I picked this up from the Nyasa times and wonder what Dr Gary Heavy might have to say. In Áras kate we are trying to reduce sugar intake in porridge,to help with the teeth issues observed by our dental friends.
Malawians are huge sugar eaters.
Ireland on Friday granted over 1.6 million Euros to Malawi, through the UN International Children’s Educational Fund (UNICEF), to improve nutrition in-take during the year starting from November 2009.

Irish ambassador to Malawi, Mac Ghabham, said investment in nutrition is vital for social and economic development in Malawi.

“Investment in nutrition is vital for social and economic development of the country. This link has been neglected in other countries but it is not the case in Malawi,” he said.

Gabham said the support is directed at three government priority areas of treatment of acute malnutrition, finalising preparations for the implementation of National Vitamin A Fortification Programme and Intensification of Nutrition Education which are under Malawi’s National Nutrition Policy and Strategy Plan.

UNICEF Malawi Representative, Carrie Auer, said the funding will enable government to scale up nutrition programmes to all 28 districts.

“The funding will also spearhead nutrition education campaign aimed at improving infant feeding and child care practices among caregivers,” she added.

However, Principle Secretary for Nutrition in the Office of President and Cabinet, Dr Marry Shawa (pictured) said the assistance will hasten the process of fortifying sugar in the country with vitamin A and gauge consumer acceptability.

Shawa therefore said a study that has been conducted on sugar fortification has been welcomed by many Malawians; hence part of the money that the Irish government has given Malawi will help the rolling out of sugar fortification in the main sugar plants of Dwangwa and Nchalo

She added that the sugar that will be fortificated will be only used in Malawi and not for export.

Vitamin a deficiency is a major challenge in Malawi and about 60 percent of Malawian under five children,70 percent of women and 57 percent of men suffer from acute vitamin a deficiency that result in loss of the countries energies and productive potential.

Written by Caroline Boin and Julian Harris fron Malawi Sunday Times
Wednesday, 04 November 2009
Aid activists Oxfam complained recently that “it is time for G20 leaders to stand up and deliver the money needed to protect poor people,” as heads of the world’s biggest economies met in Pittsburgh in September. The real problem is that aid is actually rising but much of it never reaches poor countries and, when it does, it causes economic, social and political damage.
In fact, over US$119 billion was budgeted for aid from rich to poor countries this year, up US$16 billion from last year. But about half of that stays with donors in “tied aid” and other domestic spending. “Almost 50p of every pound of donor aid fails to target poverty, but instead aims to meet other donor priorities,” charity and pressure-group ActionAid said in 2006, an estimate largely confirmed in 2008 by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Britain budgeted US$8 billion for aid to countries such as Malawi last year but recent research has uncovered numerous examples of waste and mismanagement within government.

The British government pays pressure groups to campaign and lobby governments abroad and citizens at home, at the expense of actual aid projects. This year alone, the Department for International Development (DfID) put £140 million (about US$170 million) in its “communications” budget–much of it propaganda within the UK. By 2011, a total of £1 billion (US$1.2 billion) of public money will have been spent on this. Most of it is given away in unrestricted grants to hand-picked activist groups, with little accountability and transparency – and, worse, little evidence that the programmes are helping the poor.

Many of these are at best controversial and often hostile to development. ActionAid, for example, doing the “other donor priorities” mentioned above, used government funds to campaign against free trade, on one occasion stating: “There is very little evidence to support claims that free trade lifts people out of poverty.”

This assertion simply ignores all the millions of people around the world who have been allowed to escape poverty through freer trade after decades of economic oppression. Anti-poverty campaigner Bob Geldof said this year that “probably the great unsung triumph so far of the 21st century was the lifting of 400 million Chinese people out of extreme poverty—through trade”. Ideological groups like ActionAid can only make things worse for the world’s poorest people, who already face high barriers to trade.

Some Western groups funded with “foreign aid” money lobby and pressurise developing-countries to change their own policies. The UK charity Voluntary Service Overseas took offence at package holidays in Gambia and convinced the Gambian government to ban them. Realising that the ban was doing more harm than good, the country dropped the policy just a year later.

Of the “foreign aid” that never even leaves the UK, the government has given millions to British trades unions who in turn fund the ruling Labour Party. This cosy system would be condemned by Westerners in a poor country yet is openly taking place in the supposed birthplace of modern democracy.

The Trades Union Congress (a group of 60 unions) describes on its website how, in the name of “development,” UK taxpayers have paid for its three-year DfID “Strategic Framework Partnership Arrangement (SFPA)” whose “key achievements” included “the TUC’s fifth International Women’s Day celebration.” How a party with Caribbean food and music helps women in poor countries, or indeed anyone other than the guests, remains unclear.

At the very least, the next government should ensure that foreign aid is just that–help to the poorest people abroad. Better would be to reconsider the outdated and disproven ideas of development aid.

But even this government has started to question its approach, accusing Oxfam of the “prioritising of advocacy over humanitarian delivery” with its £27.8 million (US$31 million) grant.

Such mismanagement and the recession will cut into the amounts of aid actually transferred from rich to developing countries. But this might not be bad news: experience and economic data have shown how foreign aid props up bad governments and bad policies. It should be no surprise that aid fuels corruption and waste when it is poisoned at the source.

==
Boin is a Director and Harris a Research Fellow at International Policy Network. They recently wrote Fake Aid: how foreign aid is being used to support the self-serving political activities of NGOs.

The plight of student nurses
On Thursday night last I took up this issue with the Irish Ambassador, Liam MacGabhann;
In July last, we employed a bright 19 year old to keep the stores at our factory site in Luinga. She had been persistent in looking for a job, armed with her MSE (equivalent of Leaving Cert). I asked if she could add, she said and subtract too, and I am good at writing things down; I said you’re hired straight away, change the high heels and the suit, she was back and ready within the hour. She was truly amazing and I wanted to give her a contract, but she was called to do nursing. I hated it but conceded to her parents better judgement – and the possibility of a professional qualification.
Her parents had saved 25 of the 35000M kwachas of fees and I personally added the other 10, Charity made her uniforms and off she went to Ecuendeni Hospital for her training, but the next day she arrived home crying and with dreams shattered, the fees were now 355,000 Mkw or about 1800 euros. University fees in Malawi exist but the Government give loans which have no facility for being repaid. You can get any degree in Malawi free; seems like that to me and this has been confirmed to me.
In the past few years many agencies, including the Norwegian Government, have come together to improve the pay and conditions of nurses and medical staff (mistakenly I think) and millions have been spent on expanding facilities for nurse training.
Last year there was more of my tax money spent on putting up huge billboard posters saying Nurses are Angels and all kinds of nice things about the profession but now in one fell swoop, the Ministry have axed the support for training, and I am left to support an amazing young woman personally!
Maybe this training is bought and paid for already or maybe its believed that donors will come rushing, as I have.
Br Aidan concluded that as most of the nurse training places are left vacant now and most certainly will be when the next tranche of fees are required, Nursing numbers may never recover from this
The much (Irish Taxpayer) funded Civil Society have taken until now to make any utterance on the issue but I suppose they have other important things to do. (You may notice that I am a tad annoyed). Of course few people know about this.

From the Nyasa Times Nov 9
Malawi’s civil society organisations on Monday petitioned government over its decision to stop paying nurses and midwifery students school fees in the form of subsidies to train them at Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) colleges.
The government, through Ministry of Health, announced early this year that it had ceased to subsidise US$2,392 needed by each student studying at the privately-owned CHAM colleges due to budgetary constraints, whereby students were paying US$224 each to study nursing courses. (My news is that students found out this when they arrived at the Hospitals)National Organisation for Nurses and Midwives of Malawi (NONM) Executive Director Dorothy Ng’oma (pictured) said in Lilongwe that government should reverse the decision on the payment of the college fees to avoid a continued shortage of health personnel in the country’s hospitals. (Do you notice the forceful language here!)

Malawi only has 4,450 nurses/midwives practising in the public sector, with a prevailing 76 percent vacancy rate.

“The recent development on the introduction of full tuition fees for nurses/midwives training poses a great threat towards addressing the inadequate human resources in the health sector in the country,” she said.–APA

By Nyasa Times
Since August or so, the Malawi Government closed down all its forex exchanges in an effort to prevent indepent traders accessing hard currencies. It looked to me like an effort to prop up the value of the Malawi Kwacha as all neighbouring currencies were falling in line with the US Dollar. It also looked like tobacco sellers were failing to repatriate their dollars (tobacco priced in dollars). Were they waiting for a better rate?
Just before I left on Tuesday the TNM mobile phone people announced that the lack of forex was affecting expansion and for some time there was talk of fuel shortages. Earlier we were seriously delayed for metal roofing as a result of forex shortage. So the following news does not surprise me.
The Malawi Government has been pressing the Mozambique Government in a bid to borrow fuel as Malawi has run out of foreign exchange, it has been learnt.
Malawi is facing a serious fuel shortage following the scarcity of foreign exchange. Fernando Couto, Chief Executive Officer of the Northern Development Corridor (CDN), which runs the Nacala port and rail system, says that Malawi asked Mozambique to borrow fuel.
“The Malawians have even asked us to lend them fuel”, Couto revealed, denying claims by Malawi authorities that the current shortage of fuel is due to congestion at the Mozambican ports of Nacala and Beira.
Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) governor Perks Ligoya told a joint news conference with IMF in Lilongwe on Wednesday that, through government, there would be some adjustments in the local currency against other currencies to alleviate the forex problem.
“The movement of the exchange rate will be fixed with the flexibility within the band which would be put in place by the central bank like between MK135 to MK147 per US Dollar,” he said.
He therefore warned unscrupulous dealers of forex that they would be brought to book to face the law which attracts over three years in imprisonment with hard labour if found illegally dealing in forex.

Reasons for Malawi’s forex crunch – Bingu to blame
By Nyasa Times
Published: November 11, 2009
The problems that Malawi is facing ranging from fuel shortages, the forex crunch, power blackouts and water scarcity are attributable to the administration of Bingu wa Mutharika for his extravagant use of forex.
Nyasa Times has learned that Malawi’s forex problems have come about because the Government of Malawi, in June 2007 through the Reserve Bank of Malawi, lent the Zimbabwe Government about USD100 million.
The money was meant for the Zimbabwe Government to buy maize in Malawi, according to information on page 62 of the account for Reserve Bank of Malawi for the year ending 31 December, 2008.
The loan, guaranteed by the Malawi government on the basis of a personal understanding between President Mutharika and his close political pal President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, is supposed to be repaid by the 31st. of December, 2009. It is yet to be seen whether the money will indeed be repaid.
In addition, media reports indicate that the Mutharika Government has bought a presidential jet for about US$15.9million, according to The Sunday Times, a newspaper owned and run by Blantyre Newspapers Limited of Finance Minister Ken Kandodo.
However, the Mutharika Government has not been fully forthcoming on the transaction involving the jet, bought from Aero Toy Store in the United States of America. Specifically, the government is being very secretive regarding the vote used to purchase the plane.
The Mutharika government also depleted forex following the blowing of £3million on a fleet of 22 Mercedes Benz cars from Britain for the cabinet. According to The Sun newspaper of Britain, London-based Crown Agents Bank Ltd. is said to have brokered the deal.
The Sun quotes a Malawian political source as saying: “If you guys in Britain think you’ve got it bad with your MPs’ noses in the trough, check out our lot. Thousands are starving but our government just wants to drive around in style.”
Moreover, Mutharika has been the subject of criticism on extravagant expenditure, drawing the ire of the opposition when his government purchases a fleet of top-of-the-range Hummer vehicles for his motorcade. In the same splurge, he also purchased buses to run his campaign, using one of them during the campaign in which bus he was the only passenger.
Said opposition Malawi Congress Party (MCP) President John Tembo, “Malawi cannot afford to buy such expensive and luxurious Hummers, coaches and buses and roll them on a presidential convoy without passengers.”
Fuel especially diesel and paraffin have been in short supply on the Malawi market for the past few weeks, a development that reached crisis levels last week.
Private owned Capital Radio reported that people in some parts of the southern region, as far away as Balaka, Zomba and Ntcheu districts have been trekking down to Blantyre to purchase diesel in bulk.
Motorists are reportedly continuing to abandon their cars at filling stations in hopes that they should remain in their position in line to purchase fuel once it is delivered at the stations.
To mislead the public, the Mutharika government has been blaming the shortage of fuel on congestion at Nacala and Beira ports in Mozambique, claims which have been rebutted by the Mozambique authorities as blatant lies.
The Mutharika Government has also been falsely blaming forex bureaux for the shortage of forex in Malawi, and traders for externalizing foreign exchange. However, all this has been simply in an attempt to divert attention from the real cause of the forex shortage: the government’s own extravagance, and its refusal to own up to this wastefulness.

Got this message from Stephanie Fields at Compass Records:
Congratulations! You’ve all made it onto the 2010 GRAMMY Awards nomination ballot, for which we submitted you earlier this year. Please see attached spreadsheet to see all info, including selection numbers, for the category that you’re potentially nominated in.
The nomination is in the Best Contemporary folk Album.
All the best,
Stephanie
Maybe a miracle!!

Africa has come a long way since independence 50 years ago but is not fully free, and cannot be fully free until there is an end the chronic hunger that afflicts 220 million daily. They must grow the food to free them from hunger and do away with unsustainable food aid and imports. So they need a policy revolution.
Peasants, who grow most of Africa’s food face challenges, now compounded by climate change — in the floods and the droughts that have put 20 million people at risk of famine in eastern Africa.
Africans cannot wait for solutions from the outside. Now is the time for Africa to have home-grown policies. Change must come from the halls of parliament from Lilongwe, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Maputo and Dakar, all the way down to the small farms on the lush hills of Rhumpi to the sweltering lands of the Sahel.
Political leaders come from rural areas, including ministers and heads of State, yet the misery of the African farmer continues. It is time for leaders to show the way and they have begun. They have committed to achieving six per cent annual agricultural growth and to allocating 10 per cent of national budgets to agriculture. International partners are increasing their support for such efforts.
No nation can develop unless it takes full control of the policy space and maps its own development. To spark this effort, the Alliance for a Green Revolution (Agra) launched this week a major training policy.
They must train a new generation of policy analysts for Africa and must strengthen the capacity of parliaments to engage on evidence-based policy dialogues,and we must train farmers and implement concrete policies that will revitalise African agriculture.
It’s time to replace the “Washington Consensus” with a new “African Consensus” that puts the interest of African farmers and economies first.
For too long, Africa’s lack of internal capacity has kept it reliant on policy analysis generated outside the continent, and often imposed as conditions for aid. Well-intentioned outside advice often fails to respond to the realities of African farmers
Technology alone won’t bring about food self-sufficiency. A bumper crop is a good thing, but if there is no road to bring it to the market or the market is glutted and prices crash, then it will rot in the fields. Farmers need extension systems, cash and tools to mitigate the effects of climate change. Women need land and property rights.
Farmers cannot pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Many don’t have boots to start with. Africa desperately needs to replace policies of abandonment of farmers with those of support.The goal is not to produce papers that collect dust. Farmers don’t eat policy papers. They need policies that change their lives and enable them to turn Africa into a breadbasket for the world.; Dr Adesina

Bill Gates spoke yesterday as follows on his Foundation’s efforts. I have selected a piece
Productivity or sustainability – they say you have to choose.
It’s a false choice, and it’s dangerous for the field. It blocks important advances. It breeds hostility among people who need to work together. And it makes it hard to launch a comprehensive program to help poor farmers.
The fact is, we need both productivity and sustainability – and there is no reason we can’t have both.
Many environmental voices have rightly highlighted the excesses of the original Green Revolution. They warn against the dangers of too much irrigation or fertilizer. They caution against a consolidation of farms that could crowd out small-holder farmers.
These are important points, and they underscore a crucial fact: the next Green Revolution has to be greener than the first. It must be guided by small-holder farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and the environment.
Let me repeat that. The next Green Revolution must be guided by small-holder farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and the environment.
The last thing anyone should do is create short-term gains for poor farmers that have long-term costs for their children.
That’s why our foundation works closely with local farmers’ groups. And that’s why we are one of the largest funders of sustainable approaches such as no-till farming, rainwater harvesting, drip irrigation, and biological nitrogen fixation.
The environment also benefits from higher productivity. When productivity is too low, people start farming on grazing land, cutting down forests, using any new acreage they can to grow food. When productivity is high, people can farm on less land.
Some voices are instantly hostile to any emphasis on productivity. They act as if there is no emergency – even though in the poorest, hungriest places on earth, population is growing faster than productivity, and the climate is changing.Declining yields, at a time of rising population, in a region with millions of poor people, means starvation.
So what is the way forward for farming and feeding an ever increasing world population. It’s complex and needs serious consideration. On the one side you have the big multi national concerns promoting monoculture, hybrid seeds and even terminator seeds, combined with noxious pesticides and artificial fertilizer and on the extreme other side you have the super organic and as with everything the solution is somewhere in between, BUT there are some facts to be considered
How many times have we heard that large farms are more productive than small farms, and that we need to consolidate land holdings to take advantage of that greater productivity and efficiency? The actual data shows the opposite,small farms produce far more per acre or hectare than large farms.
One reason for the low levels of production on large farms is that they tend to be monocultures. The highest yield of a single crop is often obtained by planting it alone on a field. But while that may produce a lot of one crop, it generates nothing else of use to the farmer. In fact, the bare ground between crop rows invites weed infestation.
Large farmers tend to plant monocultures because they are the simplest to manage with heavy machinery. Small farmers, especially in the Third World, are much more likely to plant crop mixtures — intercropping — where the empty space between the rows is occupied by other crops. They usually combine or rotate crops and livestock, with manure serving to replenish soil fertility.
Such integrated farming systems produce far more per unit area than do monocultures. Though the yield per unit area of one crop — corn, for example — may be lower on a small farm than on a large monoculture farm, the total production per unit area, often composed of more than a dozen crops and various animal products, can be far higher.
If we need a lot of food in a short time hybrids and the industrial way may be the answer, but it’s hardly the future.
Local food production will be the key in times of increased oil prices and transport cost.

The benefits of small farms extend into the ecological sphere. where large, industrial-style farms impose a scorched-earth mentality on resource management no trees, no wildlife, endless monocultures,small farmers can be very effective stewards of natural resources and the soil. To begin with, small farmers utilize a broad array of resources and have a vested interest in their sustainability. Their farming systems are diverse, incorporating and preserving significant functional biodiversity within the farm. By preserving biodiversity, open space, and trees, and by reducing land degradation, small farms provide valuable ecosystem services to the larger society.
I can’t see Ireland going back to the small farm, we are promoting it in Malawi. Will it catch on, who knows, but I know I will hardly see it!

Africa: Money Will Not End Famine
James Shikwati
2 September 2009
________________________________________
OPINION
There was a time in Africa when elders would “talk” to the drought and negotiate their way into receiving rainfall. With their unique understanding of causation, elders would either sacrifice a black sheep or ask a virgin girl to bathe in a lake in order to draw the attention of the rain gods.
Would that they could do so now.
With an estimated 50 million Africans in dire need of food aid and an additional 120 million facing starvation if immediate measures to alleviate the situation are not taken, the general assumption has become that developing countries do not have what funds are necessary to increase food productivity.
Too little time has been invested in seeking to understand why Africa, with its vast farmlands and its brilliant and innovative sons and daughters, still goes hungry as the rest of the world battles with obesity.
Computer experts are aware of malware, the “malicious software” that is designed to infiltrate a computer without the owners’ informed consent.
The general computer user is familiar with viruses, Trojan horses, worms, and spyware among other programmes that cause harm to the operating system.
As we talk about famine in Africa, we should take a moment to evaluate the hostile and intrusive programmes operating in the background as food aid in particular and aid in general run in the foreground.
Ask yourself, for example, why a majority of Africans have changed their diets.
Kenyan nutritionists point out that we have ignored high value foods and replaced them with junk, sacrificing thousands of Africa’s domesticated and wild edible crops at the altar of modernity.
Malicious system
Crops whose production should be scaled up by virtue of their ability to adapt to Africa’s climate have instead been framed as crops of poverty.
Crops such as the tamarind, millet, sorghum, indigenous peanuts and potatoes have been kicked out of the menu in favour of wheat and beef.
Over 50 years of food aid targeted at Africa have been marked by a corresponding increase in episodes of famine, which points to the possible existence of a food “malware” – a malicious system that changes people’s dietary habits in favour of imported foods.
The same malware has penetrated agricultural schools, where it trains graduates to promote the new foods as opposed to upgrading local varieties.
Worst of all, it has penetrated political leadership, corrupting their minds with the quest for kickbacks to the extent that they do not invest in local solutions as foreign solutions can loaded with the possibility of a quick 10 per cent.
In the absence of an effective “anti-virus” this malware loads its intentions on the hapless operating systems of Africa’s nations, forcing them to become perpetual beggars.
It is my contention that, to reduce the incidence of famine on the continent, Africans must develop an effective system for detecting the “malicious background operating system” that has not only denied them the opportunity to promote their local cuisines but has also exposed their land to grabbing.
It is time we invested in our indigenous crops, turned our rural populations into celebrated food suppliers through incentives and invested in technology to free our continent from perennial famine.
Contrary to common belief, money is not the solution to Africa’s famine problem. Neither, for that matter, is food aid. What we need to do is get rid of the malware operating in our system.
James Shikwati is the director of Inter Region Economic Network
Copyright © 2009 Business Daily. All rights reserved.

I did this some months ago, I’m less angry now after 6 weeks in Mzuzu, but the question still stands.
Africa has had over forty years of empty talk and public gestures. But the impression that Africa is fatally troubled and can be saved only by outside help — not to mention celebrities— is destructive, very misleading and maybe all we can expect from the opinionated developed world.
I am not speaking of humanitarian aid, disaster relief, Aids education or affordable drugs. Nor am I speaking of small-scale, closely watched efforts. I am speaking of the “more money” platform: the notion that what Africa needs is more prestige projects, volunteer labour and debt relief. We should know better by now. The development of Africa is a story of many chapters. We forget that there are a myriad of answers. Things like Geldof’s live aid and Bono’s much publicised debt relief are just the first chapter or two.
I wouldn’t send any of my hard earned money to a charity or foreign aid to a government unless every euro was accounted for — and this never happens. Dumping more money in the same old way is not only wasteful but intellectually challenged and harmful; and proves that no one is paying attention
If Malawi is worse educated, more plagued by illness and bad services, poorer than it was in the early 1960s, it is not for lack of outside help or donor money. Malawi has been the beneficiary of many thousands of foreign teachers, doctors and nurses and ship loads of financial aid, and yet it has declined from being a country with promise.
In the early and mid-1960s JFK’s Peace Corps believed that Malawi would soon be self-sufficient in schoolteachers. And it would have been, except that rather than sending a limited wave of volunteers to train local instructors, for decades the US kept on sending Peace Corps teachers.
Malawians, who avoided teaching because the pay and status were low, came to depend on the American volunteers to teach in bush schools, while educated Malawians emigrated. When Malawi’s university was established, more foreign teachers were welcomed, but few of them were replaced by Malawians,
Medical educators also arrived from elsewhere. Malawi began graduating nurses, but the nurses were lured away to Britain, and Australia and the United States, which meant more foreign volunteer nurses were needed in Malawi.
When millions of dollars disappeared from Malawi’s education budget, and a Zambian politician was charged with stealing from the treasury, and Nigeria squandered its oil wealth, what happened? The simplifiers of Africa’s problems kept calling for debt relief and more aid.
Donors enable embezzlement by turning a blind eye to bad governance, rigged elections and the deeper reasons why these countries are failing.
Many Malawians, I meet, think they need a computer, to add to the mobile phones they already have: -for what, I ask. Sending computers to Malawi is an unproductive not to say maybe an insane idea, without first doing the basics, like electricity to rural schools with maybe solar panels (Oh school buildings and better trained teachers might come first) . I would offer pencils and paper, mops and brooms: as the schools I have been in Malawi need them badly.
By the way, I only note what I see and make nothing up.
I wouldn’t send more teachers either. I would expect Malawians themselves to stay and teach. There ought to be an insistence, in the form of a contract, for Malawians trained in medicine and education, at the state’s expense, to work in their own countries. If they do emigrate then at least the country they go to should pay for their training.
Malawi had two presidents in its first 40 years: the first, a megalomaniac who called himself the messiah, the second a man whose first official act was to put his face on the money. When first elected, the current President, Bingu wa Mutharika, inaugurated his regime by announcing that he was going to buy a fleet of Maybachs, one of the most expensive cars in the world. After an international outcry the order was cancelled.
Many of the schools of 40 years ago are now in ruins, covered with graffiti, with broken windows and standing in tall grass. Money will not fix this problem. Educated Malawians are to be found, of course, working in the United States and Britain. It does not occur to anyone to encourage Malawians themselves to volunteer in the same way that foreigners have done for decades. There are plenty of educated and capable young adults, who would make a much greater difference than outsiders could ever do.
Malawi is a lovely place — much lovelier, more peaceful and more resilient and, if not prosperous, innately more self-sufficient than it is usually portrayed. But because it seems unfinished and so different from the rest of the world, a landscape on which a person can sketch a new personality, it attracts mythomaniacs, people who wish to convince the world of their own worth.
Such people come in all forms and they loom large. White celebrities, busybodying in Africa loom especially large. You might see them, cuddling African children and lecturing the world on charity, some even reminiscent of Tarzan and Jane.
Ireland’s Bono, in a 10-gallon hat, not only believes that he has the solution to Africa’s ills but he is also shouting so loud that other people seem to believe him. In recent times Madonna has hit the Malawi scene as well. I am fully behind visitors as everyone makes a contribution, but could someone move us on to chapter 3.
The arrival of celebrities has some benefits, but few answers. People with money feel more and more money can solve all problems and don’t consider why this approach hasn’t worked in 40 years. The answers lie in Malawi. If Malawians can’t solve it, it won’t be solved. And until every Kwacha of donor money is fully accounted for, no progress will be made and the ordinary people of Malawi will continue to get poorer.
It is a sad thought that it is easier for many Malawians to travel to New York or London than to their own hinterlands. The exodus of skilled Malawians is having disastrous effects.
Ireland must be a leader in the imigration stakes, but it has been immigration with a difference. Our Irish emigrants often left, uneducated, educated themselves and returned to make great contributions, having sent money home to their families in the interim. Malawians who leave are well educated and seem to have little interest in returning to the land that spent valuable resources on their education, particularly since third level education is practically free. I’m not that sure that there is a culture of a cheque in the post, in Malawi, but that too was a great boost for Ireland in the bad old days.
Malawi has no real shortage of capable people — or even of money. The patronising attention of donors has done a disservice to Malawi’s belief in itself. Even in the absence of responsible leadership, Malawians themselves have proven how resilient they can be, something they rarely get credit for.
Again, Ireland may be the model for an answer. After centuries of descending on other countries, the Irish found that education, rational government, people staying put and simple diligence could turn Ireland from an economic basket case into a prosperous nation. — the Irish have proved that there is something to be said for staying home, working hard being a patriot.
Sadly the next few years may put that new found patriotism to the test, but, in Malawi, it may be worth a try

As we set out this morning on our 16th visit to Malawi, on a journey that will take up to 30 hours. We have all the same fears and worries about this seven week trip that we know will bring joy and pain, wonder and frustration and a host of emotions, varying sometimes from hour to hour.
Mary is a wonder in that she can always find a piece of writing which helps:
Last night it was this piece by the late Bishop Oscar Romero:

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Oscar A. Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, in El Salvador, was assassinated on March 24, 1980, while celebrating Mass in a small chapel in a cancer hospital where he lived. He had always been close to his people, preached a prophetic gospel, denouncing the injustice in his country and supporting the development of popular and mass organizations. He became the voice of the Salvadoran people when all other channels of expression had been crushed by the repression.
This gives us great hope and courage.

Tamala

Originally uploaded by wellsforzoe

Liam Writes from Lusangazi:

Tamala

Daniel and I met the District Health Officers at Mzuzu Clinic today.
The purpose of the meeting was to arrange assistance, and primarily ambulance transport, for those who attend the Birthing Centre at Lusangazi. As it stands a woman who attends in labour is treated in the centre, and if complications arise she must somehow walk about 3km to the main road, wait for a car to come, and then get a lift to the clinic another 8km away. At the meeting was the Health Surveillance Assistant for the Lusangazi area, the Head of Community Nursing, the District Health Officer and his support staff.

The District Health Staff are delighted at the developments in Lusangazi. They would like to use the clinic as an outstation for their services.

We also came to a good compromise on the original issue. We will provide a telephone and extension lead for an existing telephone line so that calls can be received in the Maternity Department. Should an emergency arise the birth attendant can call the telephone number of the district health office, and at night this will be answered by the midwife on duty. She will then immediately dispatch the next available ambulance.

As it stands if somebody needs an ambulance in Mzuzu (the third largest city) they must get someone else to walk, cycle or hitch to the hospital or nearest health centre, notify a nurse to dispatch or request an ambulance by radio, and then escort it back to the patient.

This line means that not only will our birth attendant have access to an ambulance in an emergency, anybody can now ring the hospital to get one day or night 24/7.

Picture shows Tamala (left), the Health Surveillance Assistant for Lusangazi, consulting with a client outside the Health Centre. All medical services in Lusangazi had been suspended due to lack of facilities but Tamala was so excited with the development of the clinic that she started providing her services before it was even opened. Last week she vaccinated 30 children under 5, and dipped over 200 mosquito nets in insecticide. Malaria had been the cause of the death of a young girl opposite the clinic last year, so the community is very much aware of the need to dip nets.