By Beatrice Bangula
Blantyre, September 21, Mana: United Nations (UN) Women Country Representative to Malawi, Letty Chiwara, has expressed satisfaction with the way Maliya Women Groups in Blantyre are responding to Women’s Resilience to Disasters (WRD) programme.
Chiwara made the remarks Thursday during a monitoring visit by Second Secretary for the Australian High Commission to three WRD programme activities at Maliya Village in Traditional Authority (TA) Kuntaja in the district.
She said the training given to the women by Foundation for Civic Education and Social Empowerment (FOCESE) in partnership with Christian Aid has made a positive impact to their families and the communities.
“In this tour, we have witnessed women’s resilience and hard work in this comprehensive initiative which touches on agriculture, climate smart agriculture systems, agriculture innovative systems and economic empowerment for women,” she said.
Chiwara said it is important for women in Malawi to be resilient to disasters as they experience disasters almost on annual basis.
“Over the years, the narrative has been women suffer most from disasters but what WRD is doing is changing that narrative where we have women as change agents who can make the communities ready to deal with any disaster,” she said.
According to Chiwara, UN came up with the project because of the devastating impact of Tropical Cyclone Freddy.
Chiwara recalled that she visited a number of districts in the southern region when Cyclone Freddy had occurred which moved her to liaise with other partners in Geneva, managing WRD programme at global level to intervene in the situation in Malawi hence the initiative.
Chairperson for Maliya Irrigation Scheme, Elita Chingala, described the training by FOCESE and Christian Aid as very beneficial.
“In the past, we were practicing farming at family level but the returns were very marginal. Cultural norms which put men as the head of the family relegated to the sidelines in making some important decisions which is not the case now,” she said.
The women are expected to realize about K4 million from the sale of tomato which is in the field.
“The group will keep K1 million from the proceeds of tomato while the K3 million will be shared equally among the members to improve individual household economic status,” Chingala said.
Executive Director for FOCESE, Linda Masoo, said the primary beneficiary of project is a woman;
So far, the programme has reached out to 6,500 women with not less than K500 million.
“Women are mostly affected by disasters. So, if we don’t empower them to be resilient, we are killing the whole family,” she said.
WRD is a one year programme which started in June 2023 with funding from Australian Aid through the UN Women and is being implemented by Christian Aid in partnership with FOCESE.
