospital.

“She is an excellent cook, I grew up eating nsima, and up to bow I like nsima with ndiwo, whether its vegetables, meat or fish,” said Tembo.

As a person, Tembo revealed that his principals are linked to his growing up in the village where he herded his grandmother’s sheep, goats and cattle, gardening and doing almost all that the village puts to a youth man.

With a Christian background of a father who started as a teacher and ending up as a reverend, Tembo remembers his father as a very kind person who liked people with people liking him back, he along his 8 siblings had to move from mission to mission.

“My father was a reverend of the CCAP church…very disciplined, he taught all his children to be disciplined, you should also ask about my mother, she was a very kind and generous woman, everybody who visited her house did not leave without eating something, that was her philosophy,” said Tembo.

He says he is proud father, saying he never used a rod on his children and let associations in school and society. All of them graduates and working outside Malawi.

After teaching for a brief stint, Tembo joined politics and he says his success in politics stems from the fact that since his youth he has always been committed to people and his experience in teaching and head mastering fostered his values of excellence and discipline.

On the upcoming MCP convention where a few young brains are ready to take him on for the post of the MCP presidency, Tembo could not only say that he is barring no one and said those declaring that they are candidates are not bonafide MPC members because the convention is the one supposed to decide that.

“The choice of candidates is the responsibility of the convention, it’s not therefore my responsibility to break the rules, regulations and tradition of the MCP and start saying I am the candidate, I will stand as a candidate, it’s not for me, it’s the responsibility of the people of the MCP if you find anyone saying I will be, he is not a member of the MCP, he is not, he is somebody who is trying to exploit members of the MCP,” said Tembo, rattled.

On the quality of the debate of the Malawi Parliament, Tembo bemoaned the immature people who come to parliament to get rich.

“When you find people becoming MP of this political party next time they join another, and another time they join another, those are not politicians. Multiparty politics does not mean prostitution of one’s life in politics,” charged Tembo.

He vehemently denied the rumours that went to town that he was on the card to being the second vice president in the Joyce Banda’s regime.

He also trashed the accusations that he is now a lesser opposition politician because President Banda has appointed his son and relatives to top positions namely Nancy Tembo to the Electoral Commission and Tembo’s own son to the diplomatic office in England.

“Never, I mean people who say that don’t even know who president Joyce Banda is and who I am...they don’t know… do you think I am in a position to go to a president of a country to say go and appoint Morgan Tembo to this or his wife that or my son to that?

“Do they think I can do that? It shows ignorance: No Malawian citizen is barred from appointment in the government if qualified,” said Tembo.

On Bingu Wa Mutharika’s leadership, Tembo just had a sentence on it.

“Argghh it was hopeless, declamatory …he destroyed the foundation and dignity of this country,” said Tembo and refused to expound.

He reminds me that his life is not over to describe his highs and lows and proudly declared that he has no regrets, whatever came to his life bad or good he took it, moved on

“I haven’t reached my highest point [in life]…In a normal life of person, you take the full range of experience, but there is no experience I regret for,” said Tembo.

“I have never changed, I stick to my principles…I believe in the dignity and life as a Malawian and of Malawians…I believe in the dignity of African, there are people such as Nkrumah, Sékou Touré, Kenyatta who have inspired me…,” said Tembo.

He revealed that he is a musical person and enjoys classical music, he enjoys listening to his daughter who when she come from overseas plays the piano and the classical guitar.

An extensive traveler, boasting that he has been everywhere in all the continents and the only significant country he has not been is Australia.

On the current situation rotten economy Malawi is swimming in, Tembo said Malawians need to focus of agriculture and be handworkers.

“We have to develop our own country, we must be hardworking, this country is agricultural, priority must be given to agriculture, over 80 percent of our people live in the rural areas and are involved in agriculture…”

Still on the economy, Tembo said the current bad economy is partly due to bad economic management saying the current standing of the Kwacha to the Dollar speaks for itself, when he was Reserve Bank governor, he says Kwacha was at K2 to a the British Pound which he said was no mean feat.

He also rained on the people that have led to the woes rocking the University of Malawi where some students at Bunda had to live in grass thatched houses and some are currently being housed where there used to store cement, among other woes.

“The people that led to that are not serious, university education should be university education, you only do what you can afford and develop quality students,” said Tembo.

Leave lesbians alone: Malawi's first ever openly practicing lesbian speaks out

We have seen the men: Steven Monjeza, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Fortune Banduka. But have we heard from the lesbians? Are there any in Malawi? Brace yourself.

Mercy Kumwenda, 23 says she is tired of living in the shadows and has come out to declare that she is a lesbian and she has called on “whoever is makes the laws” to leave lesbians alone and to protect them.

“People think that you are a witch, abnormal, satanic or you just want to make money but for me its inborn. I mean how do you I sleep with a man if I have no feelings for a man, I have tried dating men but it didn’t work,” said Kumwenda.

Kumwenda was speaking on the sidelines of a women’s rights consultation meeting organised by the ministry of gender in conjunction with Oxfam and Gender Coordination Network at Wamkulu Palace in Lilongwe on Wednesday.

The meeting was aimed at hearing the voices of rural women in preparation for the next set of millennium development goals; among the invited was Mercy Kumwenda.

Unprecedented .... Mercy in flesh, not hiding.

Kumwenda is of medium height, with an unforgettable face owing to a scar on her face. She harbours no shyness about her plump build and played confident as she mingled with the rest of the delegates.

The first question I fired at her was if she was sure of coming out in the newspaper, which she said she was, this despite her admitting that she hasn’t told her parents about her being gay yet.

“Currently only people from my work know…there are millions of lesbians out there but they cannot speak out because they fear being called names and jeered at in the streets,” said Kumwenda.

She however said that without coming out, like she did, government would not help her and her friends would continue to suffer oppression.

She denied any possibility of being a learned lesbian saying she found out about her being gay in standard eight when she got very attracted to her best friend who later became her lover whom she claims she continues being very close to.

“We actually have a name Mathanyula for it showing that being gay is not from the West, it has been in Malawi for a long time,” said Kumwenda.

The horrors that gays face in Malawi are well documented starting from those sanctioned by capitol hill where being gay is punishable by a jail sentence that can go up to 14 years, almost all Malawian gays according to literature occur in underground networks.

 “My friend sustained a broken arm after being beaten at a club for kissing a fellow lesbian. The hospital also looks at them in askance when we want to access medical care for STIs and they ask us to bring partners which we cannot do because we would be picked on therefore lesbians go to private hospitals if they can afford, ” she said.

She said lesbians do not need to come out to prove that there are out there, she said whoever wants to quantify them should commission a research.

Kumwenda said she knows about 40 lesbians in Blantyre and Lilongwe and with the secretive lives they lead, potential partners are identified through these cells of friends a point she stressed eliminates fake lesbians from real ones.

“If you are a fake lesbian you wouldn’t know the connection lesbians have by merely looking at each other,” she said.

A member of the Assemblies of God church, she believes that homosexuality is not a sin arguing that an inborn natural phenomenon cannot be a sin. She insisted that man should not rush to judge because there is only one judge: God and that he is yet to call for the judgment day.

Asked what she had to say to the framers of law who made homosexuality illegal, Mercy said she doesn’t even know who made the law and where he got the authority and the law makers and homophobic Malawians, Mercy had a brisk message:

“Leave lesbians alone. They are human being no matter what people say. Let them be, make laws to protect us we were born here and there is nowhere else we can go.”

Homosexuality in Malawi took the agenda when a gay couple Tionge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were arrested after holding public engagement ceremony in Blantyre, Malawi in 2009. Late President Bingu wa Mutharika has equaled gays to dogs and a pastor in Lilongwe has called for the death of gays reflecting the harsh homophobia on the streets.

The constitution guarantees nondiscrimination on Chapter Four/ Section 20 but this is sharp contrast with the penal code which promises 14 years to all gays.

Malawi President Joyce Banda has been shaky in the face of the debate; she at first gave hope and hinted at suspending homophobic laws but upon local pressure from her electoral competition relented and said it is up for the nation to decide.

Human rights activist have long argued that homosexuality needs to be decriminalized in Malawi because its discrimination and fuels HIV. Current figures indicate that HIV prevalence is at 21% among gays way higher than the 14 percent of the rest of the population.

Research conducted on the subject blames the current HIV rates on the fact that gays are not targeted with HIV messages and are forced to sleep with each other in their crammed cells owing to the dangers of coming to the open.

It remains to be seen how Mr. Kumwenda will react to their daughter coming out but what we can tell here is her coming out is a milestone, she is the first ever lesbian to come out in Malawi.

I support Kumwenda with all my journalism. To be gay is not a crime. 

Why I hate Malawi

Not that I hate Malawi or Malawians...Malawians rock.....but it’s their ideas that I detest...the fact that they keep lying to each other that they  are a united people, that they are God fearing, that they are morally in check, that they are perfect and that angers me so.


Strong Lingua alert these thought came without ceremony

First we claim we are God fearing, but we hate, we judge, we suppress and oppress each other.

We claim we are united and a warm heart of Africa and yet we envy each other label each others tribes, we belong more to tribes than to country...

We claim to have a Malawian culture but spending three years in the village I have never seen it, just a stinking way of life full of swearing, gossip, jealousy and fornication...

We pretend a lot, that we are learned, that we are peaceful, that we are one that we are holy, that we are patient, that we are disciplined but tell that to a foreigner, but for me who has never been outside this country I know its all a sham...I could see it from my Sunday School days that we were being taught to live a lie.

Me idolize the US, no way, it is the Joyce Banda's and the Peter Muitharikas who are always referring to that part of town...it is Malawians who are buying the hip hop tracks and you that have abandoned Malawi footy for English teams...it is you that are not gracing Malawian shows for MTV, its you that worship TB Joshua and go all the way to buy his water..

It is you that buy Heinz Baked Beans from the US and ignores those from Mphompha or Chinkhoma...

It is you that pattern your literature to the foreign one, you that abandoned our god for an Israeli one...

It wasn’t me that let the foreigners acquire land in Thyolo, it is you that seek help from British lawyers in local cases; it is you that send your kids to the US...

Me hate Malawi? No way but What you call Malawian is what is fake and gross, it stinks like the crotch of a man that has been traveling all day, been to the toilet without a tissue and had a wet dream the previous night.

We all think we know better than the next man, but we know better that almost everything we think we know, we have been told and taught.

We are the biggest joke ever, Indians love us, fuck our women and deny us theirs, take all our money and import more of their brothers while we argue over who is supposed to put on mini skirts...

White people love us, we give them jobs, we lie that we are fifteen million so they ask for aid and give us peanuts withhold the rest to go on vacation in the Caribbean, they love the way we act like Mr. Beans when we see them..And they love black pussy too which they sometimes do not even have to pay for.

They love freely moving around in bum shorts when local women would be stoned if they dared.
They love mining our countryside and paying us peanuts, they love running our game reserves and "protecting" our animals only 'culling' a few and feeding some to their friends.

Politicians love us, fucking us from behind. Always appealing to our tribal greed and then getting rich alone, educating their kids in the US...

Let's go on arguing over which hole was made for the penis, we are so far doing great on the international reality show stage...we can even go ahead to ban farting or make sure nobody fucks their lady by any other position other than missionary.

We are so naive as to think that we are a country, what’s innit for being Malawian? I get to listen to Ntcheu hyenas hoot at night? Or go to Livingstonia Synod because the preachers at the nearby church are not my tribesmen?

I mean, come on! Why do we have so much HIV if we are morally in check? 50 thousand of us will have gotten HIV by December 31st, and yet none of us will admit to have had sex....yes, we are a cultured people.

We are so respectful, we are great families, the one incest and defilement cases per day are just blight in our perfect being. The prostitutes at Kamba go home with moneys from heaven, they are not bonked by stable husbands.

The catholic priest stick to their celibacy and the fatherless kids that resemble them are just an act of nature.

We ratify many conventions and actually implement them, we love our women it’s why we stripped them when they exposed too much skin, its bad for onlookers, of course the terabytes of porn we have in our PC's is just to douse the exuberance of youth...

The Universities are in tip top conditions, the journalism graduates that fail to use recorders were lazy, the unfinished syllabuses are just a short term problem and the students learning Motor Vehicle Mechanics on old Land Rover Engines will soon catch up with the latest KIA engines once they graduate.

Like come on, why do we love the sweetness of mediocrity? Where a president can appoint a sister to a high position and a brother to ministerial position and send dumb relatives on a merit-based scholarship to China and leave out bright students...its all normal?

Where journalists cannot write news because they haven't been paid by news-makers, I cannot call my home.

Yes, I know in Jamaica, where i long to run to, people have their own problems, but at least its the devil that's appealing.

Negotiating the cost of giving life Joyce Banda's way

Felicia Yohane has sired four babies in her life, two of those did not live to celebrate their first birthday, two are living and now that she is 7 months pregnant, she is very aware of what can happen to her expected baby.

Felicia lives in one of the 197 villages that look to Lumbadzi Health Centre for assistance, she has to walk a long distance of about 2 hours to come to the health centre. And she is not alone; the hospital sees 160 maternity deliveries per month, 10 waiting cases per day and hoards of pregnant women coming for neo-natal care, that is the attention given soon before delivery.

Felicia’s pillar, Lumbadzi hospital however has only thirteen beds in the small maternity wing that has no waiting area, the 13 beds therefore service those that have delivered and those about to. It’s a case of hard rock and place because the next nearest health centre is 15 Kilometres away from Lumbadzi.

Felicia in a one on one with a nurse

The situation at Lumbadzi is just the summit that is visible; the real mountain spans across Malawi, almost all health centres in the country face what Lumbadzi health centre faces.

Out of every 100,000 women that give births in Malawi about 700 of them die in the process, this is high by all means, in Estonia out of the 100,00 only two women are expected to succumb.

Felicia’s deceased little ones are also part of a bigger nationwide problem, 80 babies die out of every 1000 before they complete their fifth year. She lost her babies at four and nine months and the worry for her next baby is written all over her baby face. 

Since Joyce Banda assumed real power after the death of Mutharika in April this year she instantly leapt to highlight the plight of the mothers and infants. If Bingu sang food security and green belt, Banda’s song is from the safe motherhood studio.

She set up her Presidential Initiative on Maternal Health Safe Motherhood. Though difficult to separate it from the politics that accompany its activities, the initiative is breathing in new life into the fight against preventable deaths of women and children around the pregnancy and birth period.

Misozi Jimusole is the Initiative’s media and advocacy officer. I asked him why women need to be given priority.

“Women make 52 percent of our population; they contribute the most to the country’s output its only fair that they should be safe guarded. In safeguarding women, we will also be advancing towards Millennium Development Goal number five.

“The role of women cannot be overemphasised, in any country excluding women from development means that nation cannot develop, including women and having a healthy involved female population means more development,” said Jimusole.

Felicia braves the October heat to travel to the hospital, she knows what dangers come with shying away from hospital; the rest are not that informed.

Jimusole said some women discouraged by distance, cultural beliefs and illiteracy go turn to traditional birth attendants who have little real knowledge about pregnancy complications and motherhood best practices, and he says this exposes mothers to all kinds of risks including death.

While 71 in every hundred women go to the hospital, about 29 seek the attention from traditional birth attendants, who obviously cannot perform a caesarean section and will be quick to point to witchcraft for simple complication.

Children born in the hands of traditional birth attendants are also likely to miss out on vital immunisation given to the baby in the early days of its birth, if the mother looses too much blood during the birth process there is little the attendants can do apart from watch the new mother die. 

But with only thirteen beds there to accommodate 160 women all in a month, it might not be culture or illiteracy that might be  forcing women to go deliver at home and this is what Banda’s Initiative is aiming to tackle.

“The Initiative wants to construct maternity waiting shelters to ensure close monitoring of pregnant mothers and encouragement to seek quality maternal care at public health facilities to avoid complications arising from giving birth at homes,” said Jimusole

And its not just talk.

It is also seeking to replicate its Mulanje feats in Dowa, Balaka, Karonga, Mchinji and Lilongwe and in Ntcheu. Lumbadzi will also get a shelter and funds are reported to have already been secured.

In the drive to attain an almost zero maternal mortality rate, infrastructure is on one hand, the other hand includes human resource, if all the women can decide to come deliver in the hospitals are there enough trained minders? 

At our case study health centre at Lumbadzi there are 13 qualified nurses to mind not just the maternity wing but the whole hospital such that the 160 or so pregnant women have to see the same people that people with Malaria have to see.

President Banda’s other goal in the initiative is to try and beef up the numbers of these minders. In a slow but significant move, she has already identified 200 young women, 10 from several districts have been identified to start midwifery training.

“The project aims at increasing numbers of skilled and trained midwives. Maternal and neonatal rates are still high not only due to lack of sufficient health personnel but also untrained traditional birth attendants. 

“We also want to build capacity of community midwives to promote health seeking behaviour and attitudes of the communities towards family planning, reduced pregnancy, delivery complications and encourage girl child education,” said Jimusole.

Again, having trained personnel and building is never a guarantee that the village folks will flock to get expert care. In Malawi missionaries came with life saving drugs but the population took years to accept modern medicine, some still have not.

Jimusole said the third goal of the initiative is just that, trying to win over communities and to do that chiefs must be target. 

“In order to achieve the effective access to maternal and neonatal health care, Community mobilization and training to the chiefs and their subjects is of paramount importance. There is lack of knowledge on how to handle maternal and neonatal health care so chiefs as opinion leaders are good targets in accelerating behaviour change.

Felicia mounts the scale to check her pregnancy progress

“The chiefs promote cultural habits that influence health seeking behavior and attitudes of the communities towards family planning, pregnancy and delivery, preserve women dignity by stopping defilement, and other forms of violence that make women insecure and unstable in their lives,” said Jimusole.

One of the chiefs who is well won over to the side of progress in Inkosi Kwataine, he says his area of jurisdiction is on its way towards decreasing mother and infant deaths by employing a simple trick which he is now campaigning for.

“Local documentation of pregnancies will erase many problems. Chiefs will be cable to track the progress of the pregnancy and ask if the mother-to-be has gotten a vaccine, where she plans to go for delivery and to push her to go to the hospital when her time is near,” said Kwataine.

Hebeli Honde was also at Lumbadzi Health Centre when Nation on Sunday visited, she hails from kwa Chiponde and is only 18. She has never given birth before, she will do so in 3 months all factors constant.

Jimusole: Aiming for MDG number 5

“I cannot go trust azamba (traditional birth attendant), it’s my first time and I want all the attention, I will come wait here when I am in my advanced stage,” said Honde.

Joyce Banda knew that with her influence business people would be ashamed to ignore her initiative, already big companies have donated to the Initiative. And so far that is what is funding the Initiative.

Naturally big businesses cannot spend on causes without brands and the Joyce Banda trick is working, mothers have hope...the only question is how long will it take and what happens when Joyce Banda leaves power?

 

Honde sits among her mates possibly sharing stories of what labour feels like, it easy to see fear in her eyes. Her fears can easily be reality if no one springs to action to help address the current situation.