By Gift Mkulichi and Memory Khutuliwa

Blantyre, March 27, Mana: Federation of Disability Organizations in Malawi (FEDOMA) Executive Director Simon Munde has suggested the need for wider literacy in braille among persons with visual impairment and deployment of sign language specialists in polling Centre’s to assist persons with impairments vote for candidates of their choice.

In an interview, Munde said some of the challenges faced by people with visual impairment and those with hearing impairment are failure to read and interpret voter civic education messages that should enable them to make informed decision on elections.

“Some of the messages come in the format that is not appropriate to the people with visual and hearing impairment and other disabilities,” he added and called on special needs education institutions to provide wider braille and sign language literacy to ensure inclusiveness of people with disability on all issues of national importance.

Apart from wider braille literacy and adequate sign language interpreters, Munde said there was need to also provide adequate funding and accreditation of organizations dealing with people with disabilities in voter civic education as an appropriate measure in reducing voter apathy.

“People with disabilities have got right to public and political rights and it's important for them to participate in the decision-making processes as who is going to lead them,” he said.

Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) Communications Director Sangwani Mwafulirwa said the electoral body was in the process of accrediting CSOs to conduct civic and voter education that works with people with various forms of disabilities.

“Such organizations are already working with people with disabilities and it becomes easier for the organizations to reach out since they already know where the people are. The organizations have already skills and knowledge on how to communicate with them,” said Mwafulirwa with assurance that MEC will accredit many CSOs that specialize in working with people with disabilities.

He also said MEC is putting in place measures, ahead of 2025 to ensure fair, credible and inclusive elections.

“No one should fail to participate in the 2025 elections because of disability. We will design messages targeting all people, considering their type of disability and people with visual impairment will benefit from the audio messages.

“We will print braille literature for the people with hearing impairment and they should be assured that there will be visual messages which will also be accompanied by sign language interpretation,” Mwafulirwa added.

On registration period and polling day, Mwafulirwa said all people with disabilities will be treated with priority.

“On the polling day, there will be tactile ballot templates which will be used by those with visual impairment to vote on their own,” he added.

He further explained that MEC will also employ Constituency Civic and Voter Education Assistants who will be placed in the constituency to teach people about elections and will also be tasked to target people with disabilities.

By Yamikani Yapuwa

Thyolo, March 26, Mana: District Commissioner for Thyolo, Hudson Kuphanga has challenged partners implementing HIV and AIDS programmes to have work plans that should be tracked to measure positive impacts on district HIV and AIDS response.

Kuphanga made the remarks on Tuesday, during the district's HIV and AIDS stakeholders meeting supported by the National AIDS Commission (NAC) where all key partners in the district merged to discuss coordination, data review as well as HIV and Aids programming.

“We want all partners working in HIV and AIDS programmes to develop work plans for us to see what they plan to do and what has been achieved over time. We want them to challenge us with issues and problems and sit together to brainstorm how we can solve them,” said Kuphanga.

Kuphanga also urged the partners to have goals and targets that are measurable for easy tracking. There is need to track progress being made in regards to HIV and AIDS in the district.

"Further, they should embed issues of nutrition for people living with HIV as well as taking the life prolonging drugs as this is key to adherence to drugs.

“When making such plans, think about nutrition. We expect people on ART to adhere to drugs but let's think about nutrition.  Are they able to get food to eat well? What about those school going children? Are they going to concentrate on their education while on medication when they have no food?” said Kuphanga.

Principal Nutrition and HIV and AIDS Officer for Thyolo, Kondwani Luwe said the HIV and AIDS stakeholders meetings play a vital role in HIV and AIDS response in Thyolo through collaboration, information sharing, advocacy and strategic planning.

“Partners need to know the significance of collaboration and partnership in addressing the complex challenges posed by HIV and AIDS. There is also need for collective action involving various stakeholders, including governments, NGOs, healthcare providers, community organizations, and affected individuals,” said Luwe.

Luwe also urged partners to focus on prevention efforts, including education, access to condoms, harm reduction strategies for high-risk populations, and promotion of HIV testing and counseling.

Thyolo District HIV prevalence rate is 14.9 percent and a total of 60,012 people living with HIV are on Antiretroviral Therapy, Luwe disclosed.

During the meeting various stakeholders like EGPAF, Pakachere, Banja La Mtsogolo and the District Health Office presented information and data on what they achieved through their various interventions in the district.

By Beni Bamusi

Thyolo, March 26, Mana: Thyolo District Social Welfare Office has hailed SPARK Disability Inclusive for Rural Transformation Programme for imparting skills and business knowledge to people with disabilities to uplift their lives and   help them be self-reliant.

District Social Welfare Officer, Tobias Milanzi said this on Monday when International Labour Organization and the district team toured some of the traditional authorities in the district to appreciate SPARK programme activities.

"Since the introduction of the programme in 2022, people with disabilities have been empowered and most of them have changed into farming and other activities.

"People with disabilities have been provided with various skills such that the skills helped them to improve their living standards," said Milanzi.

He also asked the programme implementers to extend it to other T/A's to enable more people with disabilities acquire business knowledge and skills to become economically self-reliant.

SPARK Disability Inclusion Facilitator Hazewell Pilato who is responsible for traditional authority, Chimaliro and Kapichi, said since the introduction of SPARK programme, people with disabilities realized that “disability is not inability,”

“As SPARK, we work hand in hand with TRADE to ensure inclusion of people with disabilities in dairy value chain. We went to milk bulk groups and make people with disabilities get involved in dairy farming such that we made sure that they are provided with milk cow here in Chimaliro” he said.

Eviness Daniel who takes care of her uncle, a person with disability said the uncle got a dairy cow and he was able to provide for his family.

“SPARK provided us with guidance up to the extent that we secured a dairy cow and now we are able to buy fertilizer after selling milk and meat whereas the dung is used for manure which makes us to harvest more maize.” she said.

Daniel who spoke on behalf of her uncle, pleaded for more financial support saying the dairy farming did not give much needed gains because their cow fail to produce enough milk for sale.

“I wish we could have access to adequate capital to make the dairy farming more productive,” added Daniel.

SPARK programme operates in six TAs and reaches out to 168 households with people with disabilities. 

By Joel Phiri

Mzimba, March 26, Mana: Principal environmental officer for M’mbelwa District Council, James Pelani has hailed Mzimba Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church youths for a clean-up exercise they conducted in the district on Sunday.

The youths from various branches of the church engaged in sweeping of various areas of Mzimba Boma such as markets, roads, churches, and residential areas.  

They also slashed overgrown grass and removed sand and debris that choked some bridges.

"We as Council take pride in the civic responsibility shown and taken by youths of SDA church in the district. We urge other youths from other churches to emulate the same spirit.

“What the youths from the church have done by cleaning various places of our district will help in bringing about sanity in terms of cleanliness and enhancing scenic beauty of the Central Business District,” said Pelani.

Pelani said as a council they have been engaged in clean-up exercises to maintain cleanliness of the district hence applauded the youths for joining the cause.

Youth’s secretary for Mzimba district SDA Church, Macdonald Kumwenda said the clean-up initiative was part of annual Global Adventist Youths Day in which they take part in various community outreach works.

"This year’s theme was ‘Show up in the Cities'. During this year’s Youths Day, Adventist youths took to the cities for various voluntary works such as donating blood and doing some charity work. We as Mzimba youths decided to clean up some places of Mzimba Boma as part of the activities marking the day", said Kumwenda.

By Maria Tembo

Ntchisi, March 26, Mana: At least 49 graduates from the area of Senior Chief Vuso Jere in Ntchisi district who were withdrawn from coffee and tobacco farms and reinstated into technical schools to acquire various vocational skills, have been equipped with start-up tool kits.

The 49 were withdrawn under the Accelerating Action in the Elimination of Child Labour (ACCEL Africa) project which is being implemented by Impact Centre for Economic Empowerment and Development funded by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The project was inspired by the increasing number of children being involved in child labour activities across the country according to ILO Technical Officer for Social Protection Patience Matandiko who was speaking Monday, during the handover ceremony of tool kits in the district.

Matandiko said with the skills the youths had acquired, it is her hope that they would be able to act as role models in their communities and create jobs to fellow youth and train others on the same.

“The statistics we have, indicate that 37 percent of children in Malawi are involved in child labour and the numbers are very high and the children are denied a chance of being involved in productive activities of the country,” she said.

Impact Centre for Economic Empowerment and Development (ICEED) Director Madalitso Chidumu Baloyi said her organization’s goal was to make sure that children withdrawn from child labour activities are economically empowered and independent to be able to sustain a comfortable livelihood.

She said so far 283 youths have been trained with vocational skills in the districts’ of Thyolo, Mulanje, Chitipa, Mzimba and Ntchisi and hope that more youths will benefit from the same.

“These youths will be able to help their families as they will be able to generate income through the vocational skills they have gained and will also be able to employ fellow youth in their communities,” explained Baloyi.

In his remarks, Regional Service Centre Manager for Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TEVETA) Josephy Sambaya says this is a significant development as most youths that have undergone different vocational skills, only get certificates and not the skills startup toolkits.

He said he was confident that the youths would be able to get employment from different organisations in the district while others would be able to start their own businesses.

One of the graduates, Mtendere Mphadwe, who has acquired skills in carpentry and joinery says the vocational training is timely and hopes to impart his fellow youths with the same skills.

The startup toolkits that have been given to youths in the district are worth MK 58 million.