MALAWI: Village Chief Leads Fight For Maternal Health
In Ntcheu, a rural district in central Malawi, villagers have taken the fight against the country’s high maternal mortality rate into their own hands. They have almost eradicated maternal deaths in the...
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WATER: Miracle Man Eases Village’s Water Woes
Hermes Chimombo, a welder in his 50s, is a revered man in the impoverished Naotcha Township. Armed with rudimentary tools and a passion to ease people’s suffering, he has tapped a spring in the...
View ArticleMALAWI: Rural Areas Still Struggle to Access Medicines
In the shade of a leafy mango tree at the rural Chipho Health Centre in Thyolo, southern Malawi, Melifa Faison sits looking frequently down the road hoping to see an ambulance. Lying beside her is her...
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MALAWI: Fears of Sustainability of New ART Regime
As government prepares to roll out the expensive new antiretroviral treatment regime recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) this month, there are fears about the programme’s sustainability...
View ArticleMALAWI: Village Hands Join to Save Forest for Juice
Seventy kilometres outside Malawi’s commercial capital, Blantyre, a profitable cooperative enterprise is providing villagers jobs and preserving forests. The Zalewa forest in the southern Malawi...
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MALAWI: Women Get Dirty to Stop Water Scarcity
Ethel James cannot wait for the gravity-fed water scheme in her area to be fixed so that she and the other women in her village will no longer have to wake up before dawn everyday to queue for water....
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MALAWI: Fuel Shortages Ignite Violent Nationwide Protests
In light of the recent spate of protests in Malawi, government should rethink its policy to devalue the local currency, economists say. Persistent fuel shortages ignited violent nationwide public...
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MALAWI: Water Drives Integrated Agriculture on Small Farm
When the original owners of a 3.5 hectare piece of land put it up for sale because it was too waterlogged to farm on, Diana Sitima and her husband, Wilson, jumped to buy it. Wilson Sitima quit his...
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MALAWI: Hospitals Struggle Amid Water Shortage
Two battered plastic chairs bar entry to the toilets at the Bangwe Township Clinic in Blantyre. The toilets are not working because there is no running water – yet again. And if patients want to use...
View ArticleMALAWI: Water Promises Light for Isolated Community
In just a few weeks, seven villages that had expected to remain “in the dark forever” will finally have electricity, courtesy of a small hydroelectric power plant on Lichenya River, one of the major...
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RIGHTS: Police Force HIV Tests for Sex Workers
Charles MpakaBy Charles MpakaLILONGWE, Oct 9 2009 (IPS) It was, Malawian police say, a routine sweep for criminals at one of the country’s busiest border posts. They were looking for criminals. A...
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AFRICA: Counting on Media for Good Governance
Charles MpakaBy Charles MpakaLILONGWE, Oct 21 2009 (IPS) While campaigning in the last election, Margaret Roka Mauwa, Member of the Malawian Parliament, did not promise her voters that when she won she...
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AFRICA: Lost in the Tracking of Budgets
Charles MpakaBy Charles MpakaBLANTYRE, Oct 26 2009 (IPS) As Susan Muonanji and other vendors scrambled around one of the many transport busses to sell cabbages and tomatoes at a market along one of...
View ArticleRIGHTS-MALAWI: Blame Game While Children Suffer
Charles MpakaBy Charles MpakaLIMBE, Malawi, Nov 4 2009 (IPS) Every morning 12-year-old Thomson Genti and his seven-year-old brother, Chifundo, emerge dirty and wretched from the squalor of their...
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MALAWI: Green Belt Initiative Taking Shape
By Charles MpakaBLANTYRE, Jan 11 2010 (IPS) Let the rains fail, even for several successive seasons, and Malawi should still be able to produce enough to feed itself. Malawi is seeking to shield...
View ArticleMALAWI: Extra Money Allocated for Drought Relief
Charles MpakaBy Charles MpakaBLANTYRE, Feb 25 2010 (IPS) Maize farmer Anita Yunus has lived near the Mulanje Mountain in southern Malawi for over 30 years. And she does not remember there ever being a...
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EDUCATION-MALAWI: Local Language Dictionary Released
Charles MpakaBy Charles MpakaBLANTYRE, Mar 18 2010 (IPS) The thickest book on secondary school teacher Hellen Ndalama’s desk is her indigenous language dictionary. It is also her most-used book. The...
View ArticleSOUTHERN AFRICA: Removing Barriers to Trade
Charles Mpaka*By Charles MpakaBLANTYRE, Aug 4 2010 (IPS) Cecilia Gondwe waits in the shade of a tree at the Mwanza Border Post between Malawi and Mozambique. Somewhere inside, a clearing agent is...
View ArticleMALAWI: A Cellphone, a Bicycle and Sound Agricultural Advice
Charles MpakaBy Charles MpakaTHYOLO DISTRICT, Malawi, Aug 12 2010 (IPS) It is 11 am and Mary Jusa seems unconcerned by the sun beating hard on her back. Humming a traditional tune, she carries on...
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MALAWI: Local Management the Tonic for Water Woes
By Charles MpakaBLANTYRE, Aug 16 2010 (IPS) Hop over a seep of filthy sludge behind a bathroom screened with ragged sacks, turn past the toilet with battered cardboard walls, crab between mud-brick...
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