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Arts For Social and Economic Impact

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  THE CREATIVITY THAT IS ARTS While the Arts have and continue to play an import ant role globally, in curriculums of most Developing Countries in Africa, Arts is undermined. In Malawi, for instance the success of students has mostly been measured by classroom credit hours in other subjects but Arts. My passion for Arts began 20 years ago when I was in primary school. I remember loving music and dance. Among all my friends, I was well known as the dancer.   When I was 10 years old, I loved the Congolese genre of music called Rhumba. Rhumba was the music. The beat in rhumba felt like nothing else. I grew up in church. When I was in secondary school, I envied the choir members at our local church. I was curious to know what made the jazzmen and vocalists unique. Why they were able to make music while the rest of us couldn’t?   The piano players were always my favorite.   Somehow, at the age 15 my ears had already learnt to distinguish a good pianist from a not so good one. My mind ha
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Arts Education and Creativity in the Malawian Arts Industry

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Creativity in the Malawian Arts Industry   I recently wrote a piece about Arts Education and how we can advance Creativity in the Malawian Arts Industry. Arts is one of my passions and I believe that the establishment of arts  centres will contribute alot in the sector of Education in Malawi. I partnered with the Arts Education Partnership in Denver to publish this blogpost and it has been published on their website. Please read my blogpost on: https://www.aep-arts.org/arts-education-and-creativity-in-the-malawian-arts-industry Enjoy!
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KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

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                  KNOWLEDGE IS POWER In most of the communities where I have worked, the importance of educating a girl child  is undermined.    I remember visiting one school in one of the rural communities in Neno district where standard 8 class had 1 girl as compared to almost 30 boys in the same class. Records showed that the number of girls was high from junior primary and it kept on dropping as the classes went up.   In such communities, it is a huge challenge to help girls to stay in school because the norm is when the girls reach puberty, the goal is to get married. For this one girl, it was only a matter of time before she dropped out as well, because being the only girl in class for her has to take a whole lot of courage.   We had checked with the headmaster of the school to tell us the major causes of the dropouts. He confirmed that the girls end up getting married. He further said most of them look at their married friends and believe that they are doing well in life than
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Dealing with Intergenerational Poverty in Malawi

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  Intergenerational Poverty in Malawi We can argue that, quite a number of today’s poor children will become tomorrow’s poor adults. Why? Inheritance is of the most common means by which physical property is transferred from one generation to another in Malawi. However, the design of living for poor Malawians is not necessarily passed on from one generation to the next. Poverty is often associated in people’s minds with misery, but for us who are familiar with rural Malawi will understand that poor families accept their slice of poverty with courage and cheer just like in most developing countries.  In Malawi, there are families, who are rich today, and yet they come from poor backgrounds. This upward movement, therefore, indicates that the poor in Malawi are capable of taking full advantage of changing circumstances and greater opportunity. It is important for us to understand that poverty hits children the hardest and threatens their most basic rights to survival, health and nutr
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UNDER THE MANGO TREE

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  UNDER THE MANGO TREE Even though I left Kasungu I still have my heart there. Every time I am working, I remember the experiences and lessons from Kasungu. Kasungu has been part of my career growth. Recently, I had the opportunity of working in Kasungu for a few days.  As studies have shown that poverty and menstruation are the key factors associated with school attendance among girls, the new organization am working with, under one project distributes menstrual health kits and provides menstrual education to girls in rural schools as a menstrual hygiene intervention to reduce school absenteeism. The experience of going into the rural schools brought back a lot of good memories; the beautiful local Communities, the traditional dances, the Nsima and Local Chicken and those African Child Smiles.  As my colleagues and I were on our job for the day at one particular school, there came a group of four girls in their teens.  As opposed to all their friends who were present that day, the
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Le Voyage: Kasungu!

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  Le Voyage: Kasungu! How can I ever forget Kasungu. Kasungu Introduced me to my passion. I had my first significant Job in Kasungu. Spending almost 80% of my time working in rural communities and with locals was fulfilling. I had found my true passion. Let me take you back. When I had heard that I got that job in Kasungu I was over the moon. I was going to work to bring back school drop outs to school. I was called the Out of School Child Specialist. What’s more fulfilling than helping others? This job was gold! I remember the day I was leaving Zomba ( a small and beautiful city ) for Kasungu, I believed I felt like the children of Israel leaving Egypt for Canaan. I believed in the good that was to come from working with those children. I had never been to Kasungu. Ofcourse I was told it was not easy to find a house to rent in Kasungu. Indeed, weeks before I left, I tried all I could to have friends in Kasungu find me a house but to no avail. Luckily a friend of a friend offered
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THE GENESIS

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  After University, all I wanted was to work with and within rural communities. I found meaning in helping others and I wanted to spend the rest of my life helping people out of poverty. I believe that my background greatly inspired  this desire. Growing up in poverty, I did not see a future for myself. Growing up there was very little at my exposure.   I did not know much. Life was okay so long as Nsima (Malawian staple food) was provided for me and my siblings. The biggest challenge for my family was food: How and where to get food for the day. Nsima was a priority. We did not have a choice really. We did not have the privilege of choosing what to eat. Nsima and vegetables on a daily basis was a huge blessing. When I was in primary school, I went to school every day not because anyone inspired me. No one in our neighborhood was educated. All girls aspired to be married. I went to school because my parents forced me to. My Dad especially. The more I went to school, the more I fou
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