A Pen for Social and Economic Impact

  Shaping Lives, One Lemonade at a Time I can’t quite remember the moment I consciously decided to become a mentor. It wasn’t a sudden epiphany or a loud declaration. Instead, it feels as though I woke up one day and realized I had been shaped, molded, perhaps even born, for this role. Somewhere along the way, I embraced the saying: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade . Life, in its unpredictable generosity, has handed me enough lemons to make lemonade for generations. Looking back, I see that those toughest times were not just trials but lessons. Without them, what tangible wisdom could I offer to others navigating their challenges? I’ve found my calling in guiding young people; a fragile yet resilient people. For me, working with them goes beyond mere profession. It’s a purpose; a mission! Beginning the Journey with Girls My mentorship journey began with girls. Their stories found their way to my heart and my desk, demanding solutions to challenges that seemed overwhelming....

In 2023 I connected with Rwanda’s capital city. One that sprawls across numerous hills, ridges and valleys.   Before I travelled to Kigali, I learnt that Rwanda was a land blessed with creativity in Arts and one rich in culture. Walking in the streets of Kigali, I saw that the city has clearly expressed an effort to connect people through Arts and Culture. After learning that Kigali was a hub of creativity, I promised myself I was not flying back to Malawi without a visit to one of the Arts Centers in the city. Since establishing an Arts Center is one of my dreams, I made it a point to visit one center even amidst my busy schedule. Inema Arts Center is a small but an amazing creative hub that spurs creativity for personal, social and economic growth. The center is simply pretty as a picture! It was amazing to learn that the center works with orphans offering them an opportunity to discover and use their artistic talent and mentors in art as a skill, a talent, an occupation ...

  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 were they 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 g...

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 Arts industry and Arts 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!

                  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 against 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 a...

  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...