By Charity Chimungu Phiri
BLANTYRE, Malawi, Mar 29 2017 (IPS)

When building a house, it’s critical to lay a strong foundation. The same applies to education, with studies showing that children who attend early learning centers perform better in school than those who do not.

In Malawi, a 2003 national survey found that only 18.8 percent of school-age children with disabilities were attending class. More than twice as many of the same age group without disabilities (41.1 percent) attended school. This was mainly attributed to the lack of a disability-friendly environment."Since many children come from poor families, parents are often faced with the dilemma of choosing which child to send to secondary school, bearing in mind that the one with difficulties needs special care." --teacher Miriam Chimtengo

More parents are now sending their young ones to such special preschools, some as little as two years old. This kind of early intervention is especially critical for children with learning disabilities such as autism.

Most autistic children are diagnosed late in Malawi due to the lack of specialist doctors and caregivers, but also failure by their parents, guardians and teachers to recognize that the child has learning difficulties.

James Botolo* lives in one of the suburbs of Blantyre and has a 10-year-old autistic son named Chikondi*.

“For so long, we never could figure out what was wrong with our son. Of course he didn’t like to play with his siblings at home and times he could talk to himself but we never thought it was anything. But what mainly bothered us was that he never did well in school, so we kept moving him from one private school to another. One day I met someone who alerted me that my son could have a learning problem,” he said.

Autistic children often lack socialization skills, are hyperactive, struggle to pay attention and sometimes react to things by crying or hurting themselves.

Chikondi is now in standard two at the St. Pius X Resource Centre, a school for children with physical and developmental disabilities such as cerebral palsy, autism, dyslexia, epilepsy, hearing impairment, and blindness.

Currently in Malawi, there are over 40 resource learning centers for children with various disabilities.

Miriam Chimtengo, 41, is a specialist teacher at St. Pius X, where she teaches a class of about 27 students (16 full time).

Chimtengo, who holds a diploma in Special Needs Education, told IPS that there are major gaps in the social support system for the families of children with learning challenges.

“Even though we’re laying this good foundation for the children, for most of them their education does not go further. The parents bring the children to us here at primary school where they will start noticing the changes, but after the child finishes standard 8, they just keep them at home…so all this work at the grassroots level is not sustained.”

According to Chimtengo, there are limited resources for a child with learning difficulties to further their education.

“Since many children come from poor families, parents are often faced with the dilemma of choosing which child to send to secondary school, bearing in mind that the one with difficulties needs special care, special learning materials, full supervision and assistance, which might be hard to provide,” she said.

“Some parents also believe they can better take care of their child alone at home than at school where they will not be around to protect their child.”

Chimtengo said that those with physical disabilities such as visual impairments, deafness and limited limb mobility are more likely to go further in school than children with mental/emotional issues such as autism.

The other contributing factor is that there are no free services for poor families who wish to send their mentally challenged children to behavioral therapy. Only physiotherapy is free in government hospitals and at SOS Villages.

“For example, here in my class I have children whom upon assessment we recommended that they go for therapy, but only those parents who are financially better off have put up their kids in therapy…we have been lobbying with the government to make links with such specialists so that they are available for all children regardless of their financial standing,”

This scenario automatically puts a child with a learning disability at a disadvantage to later further their education or secure a job.

There are limited spaces offered to youth with disabilities in national vocational training schools in Malawi. They only take in a certain number, which is far below the actual population in need.

In other private vocational training facilities, the prerequisite for entry is a Malawi School Certificate of Education-MSCE (equivalent to a high school diploma), which many children with mental disabilities find hard to earn.

The Living Conditions study of 2013 found that many youths with various disabilities were frustrated with the large gap in the provision of vocational training services, as well as some other services such as welfare, assistive devices and counseling.

In 2015, the government launched a program called Community Technical Colleges aimed at helping poor children, including those with disabilities and lacking high school diplomas, gain access to tertiary education.

International experts on autism advise parents with learning difficulties to take a leading role to ensure that their child secures some form of employment.

The website Autism Speaks says it is important to encourage the child to network at community and family events to meet potential employers.

“Encourage your son or daughter to think about their hopes, dreams, interests and strengths as a way to start planning for employment. One of the most valuable resources for adults with autism is peer support and mentoring.”

The other challenge in educating children with special needs in Malawi is lack of specialists both in the education and health sectors. For the whole of the commercial capital Blantyre, there is only one neurological doctor who sees patients twice a week at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.

There are many special education teachers, but are scattered across the country.

“Literature says that one special needs teacher should attend to five kids. But because of the increase of children, we’re teaching more than that. This is challenging because different disabilities have different needs,” said Chimtengo, the special needs teacher at St Pius X.

“It means in one lesson I should try to capture all the needs of every student, which takes a lot of time and effort. Our colleagues in the normal classes teach a class, but for us we teach individuals who need to be taught the things repetitively. We call it repetition and drilling,” she said.

The post A Special Learning Journey Cut Short appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Given Mbwira (left) and Obed Nkhoma on the internet, some of the people who will benefit from cheaper, affordable and faster Internet due to the WhiteSpaces Project. Photo taken at the offices of The Nation in Blantyre. Credit: Bobby Kabango/IPS

By Charity Chimungu Phiri
BLANTYRE, Nov 1 2016 (IPS)

This month, many Malawians, especially those in rural areas, will be able to start accessing the internet as easily as opening a tap to get water.

At least that’s the dream of C3, a communication services provider and the first commercial entity to deploy countrywide TV White Spaces-TVWS for a trial period of nine months.

Most Malawians live in rural areas. The majority of them are poor and only 6.5 percent are connected to the internet. To reach this population, C3 is building a new network that relies on unused frequencies in the television spectrum, called “TV white spaces”, with plans to extend it throughout the country.

The connectivity is then distributed to the user communities with a new, efficient and affordable last mile technology using TVWS and Dynamic Spectrum. Users then access the network via Wi-Fi.

“It’s a cheap and effective way of having internet,” said 17-year-old Elizabeth Kananji, a second year student at the Malawi Polytechnic.

“Not all people are able to access the net as they have to pay the service providers, which is a challenge with the high prices, but with TVWS you don’t have to pay as long as you have your gadgets. You’re good to go, which is amazing,” she told IPS.

Malawi has just concluded the TVWS technical trial project, a collaborative effort of the Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), the Chancellor College physics department and Marconi Wireless Lab T/ ICT4D of Italy.

The project is aimed at promoting research and development in the field of ICT, according to MACRA’s Deputy Director of Spectrum Management, Jonathan Pinifolo.

The TVWS was piloted in Zomba in 2013 at St Mary’s Secondary School, the Malawi Defense Force’s Air wing, Pirimiti Rural Hospital and the Geological Survey Department.

Other countries that carried out similar pilot projects include U.S., United Kingdom, South Africa and Kenya. But Malawi will be the first country in the world to deploy TVWS nationwide.

The project has received praise worldwide, with the United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union saying it is a viable and cost-effective way to reach rural areas with internet services.

Globally, TVWS has provided an alternative means of providing internet to remote and underserved areas without using traditional internet spectrum (radio spectrum), which experts say is becoming congested.

In Malawi, C3 is the only company that has shown interest in running the project, according to MACRA.

“We are anticipating initial launch of some parts of the infrastructure in November, however, since we are not only looking at TVWS we are building towers, installing Wi-Fi hotspots, backhaul links, some of these will be ready before end November. We can then announce the official launch date,” C3’s Richard Chisala told IPS.

“We did research where we assessed all the internet service providers in Malawi and found out that internet is more expensive in Malawi than in Kenya, for example. This has resulted in only 10 percent of the population accessing the internet. This is mainly due to greed and inefficiency,” added C3’s CEO Chris Shaeke.

“So we want to change this…even our license from MACRA states that we have to focus on the rural areas.”

Shaeke says their service will be reliable and affordable: “Because there’s intermittent power supply in Malawi, we are running all our equipment on solar. In addition, we have set up our infrastructure where rural people can easily access the internet right where they are.”

Shaeke told IPS that they have partnered with the Malawi Posts Corporation (MPC) to allow people in rural areas access to the internet through their mailboxes. He says a person will just plug in their device and connect to the net as like people do when they want to get electricity or water, for example.

Currently, C3 is acquiring their infrastructure with funding from Microsoft, which also funded a similar project in Kenya.

“We’re getting financial and technical support from Microsoft…we’re a grant recipient of the Microsoft Affordable Access Initiative which aims to empower the billions of people worldwide who do not have affordable access to the internet,” said Chisala.

“We have a data centre in Lilongwe and a disaster recovery centre in Blantyre…these two will be the first data centres in Africa to provide what we call cloud services…we are an open access network.”

Cloud computing and storage solutions provide users and enterprises with various capabilities to store and process data in third party data centers that may be located far from users.

Among the agencies expected to utilise the C3 network are non-governmental organisations, ministries and department agencies, micro- and small or medium enterprises as wells as resellers.

One of the companies showing interest is Health Point Media. HPM plans to provide audio and visual messages to district hospitals and health centers. They will be installing displays (TV monitors) in all health centers in Malawi, according to the company’s head, Tapiwa Bandawe.

“We are targeting our messages to the 1.9 million people who visit these health facilities every month. Because the patient to health worker ratio is so high in Malawi (one to 10,000), it is difficult for the health personnel to spend time teaching people how they can prevent diseases, for example. So through our messages, people are able to learn while waiting to get help at the hospitals,” Bandawe told IPS.

Elizabeth Kananji, the student at Malawi Polytechnic, says she was inspired by the TVWS project to study Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering.

“I got acquainted with the project in 2013 when they came to my former school (St. Mary’s Secondary) to install antennas during the pilot phase. At first I wasn’t sure what to major in college but TVWS showed me how telecommunications can change the world,” she told IPS.

The post Rural Malawians About to Go Online appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Felistas Ngoma, 72, from Nkhamenya in the Kasungu District of Malawi, prepares nsima in her kitchen. Credit: Charity Chimungu Phiri/IPS

By Charity Chimungu Phiri
BLANTYRE, May 27 2016 (IPS)

It’s Saturday, market day at the popular Bvumbwe market in Thyolo district. About 40 kilometers away in Chiradzulu district, a vegetable vendor and mother of five, Esnart Nthawa, 35, has woken up at three a.m. to prepare for the journey to the market.

The day before, she went about her village buying tomatoes and okra from farmers, which she has safely packed in her dengu (woven basket).

Now she’s just waiting for a hired bicycle to take her and her merchandise to the bus station, where she will catch a minibus to Bvumbwe market. This way, her goods reach the market quicker and safer. Afterwards, she and her colleagues will pack their baskets and walk back home.

“We walk for at least three hours…our bodies have just gotten used to it because we have no choice. If I don’t do this, then my children will suffer. As I am talking to you now, they are waiting for me to bring them food,” Nthawa told IPS.

“I will buy a basin of maize there at the maize mill and have it processed into flour for nsima [a thick porridge that is Malawi’s staple food]. That’s the only meal they will eat today,” she said.

Nthawa added: “Last harvest we only realised two bags of maize as you know the weather was bad. That maize has now run out, we are living day by day…eating what we can manage to source for that day.”

Nthawa’s story resonates with many Malawians today. Almost half of the country’s population is facing hunger this year due to no or low harvests, resulting from the effects of El Nino which hit most parts of the southern and northern regions late last year.

Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development George Chaponda said in Parliament on May 25 that 8.4 million Malawians will be food insecure during the 2016/2017 season.

His statement clearly contradicts President Peter Mutharika, who on Friday said in his State of the Nation Address that 2.8 million people faced hunger.

The new high figure follows a World Food Programme Rapid assessment which said over eight million Malawians will be food insecure this year due to the effects of El Nino. Destructive floods in the north have compounded the country’s woes, causing the president to declare a state of emergency in April.

With the drought also affecting Zimbabwe and other countries in southern Africa, an estimated 28 million people are now going hungry.

In order to deal with the crisis, Agriculture Minister Chaponda says the government has “laid out a plan to import about one million metric tons of white maize to fill the food gap”. The authorities project that at least 1,290,000 metric tons of maize are needed to deal with the food crisis, out of which 790,000 metric tons will be distributed to those heavily affected by the drought starting from April 2016 to March 2017.

The government also plans to intensify irrigation on commercial and smallholder farms, with an aim of increasing maize production at the national level. Officials say 18 million dollars is needed to carry out these measures.“There’s too much politicisation and overreliance on maize as a crop for consumption." -- Chairperson of the Right to Food Network Billy Mayaya

In the meantime, food prices continue to rise daily as the national currency, the Kwacha, continues to depreciate, forcing poor farming families to reduce their number of meals per day or sell their property in order to cope with the situation. A bag of maize which normally sells for seven dollars now costs 15 dollars.

As usual, children have been hardest hit by the situation. The latest statistics on Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) show a 100 percent increase from December 2015 to January 2016, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

UNICEF says it recorded more than 4,300 cases of severe malnutrition in the month of January alone this year, double the number recorded in December 2015.

Dr. Queen Dube, a pediatrician at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre – the main government referral hospital in southern Malawi – affirmed to IPS that there has been an increase in the number of malnutrition cases at the hospital.

“At the moment, we have about 15 children admitted at our Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit…they have Marasmus, where they’re very thin or wasted, while others have Kwashiorkor, where the body is swollen. In other cases, the children have a combination of the two. These children suffer greatly from diarrheal diseases,” said Dube.

She added that the hospital offers these children therapeutic feeding of special types of milk and chiponde (fortified peanut butter) for a determined period of time, until they pick up in weight and improve in general body appearance.

“They are also given treatment for any underlying illness which they might have. Additionally, we also provide counseling to the mothers and guardians on proper nutrition so that when they get back home they can utilize the very little foods they have to prepare nutritious meals for their children,” she explained.

Rights activists say it is high time the authorities started taking on board recommendations on how to make Malawi food secure made by independent groups such as the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee-MVAC, which said 2.8 million people faced hunger in 2015.

Chairperson of the Right to Food Network Billy Mayaya told IPS: “There’s too much politicisation and overreliance on maize as a crop for consumption. The government needs to use the data from MVAC as well as consider the Green Belt Initiative (GBI) and modalities to bring it to fruition.

Calling for greater diversity in the traditional diet, he said, “These plans can be effected as long as there‘s a sustained political will.”

In his state of the nation address on May 20, President Mutharika said the Green Belt Initiative was still his government’s priority “in order to increase productivity of selected high value crops.

“I am therefore pleased to report that construction of the irrigation infrastructure and the sugarcane factory in Salima district has been completed…the government has an ongoing Land Management Contract with Malawi Mangoes Limited where land has been provided for the production of bananas and mangoes,” he said.

In addition, the president said the government plans to increase rice production for both consumption and export, as well as make the tobacco industry vibrant again. Malawi mainly relies on tobacco for its foreign exchange earnings.

In February, President Mutharika made an international appeal for assistance, following which development partners including Britain and Japan provided over 35 million dollars. The government also obtained 80 million dollars from the World Bank for the Emergency Floods Recovery Project.

The U.S. government has been the first to respond to the latest crisis, providing the Malawian government with 55 million dollars.

Meanwhile, the struggle for survival continues for poor Malawian families such as Esnart Nthawa’s. Her children are still eating one meal a day, as those in power continue to meet to strategize on the crisis over fancy dinners in expensive hotels.

The post Malawi’s Drought Leaves Millions High and Dry appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The drone took 10 minutes to cover 10 km. Photo Credit: UNICEF

By Charity Chimungu Phiri
LILONGWE, Malawi, Mar 28 2016 (IPS)

The first successful test-flight of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone was an unhindered 10 km journey from a community health centre to the Kamuzu central hospital laboratory in the capital Lilongwe. Local community members watched with excitement as the drone rose into the sky, after being launched by the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and government of Malawi at the area 25 health centre.

The first of its kind in southern Africa, the US manufactured machine was on trial till March 18 to determine if it could replace other modes of transporting dried blood samples from rural clinics to the main laboratories for early HIV screening in children.

UNICEF together with the manufacturer — Matternet — hope this innovation will help solve logistical problems in Malawi’s rural areas due to the bad state of roads and high costs of diesel fuel, among others.

Currently, motorcycles and ambulances are used to transport blood samples between clinics and take up to 11 days to reach the respective testing centers and two months for the results to come back. The longer the delay between the test and results, the higher the default rate of the patient.

According to government figures, 10, 000 children died of Aids-related illnesses in Malawi in 2014. Screening of HIV in children with HIV positive mothers is a little more complicated than that of adults as it requires more sophisticated machinery, which is hard to access for most rural people due to distance.

UNICEF and the Malawi government expect this machine, which is operated through a mobile phone app, will in the long run replace motorbikes and reduce waiting times for results, thereby cutting costs in accessing test results (and later treatment) if children are found HIV positive.

Matternet’s machine will be carrying about 1 kg of the blood samples from rural clinics to main laboratories across the country. This is another innovation from UNICEF after it launched the rapid SMS programme in 2010 with the same aim of speeding up the process of HIV testing and treatment among children.

The drones are said to be cheaper to run than motorbikes because they only need electricity to recharge the battery, unlike motorbikes which use a lot of fuel and need constant maintenance. Nevertheless, their purchasing costs could be a hindrance as each drone costs MK5 million (equivalent to US$7,000).

However, health authorities believe the advantages of drones outweigh the costs. The ninister of health, Peter Kumpalume, said “it is specialist testing that we do for youngsters. If you delay giving them treatment most of them won’t live beyond two years age. So the earlier the detection and the earlier the intervention, the longer they live and become productive citizens of the country.”

He added that this would not be the first time Malawi would be making history in the HIV sector: “Malawi has pioneered a number of innovations in the delivery of HIV services including the Option B+ policy which puts mothers on a simple, lifelong treatment regime. We have also pioneered the delivery of results from the central laboratory to the health facilities through text messages. We believe our partnering with UNICEF to test UAVs is another innovation and will help in our drive to achieve the country’s goals in HIV prevention and treatment.”

Kumpalume furthermore noted that the new innovation was in line with the Malawi government’s 90-90-90 agenda: “Government intends to achieve the 90-90-90 target where 90 per cent of Malawians know their HIV status, to have 90 per cent of all those diagnosed with HIV receive sustained anti-retroviral treatment, and 90 per cent of people on ART to have viral suppression”, he said.

UNICEF’s representative in Malawi, Mahimbo Mdoe, said HIV is still a barrier to development in Malawi. “In 2014, nearly 40,000 children in Malawi were born to HIV positive mothers. Quality care of these children depends on early diagnosis. We hope that UAVs can be part of the solution to reduce transportation time and ensure that children who need it, start their treatment early,” said Mdoe.

Malawi has a national HIV prevalence rate of 10 per cent — still one of the highest in the world. An estimated 1 million Malawians were living with HIV in 2013 and 48,000 died from HIV-related illnesses in the same year.

Whilst progress has been made, and today 90 per cent of pregnant women know their HIV status, here is still a drop off with testing and treating babies and children. The drone tests over the next week will measure the equipment’s performance with differing winds speeds, humidity and distance and if the results prove positive, the experiment will be expanded.

The test, which is using simulated samples, will have the potential to cut waiting times dramatically, and if successful, will be integrated into the health system alongside others mechanisms such as road transport and SMS.

UAVs have been used in the past for surveillance and assessments of disaster, but this is the first known use of UAVs on the continent for improvement of HIV services Matternet co-founder Paola Santana said it would be easier to use the machines in Malawi because of its closely located health structures. Apart from Malawi, UAVs are also being used in Haiti, Papua New Guinea and Switzerland.

(End)

The post Saving Children’s Lives Through Drones appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Mozambican refugees living in despair in Malawi. Credit: MSF Malawi/IPS

By Charity Chimungu Phiri
BLANTYRE, Malawi, Feb 25 2016 (IPS)

Imagine fleeing from your home because you feel unprotected by the people who are required to do so by law. And when you get to where you feel safer, the very same people come to persuade your keepers to let you come back with them, claiming you are running away from nothing! Well, this is the situation some 5,800 Mozambican nationals have found themselves in. Hundreds of them, including unaccompanied children, have been fleeing from Tete Province, near the Malawi border, since late last year following renewed fighting between government forces and opposition Renamo fighters.

The province is said to be one of the strongholds of Renamo, and the people say they are running away because allegedly government forces have been attacking them for supporting Renamo. They have since fled to Kapise village in Mwanza district in Southern Malawi, 300 meters from the border. About two-thirds of the refugees are women and children mostly below five years old, as well as the elderly. The refugees, whose numbers continue to steadily rise every day, are living in desperate conditions at the camp scrambling for necessities with 150 local families there.

A statement from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says that refugees do not have enough water and sanitation facilities, have poor housing, and are at risk of diseases. They are also in fear of getting attacked by soldiers from their country. A two month-old baby died of diarrhoea at the camp last month. And last week alone, MSF, which set up a clinic at the camp, treated over 380 malaria cases. Even worse, the Malawi government is under pressure from Mozambique not to recognize the people as refugees, according to MSF.

The humanitarian organization states Mozambique sent several delegates to the camp to try and persuade the displaced people to come back, arguing that there was no conflict back home. However Mozambican media reports indicate that tensions have increased in recent weeks in Tete, Zambezia and Sofala provinces, with daily attacks and shootings.

MSF, which started its intervention there in November 2015, has since appealed to the Malawi government to move the people to a more spacious camp, 50 kilometers from Kapise, and also away from the border as required by international humanitarian standards.

The alternative location, Luwani, a former refugee camp, is said to be the best option for the displaced people as it has plenty of space, a school, medical centre and a better road. Furthermore, the move, according to MSF, would also allow humanitarian actors such as The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to plan appropriate services to meet the needs of the displaced community. At a recent press briefing in Blantyre, MSF’s head of mission to Malawi, Maury Gregoire, said they are treating about 159 people every day, with half diagnosed with malaria and the rest having respiratory infections and general body pain. He said the refugees only have 14 latrines whereas the respect of minimum humanitarian conditions requires that at least 20 people have one latrine or in worst case scenarios one latrine for 50 people. According to Gregoire, people have only two boreholes for both domestic and general use: “Each person has on average eight litres of water a day, barely enough to drink and cook and well below the minimum 15 to 20 litres are recommended as a humanitarian minimum in emergency settings.”

MSF has since warned that the strain by the refugees could cause tensions with Malawian families living in the village, especially on access to water. But Malawian authorities are not yet decided on whether to move the refugees or send them back home. Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs Beston Chisamile told The Nation newspaper on Thursday that they were still discussing the matter with Mozambican authorities. “Our friends in Mozambique want these people to go back home, so unless a decision is made between the two parties that they should remain in Malawi, then we can start thinking about moving them to a different place,” he said.

The UN’s Refugee Agency representative to Malawi, Monique Ekoko, recently appealed to donors and other humanitarian organisations for more funding to help the refugees. Malawi has hosted refugees from Mozambique before. The Luwani Camp hosted over one million Mozambican refugees who fled from their country’s 16 year civil war between 1977 and 1992. The country is currently facing a tough economic situation of high inflation and interest rates which has left many people struggling to survive. It is estimated that about 2.8 million Malawians themselves are in need of food aid following last season’s dry spell and floods. A report by the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee says about K23 billion (about US$18 million) is needed to feed such people up to the next harvest.

(End)

The post Malawi’s Refugee Crisis appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Esther is studying and working and aspires to be a nurse… Credit: Charity Chimungu Phiri/IPS

By Charity Chimungu Phiri
BLANTYRE, Jan 15 2016 (IPS)

Being a single mother at the age of 19 is not what most teenage girls want for themselves. But this is the life Esther Mkwakwasa is living in Namphungo village in Mulanje District. Orphaned at the age of 14, Esther saw herself being moved from one foster home to another until she got pregnant.

“My biological father died when I was very young. I was an only child. Later my mother remarried and had four other kids. After she died when I was 15-years old, my stepfather took my siblings and moved to town and left me alone in my mother’s village,” she said. Esther then fell pregnant by a classmate while in school.The boy denied responsibility.

“I felt humiliated and alone, I was devastated. It was like the whole world had turned against me. I eventually dropped out of school because I felt like everyone was looking at me,” she said.

Esther blames some traditional beliefs and practices as part of her falling into teen pregnancy. In most districts in the southern part of Malawi, it is customary that when girls reach a certain age they go into initiation camps where they are encouraged to try out having sex with boys in order to test their maturity called kutsatsa fumbi in local language.

“After the initiation I was very much looking forward to having sex so I could not even imagine getting pregnant,” she explained.

This shy young woman is now a sole provider for her toddler with whom she is living alone in a room among some residential plots owned by her uncle. She cleans people’s houses and works in fields in the mornings and studies two hours each afternoon while neighbours look after her son.

Now Esther, who says she wants to be a nurse, is trying to rewrite her life story. She is one of 600,000 teenage mothers who have gone back to school across Malawi since 2014 with the help of the Malawi government, traditional leaders, churches, United Nations organisations and non-governmental organisations such as the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA).

Through an ADRA Malawi Project called ‘When a mother is a child’, at least 35 girls from seven group village heads in the Juma area have gone back to school.

Mulanje ADRA Community Development Facilitator Belinda Chimombo says the project, which was launched in 2014 as a pilot, is targeting 300 teenage mothers. “Currently we’re only working in seven group villages where the girls have formed 15 groups of 20 people each. Our main goal was to advocate for the return to school of the girl child after we had noted that the number of dropouts was high in this area,” Chimombo said.

She told IPS that most of the girls are very determined and dedicated to finish their education. On her part Member of Parliament for the area, who is also Minister of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare, Patricia Kaliati, thanked all partners who have worked so hard for Malawi to achieve this.

“As I am talking to you now the numbers keep increasing as more and more girls are returning to school”, she said. Kaliati further urged the girls to use the opportunity to be role models to their children and other girls in their communities.

“Even though some of them are being mocked for going back to school they need to be steadfast knowing that this is the only way how they can achieve their goals so they should not be shaken,” she said.

However, the project has also brought about a thorny issue of school fees since most families had ruled out sending their daughters to school. It is also even harder for the girls to qualify for the government bursary because of its competitive nature.

Asked what they are doing on the matter, ADRA’s Chimombo said since the project is a pilot ending in June this year, it is hard for them to convince donors to fund the girls because of issues of sustainability. But MP Kaliati said they had already started sponsoring some of the students.

“When schools were opening this month, we sponsored about 15 students. In a few days we will also be meeting all stakeholders to chart the way forward on the fees issue,” she said.

In Malawi traditional beliefs and practices have been attributed to teen pregnancies and early marriages especially in rural areas.

A recent Malawi Development Goals (MDG) End Line Survey found that one out of every two girls is married before the age of 18 and some as early as 12-years old. The survey also says empowerment and advancement of the girl child, is affected by the pandemic of violence, child marriages, early pregnancies, maternal mortality and low level of access to and retention in education.

Things are slowly changing as more traditional leaders are embracing new ideas and putting in place bylaws to deal with such issues.

(End)

The post Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Teen Mother Fights the Odds and Wants to be a Nurse appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world: 65 percent of the population here lives on less than 1.25 dollars a day, and nearly one in 10 children die before their fifth birthday. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

By Charity Chimungu Phiri
BLANTYRE, Oct 16 2012 (IPS)

Patrick Martin, 14, and his brother Mayeso, 15, are safely home for the moment with their mother and other siblings in Kasonya village, Phalombe District in southern Malawi, after they and 12 other children were rescued from being trafficked to neighbouring Mozambique last month by their father.

Every farming season, people from Phalombe District are taken to the southern African country of Mozambique to earn their families enough money to buy a bicycle – which is considered a luxury in a country were 65 percent of its 16 million people live below the poverty line.

The story of these children is one of many familiar occurrences in Malawi at the moment, as government statistics indicate that at least 1.4 million children are involved in child labour and 20 percent of them are being trafficked domestically and internationally for the sex industry and illegal adoption.

But the future safety of these boys remains uncertain, and they may be forced into child labour again, as out of date laws in the country mean that their father will get off with merely a slap on the wrist for his crime. The country has no human trafficking law, and while there is a provision against child trafficking in Section 79 of the Child Care Protection and Justice Act, it is not being correctly implemented.

Their father, James Martin, 31, will be released from Mulanje prison after a mere 18 months. He, together with James Banda, 23; Daniel Thumpwa, 21; and Dickson Kambewa, 37, was charged for engaging children under the age of 18 in child labour.

The were charged under the Employment Act, and not on child trafficking according to Section 79 of the Child Care Protection and Justice Act.

The Child Care Protection and Justice Act, which became a law in December 2011, stipulates that a trafficker should serve a maximum sentence of life imprisonment when they are caught trafficking children under the age of 16.

Maxwell Matewere, the executive director of the non-governmental organisation Eye of the Child, which prioritises the fight against child trafficking, told IPS that the country’s laws are making it difficult for organisations and the police to work to their fullest in the fight against the practice.

“The problem now is that magistrates are not using the Child Care and Protection Justice Act to pass sentences mainly because it is not mandatory and also depends on mitigating factors such as at what level of engagement was a child rescued and his age.

“Furthermore, in Malawi we do not have a law on human trafficking so when offenders are caught by the police and charged with human trafficking the charge is changed in court because there is no such law,” he said.

“A Zambian man who was arrested for trafficking children from Dedza (in Malawi’s Central Region) to work in maize farms in Zambia, was released after he paid a fine,” he said.

Matewere added that the current Child Protection and Justice Act is quite limited in a number of ways.

“The law only provides for the definition of child trafficking as an offence punishable by life imprisonment; however, it does not give any mechanism as to how victims could be identified and cared for. It also is silent on other pressing factors like the definition of recruitment, and on what would happen to an NGO (for example an orphanage that engages in illegal adoption) or a bus company that is involved in transferring of children,” he said.

Matewere said unless the government has the political will to deal with the root factors of the problem, which he identifies as poverty, unemployment, lack of education and lack of national identification, more children will continue to be trafficked.

Deputy national police spokesman Kelvin Maigwa told IPS that between January and August this year, 43 cases of child trafficking were reported, of which the numbers were equal between male and female children.

“The reason why these children are being taken away from their homes is because their masters are looking for cheap labour so they get the children to work in tea and tobacco estates and pay them peanuts because they know they can’t complain. The girls are mainly brought to work in prostitution in bars and taverns where they are used to woo customers and sometimes to cut beer packets, they are also employed in domestic work as nannies or housekeepers in cities and towns,” he said.

Herbert Bimphi, chairman of the parliamentary social welfare committee and Democratic Progressive Party member of parliament for Ntchisi North, told IPS that in the absence of a law on human trafficking the courts will continue passing sentences that are not in line with what is actually happening.

“But the information that I have is that the Law Commission has drafted the Trafficking Persons’ Bill and that now it is at the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs. The minister responsible will then bring it to the House so that we can scrutinise it then call on other experts to look at it again if it is well-written, then we will debate on it and then formally adopt it,” he said.

Minister of Gender and Child Welfare Anita Kalinde told IPS that the Trafficking Persons Bill is being finalised, but that there are other laws on protection of children, which have adequate provisions.

“What needs to be done however is the popularisation of the laws through community education of the legal provisions; and translating of the Act into local languages so that people can demand their rights,” she said.

Kalinde did acknowledge, however, that the sentences being passed on offenders are not satisfactory “considering the fact that the trafficked child’s future has been ruined. I would have preferred stiffer penalties.”

She further said the government has put in place several mechanisms to help reduce poverty among families who are at risk of engaging in trafficking and child labour.

Kalinde singled out the agriculture subsidy, where the poorest families buy farm inputs at reduced prices, thereby enabling them to produce enough for their families.

However, Maigwa told IPS that the country’s laws could be luring the offenders to commit the crime again.

“In general, some of our laws are outdated and weak…they are not in line with the current situation. At the time when they were being formulated they were strong but now for example if you ask an offender to pay a K200 fine (equivalent to a dollar) for assaulting someone for example, no one can fail to do that so they go and offend again.”

Phalombe District police spokesman Augustus Nkhwazi told IPS that traffickers are illegally crossing into Mozambique easily because no Malawian police officers are stationed at the border post.

“When these people are entering that country they are perceived to be the children’s parents or guardians because people from the two countries have established trade relationships as well as intermarriages. As such there is movement on these borders every day,” said Nkhwazi.

Nkhwazi further said the practice is more common now in his district due to poverty and lack of enough farmland and also the willingness by parents to engage in the practice.

Maigwa is however optimistic that the times are changing with the engagement of the Police Force’s Child Protection Officer in every district over five years ago.

“Each police station has a Community Policing Unit where we have the Child Protection Officer who basically engages the masses in civic education, teaching them on the tricks that child traffickers may use when they come to their homes, such as a promise of a better paying job or drastic economic changes for the children…so we believe people are becoming more knowledgeable of this crime than before,” he said.

The post Law Fails to Protect Malawi Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A health worker weighs malnourished children at the Chikhwawa District Hospital in Malawi. The country reduced its under-five child mortality rate by 64 percent in the last 10 years. Courtesy: UNICEF/ Eldson Chagara

By Charity Chimungu Phiri
CHIKHWAWA, Malawi, Sep 15 2012 (IPS)

Three-month-old Simplicious Gift lives in Mafunga village in Malawi’s southern rural district of Chikhwawa, 48 kilometres from the commercial capital, Blantyre. His is a poor farming village of about 1,200 people who live off their harvests and the produce from their livestock of goats, pigs and cows.

While a large portion of the population in this region may be facing food insecurity this year because of poor harvests, whatever the situation, Simplicious will not go wanting for health care.

Whenever her young son is in need of medical treatment, Margaret Gift has only to walk 300 metres to her nearest medical clinic.

“I come here whenever my child has a fever, diarrhoea or a cough. I also come for family planning methods,” she told IPS as she waited at the local village clinic.

In this southern African nation, where 90 percent of the population are impoverished rural subsistence farmers with limited access to transport, the average distance to a district hospital is 21 kilometres, according to a December 2011 report on the country’s medical facilities in the East and Central African Journal of Surgery. In Tanzania the average distance is 31 kms, while the average in sub-Saharan Africa is eight, according to Every Mother Counts, a platform that links grassroots mobilisation campaigns with the steps of “engagement, education, and advocacy.”

But the growing presence of rural health centres and the introduction of community health workers in Malawi over the last 30 years has resulted in a 64 percent reduction of under-five mortality rates in the country over the last 10 years, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). In 1990 the country recorded 227 deaths per 1,000 live births. The number was reduced to 83 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011.

A UNICEF report released on Sep. 13 “Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed”, says the number of children under the age of five dying in sub-Saharan Africa has been reduced by 39 percent, while globally it has been reduced from nearly 12 million in 1992 to 6.9 million in 2011.

The report noted that Malawi is only one of nine low-income countries worldwide to have reduced their under-five mortality rate by more than 60 percent.

In the Chikwawa district there are 12 health centres that serve the region’s approximate 350,000 people. Makhwira Health Centre provides health services to about 58,755 people.

Kennedy Thala, a senior Health Surveillance Assistant (HSA) or community health worker at the centre, told IPS that the introduction of Early Infant Diagnosis in 2010 has reduced the number of child deaths here.

“When it was first launched we had 229 infants, of which only three died between the months of July and September 2010 while waiting for their HIV and malnutrition results from the Central Lab in Blantyre. Before that, children were dying at a much higher rate. But unfortunately we don’t have the data because there were no records,” she said.

She added that the introduction of the UNICEF Rapid SMS programme in 2010 also reduced the under-five mortality rate.

“We get text messages with the results of children who were tested for HIV, usually after three to four weeks,” she said. Previously it would take months for the health centre to receive the results.

Babies here are also enrolled in the Growth Monitoring Programme, a project that runs together with the Out-Patient Therapeutic Programme, where babies with moderate malnutrition are given ready-to-use therapeutic food such as plumpy’nut (fortified peanut butter) and corn-blend soy flour mixed with cooking oil, medication and vitamins.

In this region, as across the rest of the country, HSAs conduct clinics in local villages daily. In addition, the community health care workers visit health centres twice a week to assist with child immunisations, antenatal care, and HIV counselling and testing services.

“We believe that through these programmes mothers are receiving first-hand information on what is expected of them in as far as the reduction of malnutrition amongst under fives is concerned,” said UNICEF Malawi Chief of Communications, Victor Chinyama.

UNICEF officials say it has been very important to take health care services closer to where people live, thereby significantly reducing the distance that people have to travel to access medical treatment in Malawi.

“In Malawi, many district hospitals are very far from most villages, which previously forced many mothers to walk very long distances. But now people can get medical care right where they are, and mothers seeking child healthcare can access it right away,” said Chinyama.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, Henry Chimbali, told IPS that the reduction in under-five mortality rates was “a remarkable achievement for us because it shows that what we are doing is working.”

“We are mainly attributing this success to the Safe Motherhood project, the village clinics and also to the HSAs who are directly working with mothers right in their communities to help prevent deaths that could be avoided amongst children,” he said.

Dr. Queen Dube, a paediatrician at the Queen Elizabeth Central hospital in Blantyre – a 950-bed facility with patients mostly from rural areas or townships, told IPS that the reduction of deaths in children under five due to malnourishment could also be attributed to the improved access to food supply in the country since 2005.

“I was here when there were over one hundred children in the Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit. But now you go there it’s not even full – there are only 16 children there – to us that’s amazing!

“Things have to improved after the introduction of the Out-Patient Therapeutic care (which started in community clinics almost 30 years ago) and community clinics, because health workers are no longer waiting for mothers to bring in very sick children.” Instead, health workers are going to mothers and educating them on how to prevent their children from falling ill.

Dube also said that the introduction of the Extended Programme of Immunization for children under five, which started in the early 1960s countrywide, helped reduce mortality rates.

“At the moment our coverage nationwide is at 90 percent. Though there is still more to be done in the area of pneumonia, but since last year babies are now being vaccinated against the disease. In addition, many pregnant women are now attending antenatal care at least once – at the moment countrywide attendance is at 91 percent,” she said.

Dube, however, told IPS that neonatal mortality remains a big challenge for Malawi as it contributes to nearly a third of all under-five deaths. Current statistics indicate that 79 infants under 12 months of age die each year out of every 1, 000 live births. The current global neonatal rate, according to the UNICEF report, is 22 deaths per 1,000 live births.

“Basically, neonates get sick within the first 72 hours of life and they mostly die due to low-birth weight. Such deaths remain unchanged in Malawi, the numbers are still high,” she said.

The post Saving the Lives of Malawi’s Children appeared first on Inter Press Service.