By Vincent Khonje

Mchinji, August 21, Mana: Minister of Gender, Community Development, and Social Welfare, Jean Sendeza, has encouraged communities in Mchinji to cultivate a self-help spirit that can drive development in their areas.

Sendeza made the remarks on Tuesday after touring several community-led initiatives as part of the Community Development Month (CDM) Initiative aimed at improving local infrastructure.

She said the self-help spirit should be instilled in the people so that they can initiate development projects on their own.

"It has to be the people starting the development projects since they are the ones who know what they want. I am happy that the self-help spirit is spreading in most Area Development Committees (ADCs) and that everyone is now involved in initiating development projects," said Sendeza.

She urged the council to ensure that all ADCs are trained to embrace the self-help spirit.

The Minister visited Traditional Authority (TA) Mavwere and toured Mankhwala Junior Primary School where community members are constructing a school block, and Kapanga Health Centre where the community is building a nurse's house.

Her next stop was TA Simphasi where she visited Chiwoko School, and appreciated the newly built house for the Primary Education Advisor (PEA) constructed by the community and Chimteka School where there is a complete classroom block.

Chairperson for Mavwere ADC Dereson Bisai said they thought to start themselves before asking for help somewhere else.

"We have schools that are very far from here so we thought we could build classes for a junior primary school to help young children to attend school. We also thought of making sure the health personnel at Kapanga Health Centre should have a proper dwelling house, that is why we decided to start these projects as a community," said Bisai.

Present at Simphasi was a member of parliament for Mchinji Central Jephthar Mwale, who said the people of the constituency are doing well in self-help development projects.

"This initiative is aimed at asking people to start projects on their own so that they own the projects. I am happy that people have also welcomed the initiative and it is pleasing to see that there are many community-initiated projects," said Mwale.

The CDM Initiative was established in 2023 by the government to spearhead a self-help spirit by engaging people to initiate development projects.