Tuesday, December 21, 2010
He battered me while I was pregnant
The 2010 16 Days of Activism against Gender based Violence officially ended on December 10.
During the campaign that annually starts from November 25, this year Zodiak Online has been bringing you stories of women that have suffered various forms of abuse because of being HIV positive and how they managed to sail through.
Now, because the end of the campaign does not necessary mean all people with ill minds have transformed, we will have to continue a little bit further in order to reach out to those that still believe that abuse of women is normal.
Today, we hear from Serenia Jokora – the youngest of all the women that have presented their stories on this special column.
Serenia is 33 years old. She hails from Undi Village in the area of Traditional Authority Chawuma is Dedza.
“It’s now three years since my husband abandoned me. He left for Kasungu. I’m told he is working in tobacco fields there”, she says, “He left me with a young child”.
Serenia was found HIV positive in 2005.
“It all started after I tested HIV positive during mandatory test at the antenatal clinic.
“He was furious when I told him the news and he said I should not involve him in the issue. At first he refused to go to hospital for testing, but later he accepted. He was also found HIV positive.
“Initially we had no problems in our family, but my husband just changed overnight. He started beating up me, more especially the time I was pregnant.
“He used to come home drunk and he would beat me up almost daily without any proper reason during my pregnancy.
“We quarreled on petty issues. For example, if any man passes by our house, he would ask me who the person was. If I say I do not know him, he wouldn’t listen and he would beat me up severely.
“On several occasions he infected me with sexually transmitted diseases but instead accused me of being a prostitute. I can assure you that since I got married I never slept with any other man apart from him,” she says.
Suffering in silence
Despite that she was battered by her husband for close to five years, Serenia never reported the matter to police or any organization that would have assisted her.
The only third party was involved was their marriage counselors.
“They tried to reason with him to stop beating me up, but he never changed until he left for Kasungu three years ago.
“It’s true that most women are suffering in silence. Most of us do not know where to seek assistance on these issues”, she observes.
“Over the past years I have been having problems to find food because I have five children. I work in other people’s gardens to raise money for my daily needs.”
Serenia comes from a Ngoni area where beer drinking among men is part of culture.
“Most of the men around this area are militant towards their wives when they get drunk. I have a number of friends who have suffered in the same way.
“My husband said he will come back. Anyway, I will accept him because of the children, Serenia says surprisingly.
A call for action
Serenia urges government and nongovernmental organizations to work together to civic educate women in rural areas on their rights.
“We need to know where we can seek assistance when we are abused by our husbands.
She is currently on antiretroviral treatment and says the medication has helped to invigorate her life.
Serenia concurs with the rest of the women that have spoken out during this year’s 16 Days Campaign that provision of soft loans to enable women living HIV start small-scale business is an area where government and nongovernmental organizations must invest adequate resources.
As a member of a community-based health and advocacy group she is one of the few people that have come out in the open in Undi Village to declare their HIV status who are campaigning overtly for increased rights of people living with the virus that causes AIDS.
“If my husband comes back today, I will not just go head to accept him. Now, we have several support groups here, like Chembe Community Based Organization which I joined last year.
“I will tell him to make a promise in the presence of members of the group that he will no longer beat me up. In fact, I will demand that he joins the organization before we can reunite”.
……………..
My Survival Story on Zodiak Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for South Southern Africa (OSISA)
Saturday, December 11, 2010
He never told me his status…
Winless Kaonga hails from Chitipa District in northern Malawi. To be specific, she is from Mwanamuyemba Village in the area of Traditional Authority Mwaulambia. She was found HIV positive in 2006. She has five children of which two are also HIV positive.
“We were then staying in Karonga”, she recalls how trouble started to creep into her life.
“My husband was sleeping around with prostitutes. He abandoned me and never paid rent for the house we were living in.
“I had to be taken care of by my relatives who came to see me in Karonga”.
Concerned over her deteriorating condition, the well wishers took her to Wenya, Village Headman Mtemamkondo in Chitipa.
“He followed me and pleaded that we reconcile. I accepted because we had two children born in our family and I was concerned about their plight”, she said.
When Winness went back to Karonga, she gave birth to a third child.
“After the birth our third child, he started behaving wildly again.
“But after some time he fell ill. His legs started swelling”, she says.
The rejected stone
“Despite that he abused me¸ I tirelessly looked after him. I took him to the toilet, bath him…and took him to hospital.
“All his relatives refused to take him to hospital. They said ‘he deserved the suffering’. They said that’s what he wanted.
“For six years, we did not know what was causing his leg problems. Then I started asking him to go to hospital to have an HIV test, but he strongly refused.”
“He could not walk. It was as if he was suffering from polio. Later he started coughing. He coughed throughout in the afternoon and during the night.
“I tried to reason with him that the radio says when a cough persists for three weeks people must take a sputum test in case they have tuberculosis, but still he could not listen to me.”
The cough, however, was so serious that probably he had no choice with sores in his throat and mouth. He accepted to go hospital where he was admitted.
She said: “I had to take him on a bicycle. At the hospital he was, however, just treated for the sores and we were discharged after some weeks.
“But a few days after we arrived home, somebody from the hospital came to ask us to return to the hospital because my husband had been diagnosed with TB.”
This time he was in the hospital for fourteen days.
“I think it was while he was under TB treatment, that he tested for HIV but he never told me.
“He refused whenever I told him that we should go together for an HIV test. Probably he already knew his status but he did not want to tell me,” she says.
Because he had TB his immune system was compromised. His condition could not improve.
“I continued to insist that we go for an HIV test until one day when he accepted. I was happy because this was what I had longed for many years”.
“When we arrived at the hospital I was surprised to see him producing documents indicating that he had already taken an HIV test and that he had been certified to start lessons for antiretroviral treatment.
“So, you already took an HIV, I asked him and he replied ‘yes’.
“I felt very bad because he violated my right to know his status as his sexual partner. To me this was gender based violence since all along I had been asking him that we go for HIV testing but he refused only to go behind my back and, worst still, decide not to disclose to me his status.
“I was confused and banged out of the testing room.
“I stood outside for a while but something touched my heart. I told myself that if I were to go ahead abandoning him, it wouldn’t be fair. It thought it would be tantamount to abuse since he was very sick.
“Then I went back and asked the doctor to have my blood tested for HIV. I was also found positive”, she explains.
After the lessons for ART, the husband was put on treatment and in no time his health was resuscitated! He was back on his feet again!
However, as her husband got better, Winness now started feeling the pinch. She was diagnosed with TB which had infected her backbone. She was also hospitalized for two weeks.
“After I left the hospital, I continued taking the drugs. Now my health is back to normal.
“I was told at the hospital that being HIV positive did not mean the end of my life. It was told that whenever I have any problem, I should rush to the hospital. This made me feel strong and to start planning for my future.
“Now I am able to work in our garden and do any other household work. If I get sick, then it’s just like any other person…malaria and the like. I receive medication and get healed.
“I would not have continued to have children if I had known my status, but all the same that’s what happened. Two of children are HIV positive”, Winness laments.
Burying the hatchet
Winness still lives with her husband because she forgave him.
“Our love has now grown even stronger after fourteen years in marriage. Probably he has nowhere to go now that he is HIV positive!” she says jokingly.
Winness feels men in Malawi wield more power than women hence her suffering. “The situation is now changing. The coming of women groups has helped to changed things. Women are now able to speak out against abuse but previously we were ignorant of our rights.
“In the past whatever they say was taken as gospel truth provided it is a man speaking, but now that’s no longer the case”, she says, “We want this continue. We should have more women in decision making positions to speak out for the rights of their colleagues sufferings in rural areas.”
A Call for Action
To make sure that she lives a healthy life, Winness joined the National Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS and the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS.
She urges women who have gone through similar ordeals not to despair but be strong and look forward to the future. “If you decide to walk away from the family, you’ll end up making your children orphans which is not good.
“Let’s speak to our husbands and try to guide them where they go wrong. Men should also take it upon themselves to end violence against women. They should speak to us in a lovely manner if we are doing something wrong other than resorting to having extra marital affairs. That cannot solve the problem.
“As women living with HIV, we want government to defend our rights. On our part she should also strive to have a united voice in ending violence against women and girls.
“I’m happy that my story has been told….it used to trouble me a lot, but now that I have spoken out I feel relieved because I know people will draw lessons from story.
______________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
“We were then staying in Karonga”, she recalls how trouble started to creep into her life.
“My husband was sleeping around with prostitutes. He abandoned me and never paid rent for the house we were living in.
“I had to be taken care of by my relatives who came to see me in Karonga”.
Concerned over her deteriorating condition, the well wishers took her to Wenya, Village Headman Mtemamkondo in Chitipa.
“He followed me and pleaded that we reconcile. I accepted because we had two children born in our family and I was concerned about their plight”, she said.
When Winness went back to Karonga, she gave birth to a third child.
“After the birth our third child, he started behaving wildly again.
“But after some time he fell ill. His legs started swelling”, she says.
The rejected stone
“Despite that he abused me¸ I tirelessly looked after him. I took him to the toilet, bath him…and took him to hospital.
“All his relatives refused to take him to hospital. They said ‘he deserved the suffering’. They said that’s what he wanted.
“For six years, we did not know what was causing his leg problems. Then I started asking him to go to hospital to have an HIV test, but he strongly refused.”
“He could not walk. It was as if he was suffering from polio. Later he started coughing. He coughed throughout in the afternoon and during the night.
“I tried to reason with him that the radio says when a cough persists for three weeks people must take a sputum test in case they have tuberculosis, but still he could not listen to me.”
The cough, however, was so serious that probably he had no choice with sores in his throat and mouth. He accepted to go hospital where he was admitted.
She said: “I had to take him on a bicycle. At the hospital he was, however, just treated for the sores and we were discharged after some weeks.
“But a few days after we arrived home, somebody from the hospital came to ask us to return to the hospital because my husband had been diagnosed with TB.”
This time he was in the hospital for fourteen days.
“I think it was while he was under TB treatment, that he tested for HIV but he never told me.
“He refused whenever I told him that we should go together for an HIV test. Probably he already knew his status but he did not want to tell me,” she says.
Because he had TB his immune system was compromised. His condition could not improve.
“I continued to insist that we go for an HIV test until one day when he accepted. I was happy because this was what I had longed for many years”.
“When we arrived at the hospital I was surprised to see him producing documents indicating that he had already taken an HIV test and that he had been certified to start lessons for antiretroviral treatment.
“So, you already took an HIV, I asked him and he replied ‘yes’.
“I felt very bad because he violated my right to know his status as his sexual partner. To me this was gender based violence since all along I had been asking him that we go for HIV testing but he refused only to go behind my back and, worst still, decide not to disclose to me his status.
“I was confused and banged out of the testing room.
“I stood outside for a while but something touched my heart. I told myself that if I were to go ahead abandoning him, it wouldn’t be fair. It thought it would be tantamount to abuse since he was very sick.
“Then I went back and asked the doctor to have my blood tested for HIV. I was also found positive”, she explains.
After the lessons for ART, the husband was put on treatment and in no time his health was resuscitated! He was back on his feet again!
However, as her husband got better, Winness now started feeling the pinch. She was diagnosed with TB which had infected her backbone. She was also hospitalized for two weeks.
“After I left the hospital, I continued taking the drugs. Now my health is back to normal.
“I was told at the hospital that being HIV positive did not mean the end of my life. It was told that whenever I have any problem, I should rush to the hospital. This made me feel strong and to start planning for my future.
“Now I am able to work in our garden and do any other household work. If I get sick, then it’s just like any other person…malaria and the like. I receive medication and get healed.
“I would not have continued to have children if I had known my status, but all the same that’s what happened. Two of children are HIV positive”, Winness laments.
Burying the hatchet
Winness still lives with her husband because she forgave him.
“Our love has now grown even stronger after fourteen years in marriage. Probably he has nowhere to go now that he is HIV positive!” she says jokingly.
Winness feels men in Malawi wield more power than women hence her suffering. “The situation is now changing. The coming of women groups has helped to changed things. Women are now able to speak out against abuse but previously we were ignorant of our rights.
“In the past whatever they say was taken as gospel truth provided it is a man speaking, but now that’s no longer the case”, she says, “We want this continue. We should have more women in decision making positions to speak out for the rights of their colleagues sufferings in rural areas.”
A Call for Action
To make sure that she lives a healthy life, Winness joined the National Association of People Living with HIV and AIDS and the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS.
She urges women who have gone through similar ordeals not to despair but be strong and look forward to the future. “If you decide to walk away from the family, you’ll end up making your children orphans which is not good.
“Let’s speak to our husbands and try to guide them where they go wrong. Men should also take it upon themselves to end violence against women. They should speak to us in a lovely manner if we are doing something wrong other than resorting to having extra marital affairs. That cannot solve the problem.
“As women living with HIV, we want government to defend our rights. On our part she should also strive to have a united voice in ending violence against women and girls.
“I’m happy that my story has been told….it used to trouble me a lot, but now that I have spoken out I feel relieved because I know people will draw lessons from story.
______________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
Snatched land, house…
When her husband died, Florence Luwe was inherited by her late husband’s brother in a traditional practice locally know as chokolo (wife inheritance). In her new family, however, nothing was rosy. She lost a house and land left to her by her deceased husband.
As we continue hearing from women who have suffered various forms of abuse due to their HIV status during this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, Mrs. Luwe tells us her story. Her ordeal is a vivid example of how culture can fuel violence against women.
Mrs. Luwe lost her husband to an HIV/AIDS related ailment in 1991. She currently stays at Champhira in Mzimba, but her late husband hailed from Kaluluma in Kasungu, in central Malawi.
“I got married in 1972 and lived a happy family life until my husband died”, she starts narrating her story.
“When my husband died, I was inherited by his elder brother as part their culture which they say is meant to keep the family together”, she says, “I had seven children with my first husband, but none with my second.”
“From the onset, I had problems staying with my late husband’s brother. We quarreled a lot over petty issues. He started spending nights out and subsequently left for his home”.
Mrs. Luwe was falling sick frequently, but says she just took it for granted and did not bother to go for an HIV test.
“I did not know what I was suffering from, but I seriously got ill in 2004… and because I used to hear on radio that when one gets sick time and again, they must take an HIV test I decided to go for one and I was found HIV positive.
“When I informed him (the new husband) about the development, he got angry and there and then ended the marriage. This is now the tenth year since we parted ways.
“He went as far as throwing away the drugs (antiretroviral drugs) I received at hospital, accusing me of infecting him with HIV.
“I was bedridden from some time. But my health picked up when I started taking medication…so in 2008 I decide to back to my first husband’s home, Kaluluma, to inquire about the land where we used to cultivate maize and other crops.
“He refused to give me that piece of land. Instead, they (relations of the former husband) gave me another land without proper explanation. I did not argue with them. I just went ahead to cultivate on the new land.
“I went again in 2009 to reclaim my farmland. This time, I was told that it had been rented out.
“Then I asked about the house I had built with my first husband. I wanted to renovate the house because it had developed cracks, but again he denied me access to the house because his workers were residing in it. He actually said it was longer mine!”
Mrs. Luwe says this year again she has been denied access to her farmyard and the house.
“Since 2004, I have not received any assistance from my late husband’s brother who inherited me on the pretext of taking care of me and my children”, she laments.
“I feel I am being victimized because I am HIV positive.
“In our culture, women have limited rights. Men can do whatever they want and you cannot question them. Land, houses and everything is owned by men.”
She, however, says she will fight on to reclaim her farmland and the house.
“I’m worried mainly because of my children; where will they cultivate their crops when they grow up if they do not get this piece of land”, she says, “If don’t get back my land back I’ll will report the matter to human rights organizations or police. I’ve been patient with them because I thought we could solve this problem as a family affair”.
To keep her life going, Mrs. Luwe works as a ward attendant at Champhira Health Centre. “I use the little money I get to support my children.”
“Four my children have since gotten married.
“Presently I am not worried about my health. I am just worried about the future of my younger children. If I retire now, where shall they go? The only piece of land I had was the one which was taken away”, she says.
“If there are other women who have suffered the kind of abuse I have gone through, I urge them not to despair.
“We can start life afresh by looking for employment or engaging in small scale-businesses.
“I also urge financial lending organizations to offer women living with HIV loans for small-scale businesses”, says Mrs. Luwe.
Just like the four women we have previously heard from, Mrs. Luwe explains that joining a support group has helped to ease her life. She is a member of the Malawi Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (MANET+) and the Coalition of Women Living HIV and AIDS.
She has also received support from Action Aid Malawi.
___________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
As we continue hearing from women who have suffered various forms of abuse due to their HIV status during this year’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence, Mrs. Luwe tells us her story. Her ordeal is a vivid example of how culture can fuel violence against women.
Mrs. Luwe lost her husband to an HIV/AIDS related ailment in 1991. She currently stays at Champhira in Mzimba, but her late husband hailed from Kaluluma in Kasungu, in central Malawi.
“I got married in 1972 and lived a happy family life until my husband died”, she starts narrating her story.
“When my husband died, I was inherited by his elder brother as part their culture which they say is meant to keep the family together”, she says, “I had seven children with my first husband, but none with my second.”
“From the onset, I had problems staying with my late husband’s brother. We quarreled a lot over petty issues. He started spending nights out and subsequently left for his home”.
Mrs. Luwe was falling sick frequently, but says she just took it for granted and did not bother to go for an HIV test.
“I did not know what I was suffering from, but I seriously got ill in 2004… and because I used to hear on radio that when one gets sick time and again, they must take an HIV test I decided to go for one and I was found HIV positive.
“When I informed him (the new husband) about the development, he got angry and there and then ended the marriage. This is now the tenth year since we parted ways.
“He went as far as throwing away the drugs (antiretroviral drugs) I received at hospital, accusing me of infecting him with HIV.
“I was bedridden from some time. But my health picked up when I started taking medication…so in 2008 I decide to back to my first husband’s home, Kaluluma, to inquire about the land where we used to cultivate maize and other crops.
“He refused to give me that piece of land. Instead, they (relations of the former husband) gave me another land without proper explanation. I did not argue with them. I just went ahead to cultivate on the new land.
“I went again in 2009 to reclaim my farmland. This time, I was told that it had been rented out.
“Then I asked about the house I had built with my first husband. I wanted to renovate the house because it had developed cracks, but again he denied me access to the house because his workers were residing in it. He actually said it was longer mine!”
Mrs. Luwe says this year again she has been denied access to her farmyard and the house.
“Since 2004, I have not received any assistance from my late husband’s brother who inherited me on the pretext of taking care of me and my children”, she laments.
“I feel I am being victimized because I am HIV positive.
“In our culture, women have limited rights. Men can do whatever they want and you cannot question them. Land, houses and everything is owned by men.”
She, however, says she will fight on to reclaim her farmland and the house.
“I’m worried mainly because of my children; where will they cultivate their crops when they grow up if they do not get this piece of land”, she says, “If don’t get back my land back I’ll will report the matter to human rights organizations or police. I’ve been patient with them because I thought we could solve this problem as a family affair”.
To keep her life going, Mrs. Luwe works as a ward attendant at Champhira Health Centre. “I use the little money I get to support my children.”
“Four my children have since gotten married.
“Presently I am not worried about my health. I am just worried about the future of my younger children. If I retire now, where shall they go? The only piece of land I had was the one which was taken away”, she says.
“If there are other women who have suffered the kind of abuse I have gone through, I urge them not to despair.
“We can start life afresh by looking for employment or engaging in small scale-businesses.
“I also urge financial lending organizations to offer women living with HIV loans for small-scale businesses”, says Mrs. Luwe.
Just like the four women we have previously heard from, Mrs. Luwe explains that joining a support group has helped to ease her life. She is a member of the Malawi Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (MANET+) and the Coalition of Women Living HIV and AIDS.
She has also received support from Action Aid Malawi.
___________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
Rejected by family members
Catherine Martin comes from Mwepetha Village, Group Village Headman Bwanaisa, in the area of Traditional Authority Nkhumba in Phalombe.
She the fourth in the series of women telling us stories of abuse and militarism they have suffered upon declaring their HIV status as nations world over observe the 2010 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence.
Born on October 5, 1962, she got married in 1977. She has six children, but also takes care of one orphan.
“My husband died on 10 February 1999”, she starts her story. “I was prompted to go for testing because I was frequently getting sick. I used to suffer from malaria, knee swellings…And a friend of my late husband used to scoff at me saying I had contracted HIV from my husband.”
However, it was not easy for her to test for HIV. “Previously we had problems here in Phalombe. One needed to pay in order to get tested for HIV”, she recalls.
“I had to contact Likurezi Support Group and they sent their volunteers who took me to hospital and paid for me. Results of my test showed I was HIV positive and I was counseled right away on how to live my life healthily.”
So what went wrong?
“I started facing problems right from within my family. It all started when I declared that I was HIV positive during one public campaign in our area. I was shown on television declaring my status and calling on people to go HIV testing.
“This did not please my brother. Apparently he felt embarrassed by my confession and hired some people who were showering insults at me every day in the village. The people used to shout at me that I was going to die any day and that my children will be made orphans.
“My son was angered by this tendency and he beat up my brother. He (the brother) reported the matter to the area chairman, but the story did not go in his favour. The area chairman told him in the face that these were longer the days to scold people living with HIV.
“He told that if the matter was to be reported to police he would be locked up because he had violated my rights. He advised him to apologize to me, which he promptly did. He also promised before our village headman that he would not repeat what he did”.
She says discrimination and stigma against people living HIV still continues in Phalombe despite numerous campaigns nongovernmental organizations and AIDS support groups are under taking.
“We go about conducting public meetings in areas of various traditional authorities telling people to stop discrimination against people living with HIV, but still there are some people who are stubborn who do not want to change their attitudes”, explains Mrs. Martin.
Apart from what she went through she says her group has also documented stories of many other women suffering various forms of militarism upon declaring their HIV status. “Some men refuse to use condoms when having sex”, she says, “This is gender violence”.
Limited economic rights
Another common form of abuse women are facing, according to Mrs. Martin, is the tendency where men take supreme control of farm proceeds.
“We see a lot of women and men working together in the garden during cultivation, but when it’s time of harvest and selling, women are victimized, they have no say on how the earnings should be utilized”.
Mrs. Martin also claims not all vulnerable women, ‘especially members of the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS’ in Phalombe benefit from the government funded farm in subsidy programme.
“Even when we write funding proposals to NGOs, we are rejected. Perhaps they think we cannot do development work because we are HIV positive”, she laments.
Health care challenges
According to Mrs. Martin, women living HIV in the area of Traditional Authority Nkhumba are facing many challenges in terms of access to health care.
“In the past years, we had a very few doctors and a very few HIV testing centres. Now the situation is improving, but still there are many problems. Many women are dying here because we have a single CD4 count testing machine. When it breaks down, it takes a long time before it is fixed”, she says.
Worst still, the nearest hospital, Holy Family, is a private facility.
“Sometimes when you go there you can be charged MK 300(2 USD) whereas you only have MK 100 (0.66 USD). And then when you decided to go the district hospital, you find that the prescription you have been given at Holy Family, is not available the public clinic. You have no choice but to leave without getting any medication”, explains Mrs. Kanthiti.
Making ends meet through peace works
“Four of my children are in secondary school. I have problems in finding money for their school fees. I do piece works, such as cultivating in other people’s gardens, to find money”, says Mrs. Martin.
“Sometimes, I am unable work because of illness and I tell some of my children to assist me, but what it means is that they miss lessons at school”.
She has been receiving support, of course, from Likurezi AIDS Support Organization since 2000 and, of late, the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (COWLHA).
She has been receiving beddings and medication from Likurezi, while COWLHA provided them with life skills training. Mrs. Martin says her decision to join a support group has helped to change her life in the sense that she is now more confident of her life.
“We encourage one another to fight on with life. Sometimes, I can leave my home with some qualms, but all these are gone when I meet my friends. We also go around campaigning against discrimination against people living with HIV”, she says.
A Call for Action
At Lukurezi, Mrs. Martin says, people with various problems pertaining to HIV and AIDS and gender based violence are counseled, her being one of the counselors.
“We target even those who are HIV negative”, she explains, “Some people think they are HIV negative because they’ve not gone for HIV testing, so we tell them the importance of under taking an HIV test and the benefits which we are seeing after knowing our status.
“If you go for testing, you are able to plan your future, but if you haven’t you do not know your status and you think everything is alright. We also target men. Men have a significant role to play in fighting HIV and promoting gender equality.
“For example, we teach men in this area to appreciate their wives when they demand use of a condom or a break from sex. Women and men are the same. They all get tired.
“Here we have a tendency of men who insists on sex even when their wives tell them they are not feeling well. If you say you have a headache, they would say, ‘it is only the head that is not feeling well and not the other side!’ So, these are some of the acts of male chauvinism we want to eradicate in this area,” explains Mrs. Martin.
To empower women, she says they must be given the opportunity to take part in various economic activities from which they can a living.
“NGO should approve proposals which we write to them so that we can fight the financial challenges which are facing”, she pleads, adding that: “I urge my fellow women to stop relying on men. Being HIV positive does not mean the end of life. We must engage into farming business and join support groups so that we can be self reliant and live a happy life.
____________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
She the fourth in the series of women telling us stories of abuse and militarism they have suffered upon declaring their HIV status as nations world over observe the 2010 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence.
Born on October 5, 1962, she got married in 1977. She has six children, but also takes care of one orphan.
“My husband died on 10 February 1999”, she starts her story. “I was prompted to go for testing because I was frequently getting sick. I used to suffer from malaria, knee swellings…And a friend of my late husband used to scoff at me saying I had contracted HIV from my husband.”
However, it was not easy for her to test for HIV. “Previously we had problems here in Phalombe. One needed to pay in order to get tested for HIV”, she recalls.
“I had to contact Likurezi Support Group and they sent their volunteers who took me to hospital and paid for me. Results of my test showed I was HIV positive and I was counseled right away on how to live my life healthily.”
So what went wrong?
“I started facing problems right from within my family. It all started when I declared that I was HIV positive during one public campaign in our area. I was shown on television declaring my status and calling on people to go HIV testing.
“This did not please my brother. Apparently he felt embarrassed by my confession and hired some people who were showering insults at me every day in the village. The people used to shout at me that I was going to die any day and that my children will be made orphans.
“My son was angered by this tendency and he beat up my brother. He (the brother) reported the matter to the area chairman, but the story did not go in his favour. The area chairman told him in the face that these were longer the days to scold people living with HIV.
“He told that if the matter was to be reported to police he would be locked up because he had violated my rights. He advised him to apologize to me, which he promptly did. He also promised before our village headman that he would not repeat what he did”.
She says discrimination and stigma against people living HIV still continues in Phalombe despite numerous campaigns nongovernmental organizations and AIDS support groups are under taking.
“We go about conducting public meetings in areas of various traditional authorities telling people to stop discrimination against people living with HIV, but still there are some people who are stubborn who do not want to change their attitudes”, explains Mrs. Martin.
Apart from what she went through she says her group has also documented stories of many other women suffering various forms of militarism upon declaring their HIV status. “Some men refuse to use condoms when having sex”, she says, “This is gender violence”.
Limited economic rights
Another common form of abuse women are facing, according to Mrs. Martin, is the tendency where men take supreme control of farm proceeds.
“We see a lot of women and men working together in the garden during cultivation, but when it’s time of harvest and selling, women are victimized, they have no say on how the earnings should be utilized”.
Mrs. Martin also claims not all vulnerable women, ‘especially members of the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS’ in Phalombe benefit from the government funded farm in subsidy programme.
“Even when we write funding proposals to NGOs, we are rejected. Perhaps they think we cannot do development work because we are HIV positive”, she laments.
Health care challenges
According to Mrs. Martin, women living HIV in the area of Traditional Authority Nkhumba are facing many challenges in terms of access to health care.
“In the past years, we had a very few doctors and a very few HIV testing centres. Now the situation is improving, but still there are many problems. Many women are dying here because we have a single CD4 count testing machine. When it breaks down, it takes a long time before it is fixed”, she says.
Worst still, the nearest hospital, Holy Family, is a private facility.
“Sometimes when you go there you can be charged MK 300(2 USD) whereas you only have MK 100 (0.66 USD). And then when you decided to go the district hospital, you find that the prescription you have been given at Holy Family, is not available the public clinic. You have no choice but to leave without getting any medication”, explains Mrs. Kanthiti.
Making ends meet through peace works
“Four of my children are in secondary school. I have problems in finding money for their school fees. I do piece works, such as cultivating in other people’s gardens, to find money”, says Mrs. Martin.
“Sometimes, I am unable work because of illness and I tell some of my children to assist me, but what it means is that they miss lessons at school”.
She has been receiving support, of course, from Likurezi AIDS Support Organization since 2000 and, of late, the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (COWLHA).
She has been receiving beddings and medication from Likurezi, while COWLHA provided them with life skills training. Mrs. Martin says her decision to join a support group has helped to change her life in the sense that she is now more confident of her life.
“We encourage one another to fight on with life. Sometimes, I can leave my home with some qualms, but all these are gone when I meet my friends. We also go around campaigning against discrimination against people living with HIV”, she says.
A Call for Action
At Lukurezi, Mrs. Martin says, people with various problems pertaining to HIV and AIDS and gender based violence are counseled, her being one of the counselors.
“We target even those who are HIV negative”, she explains, “Some people think they are HIV negative because they’ve not gone for HIV testing, so we tell them the importance of under taking an HIV test and the benefits which we are seeing after knowing our status.
“If you go for testing, you are able to plan your future, but if you haven’t you do not know your status and you think everything is alright. We also target men. Men have a significant role to play in fighting HIV and promoting gender equality.
“For example, we teach men in this area to appreciate their wives when they demand use of a condom or a break from sex. Women and men are the same. They all get tired.
“Here we have a tendency of men who insists on sex even when their wives tell them they are not feeling well. If you say you have a headache, they would say, ‘it is only the head that is not feeling well and not the other side!’ So, these are some of the acts of male chauvinism we want to eradicate in this area,” explains Mrs. Martin.
To empower women, she says they must be given the opportunity to take part in various economic activities from which they can a living.
“NGO should approve proposals which we write to them so that we can fight the financial challenges which are facing”, she pleads, adding that: “I urge my fellow women to stop relying on men. Being HIV positive does not mean the end of life. We must engage into farming business and join support groups so that we can be self reliant and live a happy life.
____________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
When church leaders play double standards
For most Christians, the church is a place for seeking solace in times of difficulty, but this was not the case with Lissy Chigadu.
Dawati Village in the area Traditional Authority Chikowi in Zomba, in eastern Malawi is where she hails from.
Born in, 1964, Mrs. Chigadu, is married but has no children. She had one, a boy, but he died sometime back. What she calls her children are her sister’s son and her husband’s younger sister.
“People think they’re my children”, she says in a soft voice that indicates her kind heartedness.
Well, that’s our topic of discussion. We want to hear her story as we observe the 2010 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence.
Mrs. Chigadu is the third in a series of women telling us stories of discrimination and abuse they went through because of their HIV status and her story is just as touching!
“I was not told by anyone to go for testing. I just heard on radio one day when they were talking about the importance of testing for HIV”.
When she told her husband of her intention, he welcomed the idea.
That was in 1997 after her husband had suffered from stomach ulcers for a longtime. “We went to hospital and several traditional doctors, but his situation could not improve”, she recalls of the incident that prompted her to go HIV testing.
“One day when we were coming from Thondwe Clinic to collect medicine for my husband, we decided to visit a voluntary counseling and testing centre along the way”.
Results of their tests showed that they all positive for HIV. There and then a new life had begun for the two. Her husband was put on anti-retroviral therapy right away while she was put on what is called CPT, where a person who is HIV positive but has a stronger immune system is only given anti-biotic drugs to counter opportunistic infections.
However, in no time, her immune system deteriorated. She was bed ridden.
“As a devoted Christian, I asked our church (name withheld) to bring a player house closer to my house because I was very sick to walk.
“The pastor who was in charge at that time sympathized with me and built a player house closer to my home, where I used to pray people with people from the surrounding community”.
The situation changed, however, when a new pastor was posted to the area.
“When the new pastor came, I was open with him. I told him that I was HIV positive and that I wanted him to assist me in praying to God so that I can wipe away my worries.
“But I felt like I had given him a burden, because he asked ‘what would happen to the church if I die’.
“The next day I went to church I heard that it was being closed, because they could not entrust it in an HIV positive person who would die any time. They said when I die there will be no one to take care of it. I thought they were not serious, but eventually the church was closed!”
Now she says she travels a long distance to pray at the main church.
Earning a living through farming
To keep her life going, Mrs. Chigadu works as a farmer. She grows maize, tomato, pigeon peas, and beans. She sells part of her produce and keeps some for household consumption.
“Apart from this I also save money in our village bank”, says, “Through this I am able to have a balanced diet on a daily basis”.
A Call for Action
Mrs. Chigadu recalls one moment when a colleague refused to give her a handshake for fear of acquiring the virus that cause AIDS from her. “She just gave me the tip of her fingers. I felt so embarrassed”, says Mrs. Chigadu.
She adds that there are also people in her neighborhood who laugh at people living with HIV. “People call us names such as ‘living dead bodies’. When they see you carrying a handbag, they say you are going to get some units, meaning anti-retroviral drugs”.
Another issue that bothers Mrs. Chigadu is the tendency hospital staff that tend to look down upon people living with HIV.
“I remember one day when I develop some rush on my skin. I went to hospital but when I entered the treatment room in the dermatology department the doctor asked what I was doing there.
“I told her that I had come to receive medication, and he said, ‘what type of medication?’ I said medication for my skin disease and he replied angrily “you do not have mandate to enter this office, this is my office, are you undermining me?’
“I reported to matter to our support group, Hope for Life, and the doctor was transferred because it turned out that it was only me who had complained against him”.
Mrs. Chigadu says in rural Malawi women living with HIV have rights, though limited in some ways. She says they have the right to complain to various authorities such as police when suffer any form of abuse. There are also many support groups that assist women living with HIV.
They also get support from the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS on various challenges which we face, she says.
“For example, we went to certain village called Kaliwo, where we found that the doctor was closing the hospital much earlier and that he was telling more than one patient to enter the diagnostic room at once which was an infringement on the right to privacy.
“We also visited Namikango to find out the problems our colleagues were facing at their clinic. There we found that people living with HIV were being told to line up on a separate queue – which in a way was publicly identifying them as people living with HIV. We intervened and the hospital changed the system.”
She agrees with our previous diarist Mrs. Sara Kanthiti that male chauvinism is leading to suppression of women’s rights in Malawi. “Because men are said to be the head of the family they tend to do whatever they want regardless of the rights of women”, she says.
“We have seen women who are being HIV positive being abandoned or beaten. Men abandon their wives at will. This tendency is growing here in Zomba”, observes Mrs. Chigadu.
“However I encourage women undergoing such traumatism not to despair. Being diagnosed HIV positive does not mean death. You are even better off than those who have not gone for testing.
“We should report any kind of abuse we face, be it at the hospital or any other place, to relevant authorities. If we are complaining against a doctor and he or she does not change the bad attitude, we have the right to demonstrate as women living with HIV to deliver a petition to the district commissioner’s office”.
On domestic violence she says: “If a man beats up her wife, it is everyone’s responsibility to intervene. Let’s advice our friend accordingly and report the husband to police. Reporting the man to police does not mean that we want him arrested, no! But the police have the victim support unit which is there to settle cases of domestic violence.”
She says if the police victim support units were spread across the country, gender-based violence could be reduced.
“Men should take it upon themselves to discuss with their wives when something goes wrong in the family instead of rushing to beat them up”, she adds.
Women should also be assisted with financial support to start up small-scale businesses as a way of being economically independent, she says, because ‘some men abuse women on the premise that they cannot stand alone if they decide to seek divorce’.
Mrs. Chigadu has a piece of advice: “I urge all those who have not gone for testing to do so now, because if they have HIV and delay to start taking medication it would be difficult for them to recover when they get sick.
_________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
Dawati Village in the area Traditional Authority Chikowi in Zomba, in eastern Malawi is where she hails from.
Born in, 1964, Mrs. Chigadu, is married but has no children. She had one, a boy, but he died sometime back. What she calls her children are her sister’s son and her husband’s younger sister.
“People think they’re my children”, she says in a soft voice that indicates her kind heartedness.
Well, that’s our topic of discussion. We want to hear her story as we observe the 2010 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence.
Mrs. Chigadu is the third in a series of women telling us stories of discrimination and abuse they went through because of their HIV status and her story is just as touching!
“I was not told by anyone to go for testing. I just heard on radio one day when they were talking about the importance of testing for HIV”.
When she told her husband of her intention, he welcomed the idea.
That was in 1997 after her husband had suffered from stomach ulcers for a longtime. “We went to hospital and several traditional doctors, but his situation could not improve”, she recalls of the incident that prompted her to go HIV testing.
“One day when we were coming from Thondwe Clinic to collect medicine for my husband, we decided to visit a voluntary counseling and testing centre along the way”.
Results of their tests showed that they all positive for HIV. There and then a new life had begun for the two. Her husband was put on anti-retroviral therapy right away while she was put on what is called CPT, where a person who is HIV positive but has a stronger immune system is only given anti-biotic drugs to counter opportunistic infections.
However, in no time, her immune system deteriorated. She was bed ridden.
“As a devoted Christian, I asked our church (name withheld) to bring a player house closer to my house because I was very sick to walk.
“The pastor who was in charge at that time sympathized with me and built a player house closer to my home, where I used to pray people with people from the surrounding community”.
The situation changed, however, when a new pastor was posted to the area.
“When the new pastor came, I was open with him. I told him that I was HIV positive and that I wanted him to assist me in praying to God so that I can wipe away my worries.
“But I felt like I had given him a burden, because he asked ‘what would happen to the church if I die’.
“The next day I went to church I heard that it was being closed, because they could not entrust it in an HIV positive person who would die any time. They said when I die there will be no one to take care of it. I thought they were not serious, but eventually the church was closed!”
Now she says she travels a long distance to pray at the main church.
Earning a living through farming
To keep her life going, Mrs. Chigadu works as a farmer. She grows maize, tomato, pigeon peas, and beans. She sells part of her produce and keeps some for household consumption.
“Apart from this I also save money in our village bank”, says, “Through this I am able to have a balanced diet on a daily basis”.
A Call for Action
Mrs. Chigadu recalls one moment when a colleague refused to give her a handshake for fear of acquiring the virus that cause AIDS from her. “She just gave me the tip of her fingers. I felt so embarrassed”, says Mrs. Chigadu.
She adds that there are also people in her neighborhood who laugh at people living with HIV. “People call us names such as ‘living dead bodies’. When they see you carrying a handbag, they say you are going to get some units, meaning anti-retroviral drugs”.
Another issue that bothers Mrs. Chigadu is the tendency hospital staff that tend to look down upon people living with HIV.
“I remember one day when I develop some rush on my skin. I went to hospital but when I entered the treatment room in the dermatology department the doctor asked what I was doing there.
“I told her that I had come to receive medication, and he said, ‘what type of medication?’ I said medication for my skin disease and he replied angrily “you do not have mandate to enter this office, this is my office, are you undermining me?’
“I reported to matter to our support group, Hope for Life, and the doctor was transferred because it turned out that it was only me who had complained against him”.
Mrs. Chigadu says in rural Malawi women living with HIV have rights, though limited in some ways. She says they have the right to complain to various authorities such as police when suffer any form of abuse. There are also many support groups that assist women living with HIV.
They also get support from the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS on various challenges which we face, she says.
“For example, we went to certain village called Kaliwo, where we found that the doctor was closing the hospital much earlier and that he was telling more than one patient to enter the diagnostic room at once which was an infringement on the right to privacy.
“We also visited Namikango to find out the problems our colleagues were facing at their clinic. There we found that people living with HIV were being told to line up on a separate queue – which in a way was publicly identifying them as people living with HIV. We intervened and the hospital changed the system.”
She agrees with our previous diarist Mrs. Sara Kanthiti that male chauvinism is leading to suppression of women’s rights in Malawi. “Because men are said to be the head of the family they tend to do whatever they want regardless of the rights of women”, she says.
“We have seen women who are being HIV positive being abandoned or beaten. Men abandon their wives at will. This tendency is growing here in Zomba”, observes Mrs. Chigadu.
“However I encourage women undergoing such traumatism not to despair. Being diagnosed HIV positive does not mean death. You are even better off than those who have not gone for testing.
“We should report any kind of abuse we face, be it at the hospital or any other place, to relevant authorities. If we are complaining against a doctor and he or she does not change the bad attitude, we have the right to demonstrate as women living with HIV to deliver a petition to the district commissioner’s office”.
On domestic violence she says: “If a man beats up her wife, it is everyone’s responsibility to intervene. Let’s advice our friend accordingly and report the husband to police. Reporting the man to police does not mean that we want him arrested, no! But the police have the victim support unit which is there to settle cases of domestic violence.”
She says if the police victim support units were spread across the country, gender-based violence could be reduced.
“Men should take it upon themselves to discuss with their wives when something goes wrong in the family instead of rushing to beat them up”, she adds.
Women should also be assisted with financial support to start up small-scale businesses as a way of being economically independent, she says, because ‘some men abuse women on the premise that they cannot stand alone if they decide to seek divorce’.
Mrs. Chigadu has a piece of advice: “I urge all those who have not gone for testing to do so now, because if they have HIV and delay to start taking medication it would be difficult for them to recover when they get sick.
_________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Denied access to subsidized fertilizer for being HIV positive
As I continue bringing you stories of women who have suffered various forms of abuse and discrimination due to their HIV status, today we hear from Sara Kanthiti.
Born on March 7, 1967, Mrs. Kanthiti, is married with two children – aged 16 and 5 – all girls.
She comes from Pitala Village, Traditional Authority Mkanda in Mchinji, central Malawi. She is one of the 950 women who have openly declared their HIV status in the district and are doing voluntary counseling and advocacy to combat further spread of the pandemic.
“I tested positive in April 2004”. This is how this woman starts narrating her story. She looks so healthy that one cannot believe she is living with the virus that causes AIDS.
“The district hospital was conducting a campaign to have more people test for HIV. I just took it for granted to have my blood tested for HIV during that time and it turned out that I was HIV positive”, recalls Mrs. Kanthiti about the year that ushered a new era into her life.
“On the same day I was counseled on how to live my life, but they gave me an appointment to visit the hospital so that they could determine the level of my immune system.”
When she visited the hospital she was told that her immunity level was low and she was advised to start taking anti-retroviral drugs so that her body should be able to fight against opportunistic diseases.
Since then she has accepted her status and has gone further to become a volunteer counselor and AIDS campaigner in the district. “My health is good now; I just hear that people suffer from malaria! Not with me”, she says to prove the strength of HIV anti-retroviral drugs.
Institutional militarism or double standards?
However, when Mrs. Kanthiti left her village to stay at the district headquarters in 2009 little did she know that she would face discrimination for being HIV positive.
“What happened was that a traditional leader for our area (Robert 5) told us tell us to register for the subsidized farm input programme.”
“They said those who were to receive coupons for the cheaper farm inputs were the ‘poor of the poorest’, child-headed families and those who have openly declared that they are HIV positive and are assisting in various community work.
“The chief said, because of the work I do, as a volunteer, I was supposed to benefit from the government subsidized farm inputs.”
She registered as one of those living positively.
“But came the day for confirmation, my name was not mentioned despite that the chief had personally came to my house to tell me to register for the programme. I tried to inquire why my name was not mentioned, but I was not given a convincing answer.
“I also showed up on the day people were receiving coupons but, again, my name was not called. When I asked the chief what was wrong, he told me ‘people living with HIV are troublesome’ and that ‘if my name was not appearing on the list there was no need for me to be present there.”
She says this was the worst discrimination, she had seen since coming in the opening to declare that she is HIV positive and suspects her name was only used by someone who stole her coupon.
“I’m healthy, I’m able to cultivate. Government considered my plight and thought I should receive coupons for subsidized farm inputs, so why should somebody who is also being looked after by the same government deny me this right.”
Mrs. Kanthiti says since that time she has never had opportunity to receive coupons for purchasing subsidized farm inputs, adding that she has no hope that people living with HIV like her will be given priority in the subsidy programme just like other disadvantaged groups.
“This year I haven’t also received any coupon. I know I’ll have problems to produce enough maize this year.
“As somebody who is HIV positive, I am supposed to eat frequently. So, how can we eat frequently when we have no fertilizer”, says Mrs. Kanthiti, “At least they should have given us some seed… soya seed to enable us have a nutritious diet. But all this has not happened.”
She says she fears for her health because she has difficulties in finding food.
Ignorance of where to report abuse
When she suffered her ordeal Mrs. Kanthiti says she did not know where to seek assistance on the matter, therefore she never took it any authority that could have intervened.
“We don’t know the meaning of human rights. If there are organizations or people that can assist us, they should come here to educate us on human rights and freedoms”.
Finding the way out
Despite being denied access to subsidized fertilizer, Mrs. Kanthiti has not backtracked on farming, the major source of her food production.
Working with fellow women under the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS, (COWLHA) she is able to produce organic manure from pigs which the organization’s Mchinji arm is raising with assistance from Action AID Malawi.
She says this is one way of ensuring independence of women living with HIV.
“As members of COWLHA, we want to be independent and ‘make noise’ on own our own. People should know we exist. This year, each one of us contributed MK 50(0.33 USD) and we’ll be able to buy five bags of fertilizer”, she says.
About women’s rights, she says: “In Malawi, women have limited rights because of our culture which says the man is the head of the family. So, everyone the man becomes an important person than a woman.”
A Call for Action
Mrs. Kanthiti says she has leant a lesson that relying on handouts cannot help solve her problems.
According to her there are many organizations claiming to be assisting people living HIV which are highly publicized, yet there are not helping the actual people affected by the pandemic.
“I advise my fellow women, especially those who are HIV positive not to sorely rely on subsidized fertilizer. We should engage into animal farming because, apart from making money after selling our livestock, livestock provide us with organic manure.”
Talking about anti-retroviral drugs, she says the system in Malawi must ensure that people living with HIV are provided with adequate information on the benefits as well as long term side effects of the drugs.
“We need to know for how long we can take a particular drug and when we should change. We just hear that there are second line drugs, we need to know all these things, because when we’re not told and suffer side effects, we may turn against the hospital staff for hiding the truth from us and say that’s why ‘women on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) are abnormally adding weight’”.
Just like Mrs. Ivy Kazembe, we spoke to earlier, Mrs. Kanthiti feels economic empowerment is crucial in making Malawian women independent.
“Sometimes women cling to men that abuse them because they know they’ll have no means of making ends meet when they divorce”, she observes, “If women are economically empowered through small-scale businesses, they’ll be independent”.
___________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
Born on March 7, 1967, Mrs. Kanthiti, is married with two children – aged 16 and 5 – all girls.
She comes from Pitala Village, Traditional Authority Mkanda in Mchinji, central Malawi. She is one of the 950 women who have openly declared their HIV status in the district and are doing voluntary counseling and advocacy to combat further spread of the pandemic.
“I tested positive in April 2004”. This is how this woman starts narrating her story. She looks so healthy that one cannot believe she is living with the virus that causes AIDS.
“The district hospital was conducting a campaign to have more people test for HIV. I just took it for granted to have my blood tested for HIV during that time and it turned out that I was HIV positive”, recalls Mrs. Kanthiti about the year that ushered a new era into her life.
“On the same day I was counseled on how to live my life, but they gave me an appointment to visit the hospital so that they could determine the level of my immune system.”
When she visited the hospital she was told that her immunity level was low and she was advised to start taking anti-retroviral drugs so that her body should be able to fight against opportunistic diseases.
Since then she has accepted her status and has gone further to become a volunteer counselor and AIDS campaigner in the district. “My health is good now; I just hear that people suffer from malaria! Not with me”, she says to prove the strength of HIV anti-retroviral drugs.
Institutional militarism or double standards?
However, when Mrs. Kanthiti left her village to stay at the district headquarters in 2009 little did she know that she would face discrimination for being HIV positive.
“What happened was that a traditional leader for our area (Robert 5) told us tell us to register for the subsidized farm input programme.”
“They said those who were to receive coupons for the cheaper farm inputs were the ‘poor of the poorest’, child-headed families and those who have openly declared that they are HIV positive and are assisting in various community work.
“The chief said, because of the work I do, as a volunteer, I was supposed to benefit from the government subsidized farm inputs.”
She registered as one of those living positively.
“But came the day for confirmation, my name was not mentioned despite that the chief had personally came to my house to tell me to register for the programme. I tried to inquire why my name was not mentioned, but I was not given a convincing answer.
“I also showed up on the day people were receiving coupons but, again, my name was not called. When I asked the chief what was wrong, he told me ‘people living with HIV are troublesome’ and that ‘if my name was not appearing on the list there was no need for me to be present there.”
She says this was the worst discrimination, she had seen since coming in the opening to declare that she is HIV positive and suspects her name was only used by someone who stole her coupon.
“I’m healthy, I’m able to cultivate. Government considered my plight and thought I should receive coupons for subsidized farm inputs, so why should somebody who is also being looked after by the same government deny me this right.”
Mrs. Kanthiti says since that time she has never had opportunity to receive coupons for purchasing subsidized farm inputs, adding that she has no hope that people living with HIV like her will be given priority in the subsidy programme just like other disadvantaged groups.
“This year I haven’t also received any coupon. I know I’ll have problems to produce enough maize this year.
“As somebody who is HIV positive, I am supposed to eat frequently. So, how can we eat frequently when we have no fertilizer”, says Mrs. Kanthiti, “At least they should have given us some seed… soya seed to enable us have a nutritious diet. But all this has not happened.”
She says she fears for her health because she has difficulties in finding food.
Ignorance of where to report abuse
When she suffered her ordeal Mrs. Kanthiti says she did not know where to seek assistance on the matter, therefore she never took it any authority that could have intervened.
“We don’t know the meaning of human rights. If there are organizations or people that can assist us, they should come here to educate us on human rights and freedoms”.
Finding the way out
Despite being denied access to subsidized fertilizer, Mrs. Kanthiti has not backtracked on farming, the major source of her food production.
Working with fellow women under the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS, (COWLHA) she is able to produce organic manure from pigs which the organization’s Mchinji arm is raising with assistance from Action AID Malawi.
She says this is one way of ensuring independence of women living with HIV.
“As members of COWLHA, we want to be independent and ‘make noise’ on own our own. People should know we exist. This year, each one of us contributed MK 50(0.33 USD) and we’ll be able to buy five bags of fertilizer”, she says.
About women’s rights, she says: “In Malawi, women have limited rights because of our culture which says the man is the head of the family. So, everyone the man becomes an important person than a woman.”
A Call for Action
Mrs. Kanthiti says she has leant a lesson that relying on handouts cannot help solve her problems.
According to her there are many organizations claiming to be assisting people living HIV which are highly publicized, yet there are not helping the actual people affected by the pandemic.
“I advise my fellow women, especially those who are HIV positive not to sorely rely on subsidized fertilizer. We should engage into animal farming because, apart from making money after selling our livestock, livestock provide us with organic manure.”
Talking about anti-retroviral drugs, she says the system in Malawi must ensure that people living with HIV are provided with adequate information on the benefits as well as long term side effects of the drugs.
“We need to know for how long we can take a particular drug and when we should change. We just hear that there are second line drugs, we need to know all these things, because when we’re not told and suffer side effects, we may turn against the hospital staff for hiding the truth from us and say that’s why ‘women on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) are abnormally adding weight’”.
Just like Mrs. Ivy Kazembe, we spoke to earlier, Mrs. Kanthiti feels economic empowerment is crucial in making Malawian women independent.
“Sometimes women cling to men that abuse them because they know they’ll have no means of making ends meet when they divorce”, she observes, “If women are economically empowered through small-scale businesses, they’ll be independent”.
___________
My Survival Story on ZODIAK Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
Friday, November 26, 2010
16 Days of Activism: Abandoned because of HIV status:
From November 25 to December 10, every year countries world over observe 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.
As the world take action this year I tell stories of women and young girls who have suffered gender based violence because of their HIV status. Today, we hear from Ivy Kazembe.
Born on November 25, 1969, Mrs. Kazembe, is a window looking after five children. She comes from the area of Traditional Authority Mpama Chiradzulu District. She is currently putting up in Area 22 in the capital Lilongwe.
“My husband died on 20 March 1997 after he suffered from meningitis. After my husband died, I decided to get marry to another man in 2004”.
However, Mrs. Kazembe did not get the happiness she sought in a second marriage as her new husband abused her after realizing that she was HIV positive.
“But because of my status he said, he could not continue staying with me despite that he had made me pregnant. He just left and never come back. Currently, I have a child who is lacking support”.
She confesses that she entered into the new marriage without informing her new husband of her status.
“I know he heard from of my neighbors. You know, there some neighbors who are always speaking about your status”, says Mrs. Kazembe.
She says her new husband went away with all house belongings, including a mattress she was sleeping on when her condition had deteriorated.
“He pulled me down the mat! I felt very hurt and sorry for myself”, says Mrs. Kazembe, “I thought we should have sat down to discuss the issue.”
Mrs. Kazembe, like many other women did not report her predicament to any authority. “Even I had reported I knew, there was nothing that could have been done because no one knew where the man had gone” she narrates her story. “I heard that he died in Blantyre”.
Adding to this Mrs. Kazembe says she feels discriminated when she goes to hospital to receive medication. “We are not treated well. We are told to stay on one side and some people point at us, saying we are HIV positive”, she says.
In her neighborhood she also says some people try to avoid her and her relatives are also not helping her the way she expected.
“You see, I am widow with five children depending on me. Despite having several relatives, I find it hard to take care of the children”, she says, “It’s hard for me to find food and school fees for my children”.
Mrs. Kazembe says she has ever heard that government wants to prioritize women in the subsidized farm input programme, but he she has never benefited.
Currently Mrs. Kazembe is engaged in a charcoal selling business to make ends meet, but she says she does not get enough income from her business to meet all her needs.
She once tried to start pig farming with support from a community based organization called Meaningful Action on HIV/Action Support Network Association, (Masuna) in Lilongwe but thieves pulled her down when they stole the livestock.
The role of support groups
Mrs. Kazembe, nonetheless, points out that the situation has changed significantly compared to years between 2003 and 2005.
“We meet here (Masuna) men and women who are HIV positive and encourage each other to follow good health practices in a bid to sustain our lives.
Working under the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS, Masuna which was opened in 2005 is also involved in community civic education on HIV/AIDS, farming and orphan care.
All the 63 children under Masuna custody lost their parents due to AIDS relates ailments.
“We have 58 women and 22 men”, says Mrs. Kazembe. “We also assist widows and some other people who came with various problems.
“We strongly urge all our female members to avoid getting pregnant. If a man impregnates a woman who is HIV positive, we regard that as gender based violence”.
According to Mrs. Kazembe her decision to join a support group has helped to transform her life. “I no longer have any worries. I am now confident of my life and I can now relax”, she says.
“I urge my fellow women who have gone through similar challenges to report to relevant authorities. If you don’t they will suffer in silence”. “You can also report to the victim support unit at your nearest police station”, adds Mrs. Kazembe.
A call for Action
In order to improve the welfare of HIV positive women in Malawi, Mrs. Kazembe urges government to create jobs for them and provide them with loans to start up small scale businesses so that we can easily raise the children.
“We need to receive loans and do some business, because, staying idle can also lead us into risky behaviors instead of taking care of our lives”.
“I also would like to urge nongovernmental organizations to continue providing support to women living with HIV so that they can progress in their lives”.
My Survival Story on Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
As the world take action this year I tell stories of women and young girls who have suffered gender based violence because of their HIV status. Today, we hear from Ivy Kazembe.
Born on November 25, 1969, Mrs. Kazembe, is a window looking after five children. She comes from the area of Traditional Authority Mpama Chiradzulu District. She is currently putting up in Area 22 in the capital Lilongwe.
“My husband died on 20 March 1997 after he suffered from meningitis. After my husband died, I decided to get marry to another man in 2004”.
However, Mrs. Kazembe did not get the happiness she sought in a second marriage as her new husband abused her after realizing that she was HIV positive.
“But because of my status he said, he could not continue staying with me despite that he had made me pregnant. He just left and never come back. Currently, I have a child who is lacking support”.
She confesses that she entered into the new marriage without informing her new husband of her status.
“I know he heard from of my neighbors. You know, there some neighbors who are always speaking about your status”, says Mrs. Kazembe.
She says her new husband went away with all house belongings, including a mattress she was sleeping on when her condition had deteriorated.
“He pulled me down the mat! I felt very hurt and sorry for myself”, says Mrs. Kazembe, “I thought we should have sat down to discuss the issue.”
Mrs. Kazembe, like many other women did not report her predicament to any authority. “Even I had reported I knew, there was nothing that could have been done because no one knew where the man had gone” she narrates her story. “I heard that he died in Blantyre”.
Adding to this Mrs. Kazembe says she feels discriminated when she goes to hospital to receive medication. “We are not treated well. We are told to stay on one side and some people point at us, saying we are HIV positive”, she says.
In her neighborhood she also says some people try to avoid her and her relatives are also not helping her the way she expected.
“You see, I am widow with five children depending on me. Despite having several relatives, I find it hard to take care of the children”, she says, “It’s hard for me to find food and school fees for my children”.
Mrs. Kazembe says she has ever heard that government wants to prioritize women in the subsidized farm input programme, but he she has never benefited.
Currently Mrs. Kazembe is engaged in a charcoal selling business to make ends meet, but she says she does not get enough income from her business to meet all her needs.
She once tried to start pig farming with support from a community based organization called Meaningful Action on HIV/Action Support Network Association, (Masuna) in Lilongwe but thieves pulled her down when they stole the livestock.
The role of support groups
Mrs. Kazembe, nonetheless, points out that the situation has changed significantly compared to years between 2003 and 2005.
“We meet here (Masuna) men and women who are HIV positive and encourage each other to follow good health practices in a bid to sustain our lives.
Working under the Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS, Masuna which was opened in 2005 is also involved in community civic education on HIV/AIDS, farming and orphan care.
All the 63 children under Masuna custody lost their parents due to AIDS relates ailments.
“We have 58 women and 22 men”, says Mrs. Kazembe. “We also assist widows and some other people who came with various problems.
“We strongly urge all our female members to avoid getting pregnant. If a man impregnates a woman who is HIV positive, we regard that as gender based violence”.
According to Mrs. Kazembe her decision to join a support group has helped to transform her life. “I no longer have any worries. I am now confident of my life and I can now relax”, she says.
“I urge my fellow women who have gone through similar challenges to report to relevant authorities. If you don’t they will suffer in silence”. “You can also report to the victim support unit at your nearest police station”, adds Mrs. Kazembe.
A call for Action
In order to improve the welfare of HIV positive women in Malawi, Mrs. Kazembe urges government to create jobs for them and provide them with loans to start up small scale businesses so that we can easily raise the children.
“We need to receive loans and do some business, because, staying idle can also lead us into risky behaviors instead of taking care of our lives”.
“I also would like to urge nongovernmental organizations to continue providing support to women living with HIV so that they can progress in their lives”.
My Survival Story on Online is sponsored by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (Osisa).
Friday, November 19, 2010
Start an Action | Say NO - UNiTE
My Survival Story
A project to air radio programmes advocating for rights women and girls living with HIV and AIDS during the 2010 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women.
Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) in conjunction with the Coalition for Women Living HIV and AIDS (COWLHA) - Malawi would like to undertake a series of special radio programmes highlighting the plight of women and girls living with HIV and AIDS as way of making their concerns heard on land ownership; economic rights, domestic violence.
The aim is to raise public awareness and create a forum/dialogue with policy makers and rights advocates to discuss solutions to problems women living with HIV face in Malawi.
A project to air radio programmes advocating for rights women and girls living with HIV and AIDS during the 2010 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women.
Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) in conjunction with the Coalition for Women Living HIV and AIDS (COWLHA) - Malawi would like to undertake a series of special radio programmes highlighting the plight of women and girls living with HIV and AIDS as way of making their concerns heard on land ownership; economic rights, domestic violence.
The aim is to raise public awareness and create a forum/dialogue with policy makers and rights advocates to discuss solutions to problems women living with HIV face in Malawi.
Monday, November 15, 2010
VISIT TO KAMUZU CENTRAL HOSPITAL
Located right in the middle of what is called Old Town and City Centre of the capital Lilongwe, Kamuzu Central, is one of Malawi’s three main referral hospitals. Opened in 1977, it was named after the country’s first president Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
The hospital is located in the central region of Malawi, making it the largest referral hospital in the province which has nine districts. According to director of the hospital Dr Noor Alide, the facility serves a population of 5 million in its catchment area.
In short known as KCH, Kamuzu Central is the second largest among Malawi’s referral hospitals – after Queen Elizabeth Central based in the commercial city of Blantyre in the South, Zomba General, in the Eastern Region and Mzuzu Central in the Northern Region.
KCH has many key sections which include the Out Patient Department (OPD), Under-Five Clinic, Children Ward, Maternal Ward, Dialysis Room, Orthopedics, Surgical Ward, Laboratory, Drug and Surgical Stores and Kitchen. There is also a private ward where treatment is provided at a fee.
Recently I had a rare opportunity to tour this vast institution when I joined the country’s newly appointed minister of health, Professor David Mphande. Professor Mphande was on a tour of the hospital on August 20 to familiarize himself with its operations being only about a month-old in office.
Through this trip I discovered that KCH has four main problems: shortage of staff, limited drugs and equipment coupled with an ever increasing number of patients.
Our tour started with the Treatment Room where, we leant about the most common diseases that people seek treatment for at this facility. Here clinical officer Eugene Kaisire told us that malaria, renal failure, congested cardiac failure (CCF), high blood pressure, diabetes, and of late measles as Malawi is one of the many Southern African countries hit by an outbreak of the disease, are the common ailments.
Kaisire said he works for eight hours a day, from 7:30 AM to 4:30 pm. “The problem we face is what we have receive many patients but staff is limited. Kaisire pointed out that the problem is exacerbated by the fact that most of the people that seek medical attention are not necessarily referred district or rural hospitals as it is supposed to be case.
They come direct, jumping the chain of treatment, which requires patients to first be treated at the nearest health centre in their respective communities and be referred to a district hospital or central hospital (regional) depending on the seriousness of their ailment. Once they are here, they cannot be turned back home. “We work even over lunch on a daily basis just to cope with the increasing number of patients”, said Kaisire.
Our visit to the general treatment room was only the beginning of the many problems we were to observe during our tour of Kamuzu Central Hospital. One of the most critical sections of the treatment ward is Dialysis Ward. This is where patients with kidney failure are treated. The four dialysis machines available in this ward are in fact the only functional ones throughout the whole of Malawi. People with kidney failure from all corners of the country travel to this ward to be treated on the machines for four hours, three times a week. Apart from transplant, kidney failure has not other cure. The most appropriate alternative therefore is the use of these machines which filter accumulated waste products of metabolism from the blood of a patient whose kidneys are not functioning properly.
With only four machines this ward has the capacity to handles eight patients a day, said a nurse we found in the ward Jane Rajab.
However, it a direct conservation between the visiting minister and one of the patients who is a member of the Kidney Failure Patients Association of Malawi that revealed insights I never expected:
“I am your child, please, let me die at my own house”, said Ridson Chafulumira.
“The doctor is here. You will get better”, the minister replied apparently not known where the patient was driving at.
“I can’t, you know that kidney failure is not a one day disease, it’s a terminal disease, and this machine is only sustaining life for a few more days, actually” said Mr Chafumira.
“And you want that life to be sustained” said the minister.
“Yes, but while I am at home not here”, responded Mr Chafulumira while laying on his hospital bed.
“But if you go home how do you sustain your life”
“Where?” the patient asked.
“At home”, responded the minister.
“I cannot go home without the machines operational in Blantyre. What I am asking for is the operational of the machines in Blantyre. They have been installed already, but they are taking too long to start operating” said Mr Chafulumira, hitting at the core point of his argument.
“Thank you, we will find out more about that,” said the minister to cut the long story short. “We are praying for you, we are praying for all of you that God should touch you through the medical services you are receiving”, said professor Mphande as he left the room. Being new in the office he had little to say about such a major challenge.
“But God will work through people like you” – these were the last words the patient told the minister before I chipped in to find out more about him.
When I told him that I was George Kalungwe from Zodiak Radio, he was amused and went on to tell me that he has been shuttling between Blantyre and Lilongwe to be put on a dialysis machine for four years – a distance of about 400 kilometers kilometers.
“You might have seen my articles in the paper and heard me on your radio”, he said.
“Are you satisfied with the treatment you are receiving here” I cut him short.
“Let’s not talk about satisfaction here. I am going to be satisfied with these machines in Blantyre, rather than here because Blantyre is my home”, he responded.
From the Dialysis Ward, we continued our tour of KCH by passing through the Female Surgical Ward – 4 A. This room is over congested so much that some patients and guardians sleep on the veranda.
One of the nurses working here Gertrude Nyirenda told me the actual bed capacity of this ward is only eight, but on this day eighty patients were admitted. Nyirenda said one of the measures they are putting in place to deal with the congestion is make sure a patient does not stay long in the ward waiting for surgery. “When a patient comes with a guardian, we tell the guardian to sleep outside, because we cannot accommodate everyone here”, she said, adding that, “We make sure that the doctor sees them as early as possible, so that if surgery cannot be done soon, they can leave and come back on a particular day”.
When we left the female surgical ward we proceeded to the pediatric ward. This is where children between the ages of one month to 15 years are treated. As we visited the hospital 288 children were under the clinicians’ attention. We were told that the figure is almost the same on a daily basis. Ten nurses work in this room for eight hours during the day and 16 hours during the night, said nurse Janet Kadzamira.
In total Kamuzu Central Hospital has a one thousand beds, including those in the maternity wing which has just been extended to include an-all-inclusive pay ward in honor of the late first lady Madam Ethel Mutharika – the Ethel Mutharika Maternity Wing. This ward an internet café and a TV room among other facilities.
To ensure that the all the one thousand patients admitted to the hospital are fed the hospital has a kitchen. All kinds of foods are prepared here, but mostly it is beans, vegetables and msima(a thick porridge made out of maize flour) for patients in the public wards. Those in the pay wards order a meal of their choice.
Explaining the operations here was chief nursing officer Lucy Mkutumura. “There are some patients who are not supposed to eat food with salt or oil, we know how to make it here”, she said adding that, “For those with no restrictions we offer them meals depending on the menu of the day, sometimes we offer them meat...”
The chief nursing officer said the most significant challenge the KCH kitchen is facing is the increase in demand for its services. “The hospital is expanding, but this kitchen has remained the same since 1977 when we opened the hospital”, she noted.
The kitchen has four big electric pots and three industrial cookers. However Mrs. Mkutumura said there are plans to expand the kitchen to meet the growing demand.
The visit to the kitchen was not our last. We still had to see what happens in the laboratory, the pharmacy and surgical storeroom. The KCH laboratory is one of Malawi’s best, according to lab technician Edwin Chitandale. Some of the compartments it has include the Sample Reception, where specimen from patients are received and referred for testing; Safety Cabinet, where testing for contagious airborne diseases is done using vacuum machines and the Tag Room, where TB microscopic is done.
This lab however has only 17 technicians, thirteen short of the required thirty. Apart from shortage of staff, Chitandale said this 24-hour laboratory also faces regular short falls of reagents.
Another section of this lab is the blood bank which supplies patients in need of blood fusion with the precious commodity. Mainly these include accident victims, anemic patients and women in labour wards.
Limited blood supply is the major challenge facing the blood bank. “We are supposed to have at least a minimum of 40 units per day, but most of the times we do not have that”, said Chitandale, “It is our plea to the society that they must change their blood donating habits .When the population does not come to donate we are handicapped”.
Chitandale said the problem is usually worse during school holidays because most blood donors are the youth in the ages of 16 to 18 who are mostly form three and form four secondary students and donate blood from their schools during visits by the Malawi Blood Transfusion Service – a public trust.
With the advent of HIV and AIDS, another important section of this lab is the pediatric HIV testing room where children born from HIV positive mothers that have undergone the process of prevention of mother to child transmission is done. Most of the nine districts of the central region of Malawi rely on this laboratory for pediatric HIV testing for children below six months. With three technicians working on eight-hour shifts, up to a 130 infant samples are tested daily in this laboratory, according to Chitandale.
A major hospital like Kamuzu Central cannot be complete without a pharmacy. This is where outpatients receive drugs on a daily basis. The drugs supplied range from antibiotics to anti malarials. Seniors Pharmacist Macmillan Kondowe said up to one thousand patients receive medication from the KCH pharmacy each day.
Kondowe said, given that this is a referral hospital, the number is too large. “ Actually we should have been getting much lesser than that, but it difficult for us to differentiate who has been referred and who has not”, he said.
After leaving the pharmacy, we entered the surgical storeroom. This is where all non drug items, such as gloves, bandages, clips, and the like are stored.
To deal with theft of drugs and equipment, KCH is implementing a trial system called E-Pharmacy, a short form of Electronic Pharmacy Management System.
“What it is supposed to do is that if one goes through the registration point at the out patients department, they are supposed to be registered and on their health passport book it produces bar-coded label, which includes all your details – your name, sex, and everything”, said another senior pharmacists Albert Khuwi, adding that, “Ideally once somebody has been registered, they go to the clinician, he would also have a screen like this and then after making a diagnosis and a prescription is made out, the prescriber is supposed to enter that information into the machine again and that information on the prescription should be sent to pharmacy, the dispersing area. And then once the dispersing is done the patient is like checked out but the information is kept so that at the end of the day we should be able to check how many, say pain killers, antibiotics, we have dispersed on a particular day”.
“If there is a difference between the amount drugs registered in the machine as having been given out on a particular day and the figures manually recorded in the stores, then people managing the stores can be taken to task”, said Khuwi.
After the health minister professor Mphande finished visiting the hospital, I had the opportunity to interview the director of the hospital Dr Noor Alide. He said the hospital is trying within its limits to address some of the challenges it is facing, but there are other problems which can only be addressed by the government.
He said a system has been put in place to strengthen monitoring of drugs availability and prescribing methods. He added that the hospital has entered into contract with some companies and suppliers so that its equipment is serviced on contract basis. There are also plans to facelift the outlook of the whole three-storey building by remodeling it.
“But for human resource, we really have to depend on the ministry of health just the same as the issue of ensuring that all people that come to access help at the facility are only those that are referred from smaller hospitals” said Dr Alide.
Dr Alide indicated that KCH would also like ask the authorities to allow the hospital to hire staff such as nurses, doctors and clinicians on its own, without going through the ministry of health, saying doing so would help in quickly covering gaps that exists due to brain drain.
Dr Alide revealed that the hospital spends between 8 to 10 Malawi kwacha in hiring additional staff available on the open market to help in delivering effective services.
Asked about tendency of locals who despise hospitals in the likes of KCH to seek medical treatment outside the country, Dr Alide said: “The choice of where somebody gets services is an individual choice. As I have just told you people are bypassing health centres belonging to district health offices coming to central hospital, its their choice, and we cannot stop them from choosing”. “
But what I can say, for sure is that, if there is a hospital here in the central region with specialists and equipment capable of providing quality service then it is Kamuzu Central Hospital. May be the hotel side of the problem is deterring people from coming to access services here, but the staff and quality of service we provide in terms of medical care is of high standard”, challenged Dr Alide.
Being new in cabinet, minister of health professor David Mphande had little to say, other than ‘appreciating the challenges Kamuzu Central Hospital is facing’.
Professor Mphande said he was going to undertake a tour of many hospitals as possible and discuss with stakeholders how some of the challenges can be addressed on long term basis based on a report which he will compile after his countrywide tour of health facilities. “My visit here is an opener to the problems that most health facilities, especially big hospitals like this one, are facing in the country” said the minister.
Nonetheless he said he was impressed with the dedication of the members of staff and the cleanliness of the hospital and concurred with Dr Alide on the need to expand the facility to meet the increasing number of outpatients and those admitted.
…………………………………..END……………………………………….
The hospital is located in the central region of Malawi, making it the largest referral hospital in the province which has nine districts. According to director of the hospital Dr Noor Alide, the facility serves a population of 5 million in its catchment area.
In short known as KCH, Kamuzu Central is the second largest among Malawi’s referral hospitals – after Queen Elizabeth Central based in the commercial city of Blantyre in the South, Zomba General, in the Eastern Region and Mzuzu Central in the Northern Region.
KCH has many key sections which include the Out Patient Department (OPD), Under-Five Clinic, Children Ward, Maternal Ward, Dialysis Room, Orthopedics, Surgical Ward, Laboratory, Drug and Surgical Stores and Kitchen. There is also a private ward where treatment is provided at a fee.
Recently I had a rare opportunity to tour this vast institution when I joined the country’s newly appointed minister of health, Professor David Mphande. Professor Mphande was on a tour of the hospital on August 20 to familiarize himself with its operations being only about a month-old in office.
Through this trip I discovered that KCH has four main problems: shortage of staff, limited drugs and equipment coupled with an ever increasing number of patients.
Our tour started with the Treatment Room where, we leant about the most common diseases that people seek treatment for at this facility. Here clinical officer Eugene Kaisire told us that malaria, renal failure, congested cardiac failure (CCF), high blood pressure, diabetes, and of late measles as Malawi is one of the many Southern African countries hit by an outbreak of the disease, are the common ailments.
Kaisire said he works for eight hours a day, from 7:30 AM to 4:30 pm. “The problem we face is what we have receive many patients but staff is limited. Kaisire pointed out that the problem is exacerbated by the fact that most of the people that seek medical attention are not necessarily referred district or rural hospitals as it is supposed to be case.
They come direct, jumping the chain of treatment, which requires patients to first be treated at the nearest health centre in their respective communities and be referred to a district hospital or central hospital (regional) depending on the seriousness of their ailment. Once they are here, they cannot be turned back home. “We work even over lunch on a daily basis just to cope with the increasing number of patients”, said Kaisire.
Our visit to the general treatment room was only the beginning of the many problems we were to observe during our tour of Kamuzu Central Hospital. One of the most critical sections of the treatment ward is Dialysis Ward. This is where patients with kidney failure are treated. The four dialysis machines available in this ward are in fact the only functional ones throughout the whole of Malawi. People with kidney failure from all corners of the country travel to this ward to be treated on the machines for four hours, three times a week. Apart from transplant, kidney failure has not other cure. The most appropriate alternative therefore is the use of these machines which filter accumulated waste products of metabolism from the blood of a patient whose kidneys are not functioning properly.
With only four machines this ward has the capacity to handles eight patients a day, said a nurse we found in the ward Jane Rajab.
However, it a direct conservation between the visiting minister and one of the patients who is a member of the Kidney Failure Patients Association of Malawi that revealed insights I never expected:
“I am your child, please, let me die at my own house”, said Ridson Chafulumira.
“The doctor is here. You will get better”, the minister replied apparently not known where the patient was driving at.
“I can’t, you know that kidney failure is not a one day disease, it’s a terminal disease, and this machine is only sustaining life for a few more days, actually” said Mr Chafumira.
“And you want that life to be sustained” said the minister.
“Yes, but while I am at home not here”, responded Mr Chafulumira while laying on his hospital bed.
“But if you go home how do you sustain your life”
“Where?” the patient asked.
“At home”, responded the minister.
“I cannot go home without the machines operational in Blantyre. What I am asking for is the operational of the machines in Blantyre. They have been installed already, but they are taking too long to start operating” said Mr Chafulumira, hitting at the core point of his argument.
“Thank you, we will find out more about that,” said the minister to cut the long story short. “We are praying for you, we are praying for all of you that God should touch you through the medical services you are receiving”, said professor Mphande as he left the room. Being new in the office he had little to say about such a major challenge.
“But God will work through people like you” – these were the last words the patient told the minister before I chipped in to find out more about him.
When I told him that I was George Kalungwe from Zodiak Radio, he was amused and went on to tell me that he has been shuttling between Blantyre and Lilongwe to be put on a dialysis machine for four years – a distance of about 400 kilometers kilometers.
“You might have seen my articles in the paper and heard me on your radio”, he said.
“Are you satisfied with the treatment you are receiving here” I cut him short.
“Let’s not talk about satisfaction here. I am going to be satisfied with these machines in Blantyre, rather than here because Blantyre is my home”, he responded.
From the Dialysis Ward, we continued our tour of KCH by passing through the Female Surgical Ward – 4 A. This room is over congested so much that some patients and guardians sleep on the veranda.
One of the nurses working here Gertrude Nyirenda told me the actual bed capacity of this ward is only eight, but on this day eighty patients were admitted. Nyirenda said one of the measures they are putting in place to deal with the congestion is make sure a patient does not stay long in the ward waiting for surgery. “When a patient comes with a guardian, we tell the guardian to sleep outside, because we cannot accommodate everyone here”, she said, adding that, “We make sure that the doctor sees them as early as possible, so that if surgery cannot be done soon, they can leave and come back on a particular day”.
When we left the female surgical ward we proceeded to the pediatric ward. This is where children between the ages of one month to 15 years are treated. As we visited the hospital 288 children were under the clinicians’ attention. We were told that the figure is almost the same on a daily basis. Ten nurses work in this room for eight hours during the day and 16 hours during the night, said nurse Janet Kadzamira.
In total Kamuzu Central Hospital has a one thousand beds, including those in the maternity wing which has just been extended to include an-all-inclusive pay ward in honor of the late first lady Madam Ethel Mutharika – the Ethel Mutharika Maternity Wing. This ward an internet café and a TV room among other facilities.
To ensure that the all the one thousand patients admitted to the hospital are fed the hospital has a kitchen. All kinds of foods are prepared here, but mostly it is beans, vegetables and msima(a thick porridge made out of maize flour) for patients in the public wards. Those in the pay wards order a meal of their choice.
Explaining the operations here was chief nursing officer Lucy Mkutumura. “There are some patients who are not supposed to eat food with salt or oil, we know how to make it here”, she said adding that, “For those with no restrictions we offer them meals depending on the menu of the day, sometimes we offer them meat...”
The chief nursing officer said the most significant challenge the KCH kitchen is facing is the increase in demand for its services. “The hospital is expanding, but this kitchen has remained the same since 1977 when we opened the hospital”, she noted.
The kitchen has four big electric pots and three industrial cookers. However Mrs. Mkutumura said there are plans to expand the kitchen to meet the growing demand.
The visit to the kitchen was not our last. We still had to see what happens in the laboratory, the pharmacy and surgical storeroom. The KCH laboratory is one of Malawi’s best, according to lab technician Edwin Chitandale. Some of the compartments it has include the Sample Reception, where specimen from patients are received and referred for testing; Safety Cabinet, where testing for contagious airborne diseases is done using vacuum machines and the Tag Room, where TB microscopic is done.
This lab however has only 17 technicians, thirteen short of the required thirty. Apart from shortage of staff, Chitandale said this 24-hour laboratory also faces regular short falls of reagents.
Another section of this lab is the blood bank which supplies patients in need of blood fusion with the precious commodity. Mainly these include accident victims, anemic patients and women in labour wards.
Limited blood supply is the major challenge facing the blood bank. “We are supposed to have at least a minimum of 40 units per day, but most of the times we do not have that”, said Chitandale, “It is our plea to the society that they must change their blood donating habits .When the population does not come to donate we are handicapped”.
Chitandale said the problem is usually worse during school holidays because most blood donors are the youth in the ages of 16 to 18 who are mostly form three and form four secondary students and donate blood from their schools during visits by the Malawi Blood Transfusion Service – a public trust.
With the advent of HIV and AIDS, another important section of this lab is the pediatric HIV testing room where children born from HIV positive mothers that have undergone the process of prevention of mother to child transmission is done. Most of the nine districts of the central region of Malawi rely on this laboratory for pediatric HIV testing for children below six months. With three technicians working on eight-hour shifts, up to a 130 infant samples are tested daily in this laboratory, according to Chitandale.
A major hospital like Kamuzu Central cannot be complete without a pharmacy. This is where outpatients receive drugs on a daily basis. The drugs supplied range from antibiotics to anti malarials. Seniors Pharmacist Macmillan Kondowe said up to one thousand patients receive medication from the KCH pharmacy each day.
Kondowe said, given that this is a referral hospital, the number is too large. “ Actually we should have been getting much lesser than that, but it difficult for us to differentiate who has been referred and who has not”, he said.
After leaving the pharmacy, we entered the surgical storeroom. This is where all non drug items, such as gloves, bandages, clips, and the like are stored.
To deal with theft of drugs and equipment, KCH is implementing a trial system called E-Pharmacy, a short form of Electronic Pharmacy Management System.
“What it is supposed to do is that if one goes through the registration point at the out patients department, they are supposed to be registered and on their health passport book it produces bar-coded label, which includes all your details – your name, sex, and everything”, said another senior pharmacists Albert Khuwi, adding that, “Ideally once somebody has been registered, they go to the clinician, he would also have a screen like this and then after making a diagnosis and a prescription is made out, the prescriber is supposed to enter that information into the machine again and that information on the prescription should be sent to pharmacy, the dispersing area. And then once the dispersing is done the patient is like checked out but the information is kept so that at the end of the day we should be able to check how many, say pain killers, antibiotics, we have dispersed on a particular day”.
“If there is a difference between the amount drugs registered in the machine as having been given out on a particular day and the figures manually recorded in the stores, then people managing the stores can be taken to task”, said Khuwi.
After the health minister professor Mphande finished visiting the hospital, I had the opportunity to interview the director of the hospital Dr Noor Alide. He said the hospital is trying within its limits to address some of the challenges it is facing, but there are other problems which can only be addressed by the government.
He said a system has been put in place to strengthen monitoring of drugs availability and prescribing methods. He added that the hospital has entered into contract with some companies and suppliers so that its equipment is serviced on contract basis. There are also plans to facelift the outlook of the whole three-storey building by remodeling it.
“But for human resource, we really have to depend on the ministry of health just the same as the issue of ensuring that all people that come to access help at the facility are only those that are referred from smaller hospitals” said Dr Alide.
Dr Alide indicated that KCH would also like ask the authorities to allow the hospital to hire staff such as nurses, doctors and clinicians on its own, without going through the ministry of health, saying doing so would help in quickly covering gaps that exists due to brain drain.
Dr Alide revealed that the hospital spends between 8 to 10 Malawi kwacha in hiring additional staff available on the open market to help in delivering effective services.
Asked about tendency of locals who despise hospitals in the likes of KCH to seek medical treatment outside the country, Dr Alide said: “The choice of where somebody gets services is an individual choice. As I have just told you people are bypassing health centres belonging to district health offices coming to central hospital, its their choice, and we cannot stop them from choosing”. “
But what I can say, for sure is that, if there is a hospital here in the central region with specialists and equipment capable of providing quality service then it is Kamuzu Central Hospital. May be the hotel side of the problem is deterring people from coming to access services here, but the staff and quality of service we provide in terms of medical care is of high standard”, challenged Dr Alide.
Being new in cabinet, minister of health professor David Mphande had little to say, other than ‘appreciating the challenges Kamuzu Central Hospital is facing’.
Professor Mphande said he was going to undertake a tour of many hospitals as possible and discuss with stakeholders how some of the challenges can be addressed on long term basis based on a report which he will compile after his countrywide tour of health facilities. “My visit here is an opener to the problems that most health facilities, especially big hospitals like this one, are facing in the country” said the minister.
Nonetheless he said he was impressed with the dedication of the members of staff and the cleanliness of the hospital and concurred with Dr Alide on the need to expand the facility to meet the increasing number of outpatients and those admitted.
…………………………………..END……………………………………….
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Farm Radio – Putting Farmers First
“Why should I tell our farmers every day the same message every year? This year, grow maize like this? Next year grow maize like this; the other year, grow maize like this? What’s wrong? There must be something wrong, not with farmer, but with me – the person who is communicating. It means I haven’t found a very workable way of engaging the farmer”.
This was the was the thrust of a keynote address the Principal of Chancellor College, a constituent college of the University of Malawi gave to participants who gathered at a farm radio symposium held in the Malawi capital Lilongwe from September 13 to 14, 2010.
I agree with most of the things Professor Chris Kamlongera raised, for example, that: “Farm radio should not be regarded as a free-for-all area”. This is because since I attended a specialized farm radio production training offered by the African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI) in 2009, I have, indeed, learnt that producing effective farm radio, as professor Kamlongera, put it “is beyond knowing how to handle a microphone and getting people sit around a table”.
“Successful farm radio will come out if we put farmers first, right from the time of planning to the production of the programmes themselves to shift from a top-down approach to radio programming to a dialogue based production”, he told the gathering”.
Professor Kamlongera was right because when I was a beginner farm radio producer, I never bothered to conduct pre-interviews. This is where you discuss with the farmers off the tape what issues they feel are pertinent to the topic. Where there is time, especially, in longer duration campaigns then you cannot do without a baseline survey!
This is what we did at Zodiak Broadcasting Station when we undertook two six-month radio campaigns. First, in the 2007-2008 farming season to teach farmers best practices in the use of Vetiver grass as a means of soil and water conservation, and secondly in the 2009-2010 farming season when we taught farmers the best practices in organic manure application.
Through this type of participatory programming the results of the radio massages we sent out to farmers in three villages of Lavu, Makombe and Lovimbi in Dowa District, central Malawi were tremendous.
“George, we have seen an incredible change. Previously in this area the acreage of farm land applied with organic manure used to be 1068. But now, we can see that the figure has increased to 3205 hectares”, Agriculture Extension Planning Area Coordinator Andrew Kaipanyama, told me when I visited the area to undertake a postmortem survey on the impact of the radio programme we dubbed Mlera Nthaka, which in English literary means ‘soil conserver’.
“Agriculture is about growing produce. For most of our people it is at subsistent level. They want to survive. We’re now talking about commercialization of agriculture, that’s a different world. When our subsistent farmer breaks into the commercial sector, our approaches to their work will be different. But when we are talking about ordinary farmers producing subsistence agriculture, then we are talking about them meeting their needs”.
“And them, first and foremost being the survivors, they know the answers. Do we ever bother to find out what they know? Can we then add value to what they know as the basis of our communication with them? In that way you will see we are humble enough to recognize the skills they have…they have been having all these years and passing them on to each other”, said the professor.
True to his words, I no longer assume that farmers are ignorant and laggards and expect to produce a radio programme, they will like. I have first to hear their views and filter them with what I know and what the experts and extension workers are saying on the issue.
Broadcasters must reduce over-dependence on donor funding
I made this recommendation in my diploma thesis so I was not surprised when professor Kamlongera raised it in his key note address at the second farm radio symposium held under the theme: “farm radio programming – a catalyst for addressing emerging issues in agricultural development in Malawi”.
“At the moment most of our so called farm related radio broadcasts depend on donor funding. If there’s no donor money attached to them, then we’re not assured of their sustainability. We need to consider this seriously both at policy and implementation level”, the professor advised the delegates.
From experience I agree with him, because I am having problems to resuscitate the Mlera Nthaka programme since the AFRRI project phased out mid this year (2010). I have maintained the other programme which I started as a personal initiative, though.
But as professor Kamlongera pointed out, I have problems to frequently travel to rural areas to conduct all the stages that go along with farm radio production such as pre-interviews and listener tendency surveys. I have to do with the least I can to keep the program running every week.
And, further, to concur with professor Kamlongera, we do not have adequate personal to professionally handle farm radio in Malawi. He cited a survey carried out by Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the UN food Agency FAO that observed that our country has limited capacity in terms of farm radio. “Therefore there’s need to establish a properly constituted training and accredited to train people so that they can do a good job”, he suggested.
Making farm radio a success
Participants to the 2010 Malawi Farm Radio Symposium endorsed the suggestion by professor Kamlongera that farm radio requires specialized training which is credible for producers to effectively communicate with farmers.
Because some agricultural messages that are broadcast are misleading and inconsistent, the symposium recommended that there is need for a harmonized approach in packaging messages among different players both in public sector and civil society.
To overcome donor dependence radio owners must engage into partnership with non-governmental organizations to ensure sustainable funding towards farm radio programs.
Because not all farmers have access to radio, promotion of radio listening groups and radios that do not use batteries (solar, winding powered) for small holder farmers is the answer to increasing access to broadcasts.
Mobile phone service providers and government must be lobbied to offer training and subsidized rates for the services that can be used to enhance agriculture communication such as the short message service (SMS) and toll-free numbers to call out to farm radio producers.
There is need for media houses and agriculture organizations and institutions to jointly conduct a study to find out more about gender dimensions on access, utilization and benefits of farm radio programming in line with the information gaps observed. It was observed in most of the presentations at the symposium that a few women have access to radio compared to men.
To quote chairperson of Farm Radio Malawi Advisory Committee Dr Stanley Khaila, “It is not that the family doesn’t have a radio set, but the man probably takes it with him as he goes to the market, or simply switches it off and on depending on the programmes he would like to listen to”.
In her presentation meteorologist Elina Kululanga made an ambitious recommendation to help improve farmers’ access to accurate weather information, particularly to help them plan properly in terms of timing for planting: formation of a ‘Radio Citizen Club’ through a programme called ‘Strengthening Citizen Voice through Community Radio’. But due to capacity constraints I doubt its feasibility in the near future.
Her thinking is that such a project would develop “innovative participatory radio programmes to support citizen groups at local scale”. It will strengthen communities’ capacity to engage in public debates and influence action on climate change. In doing so, “the programme would reverse conventional flows of information and place listener feedback at the centre of radio programming”.
Communities will be organized into listening groups that will meet regularly to share their knowledge and experiences on a series of common themes that integrate climate change in day-to-day farming practices.
To sum up I quote professor Kamlongera again: “Farmers know the answers to the problems they face”. As farm radio producers our role is to assist them how best they can ago about implementing those solutions.
This was the was the thrust of a keynote address the Principal of Chancellor College, a constituent college of the University of Malawi gave to participants who gathered at a farm radio symposium held in the Malawi capital Lilongwe from September 13 to 14, 2010.
I agree with most of the things Professor Chris Kamlongera raised, for example, that: “Farm radio should not be regarded as a free-for-all area”. This is because since I attended a specialized farm radio production training offered by the African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI) in 2009, I have, indeed, learnt that producing effective farm radio, as professor Kamlongera, put it “is beyond knowing how to handle a microphone and getting people sit around a table”.
“Successful farm radio will come out if we put farmers first, right from the time of planning to the production of the programmes themselves to shift from a top-down approach to radio programming to a dialogue based production”, he told the gathering”.
Professor Kamlongera was right because when I was a beginner farm radio producer, I never bothered to conduct pre-interviews. This is where you discuss with the farmers off the tape what issues they feel are pertinent to the topic. Where there is time, especially, in longer duration campaigns then you cannot do without a baseline survey!
This is what we did at Zodiak Broadcasting Station when we undertook two six-month radio campaigns. First, in the 2007-2008 farming season to teach farmers best practices in the use of Vetiver grass as a means of soil and water conservation, and secondly in the 2009-2010 farming season when we taught farmers the best practices in organic manure application.
Through this type of participatory programming the results of the radio massages we sent out to farmers in three villages of Lavu, Makombe and Lovimbi in Dowa District, central Malawi were tremendous.
“George, we have seen an incredible change. Previously in this area the acreage of farm land applied with organic manure used to be 1068. But now, we can see that the figure has increased to 3205 hectares”, Agriculture Extension Planning Area Coordinator Andrew Kaipanyama, told me when I visited the area to undertake a postmortem survey on the impact of the radio programme we dubbed Mlera Nthaka, which in English literary means ‘soil conserver’.
“Agriculture is about growing produce. For most of our people it is at subsistent level. They want to survive. We’re now talking about commercialization of agriculture, that’s a different world. When our subsistent farmer breaks into the commercial sector, our approaches to their work will be different. But when we are talking about ordinary farmers producing subsistence agriculture, then we are talking about them meeting their needs”.
“And them, first and foremost being the survivors, they know the answers. Do we ever bother to find out what they know? Can we then add value to what they know as the basis of our communication with them? In that way you will see we are humble enough to recognize the skills they have…they have been having all these years and passing them on to each other”, said the professor.
True to his words, I no longer assume that farmers are ignorant and laggards and expect to produce a radio programme, they will like. I have first to hear their views and filter them with what I know and what the experts and extension workers are saying on the issue.
Broadcasters must reduce over-dependence on donor funding
I made this recommendation in my diploma thesis so I was not surprised when professor Kamlongera raised it in his key note address at the second farm radio symposium held under the theme: “farm radio programming – a catalyst for addressing emerging issues in agricultural development in Malawi”.
“At the moment most of our so called farm related radio broadcasts depend on donor funding. If there’s no donor money attached to them, then we’re not assured of their sustainability. We need to consider this seriously both at policy and implementation level”, the professor advised the delegates.
From experience I agree with him, because I am having problems to resuscitate the Mlera Nthaka programme since the AFRRI project phased out mid this year (2010). I have maintained the other programme which I started as a personal initiative, though.
But as professor Kamlongera pointed out, I have problems to frequently travel to rural areas to conduct all the stages that go along with farm radio production such as pre-interviews and listener tendency surveys. I have to do with the least I can to keep the program running every week.
And, further, to concur with professor Kamlongera, we do not have adequate personal to professionally handle farm radio in Malawi. He cited a survey carried out by Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the UN food Agency FAO that observed that our country has limited capacity in terms of farm radio. “Therefore there’s need to establish a properly constituted training and accredited to train people so that they can do a good job”, he suggested.
Making farm radio a success
Participants to the 2010 Malawi Farm Radio Symposium endorsed the suggestion by professor Kamlongera that farm radio requires specialized training which is credible for producers to effectively communicate with farmers.
Because some agricultural messages that are broadcast are misleading and inconsistent, the symposium recommended that there is need for a harmonized approach in packaging messages among different players both in public sector and civil society.
To overcome donor dependence radio owners must engage into partnership with non-governmental organizations to ensure sustainable funding towards farm radio programs.
Because not all farmers have access to radio, promotion of radio listening groups and radios that do not use batteries (solar, winding powered) for small holder farmers is the answer to increasing access to broadcasts.
Mobile phone service providers and government must be lobbied to offer training and subsidized rates for the services that can be used to enhance agriculture communication such as the short message service (SMS) and toll-free numbers to call out to farm radio producers.
There is need for media houses and agriculture organizations and institutions to jointly conduct a study to find out more about gender dimensions on access, utilization and benefits of farm radio programming in line with the information gaps observed. It was observed in most of the presentations at the symposium that a few women have access to radio compared to men.
To quote chairperson of Farm Radio Malawi Advisory Committee Dr Stanley Khaila, “It is not that the family doesn’t have a radio set, but the man probably takes it with him as he goes to the market, or simply switches it off and on depending on the programmes he would like to listen to”.
In her presentation meteorologist Elina Kululanga made an ambitious recommendation to help improve farmers’ access to accurate weather information, particularly to help them plan properly in terms of timing for planting: formation of a ‘Radio Citizen Club’ through a programme called ‘Strengthening Citizen Voice through Community Radio’. But due to capacity constraints I doubt its feasibility in the near future.
Her thinking is that such a project would develop “innovative participatory radio programmes to support citizen groups at local scale”. It will strengthen communities’ capacity to engage in public debates and influence action on climate change. In doing so, “the programme would reverse conventional flows of information and place listener feedback at the centre of radio programming”.
Communities will be organized into listening groups that will meet regularly to share their knowledge and experiences on a series of common themes that integrate climate change in day-to-day farming practices.
To sum up I quote professor Kamlongera again: “Farmers know the answers to the problems they face”. As farm radio producers our role is to assist them how best they can ago about implementing those solutions.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Narai Clocks Two months
Happy birthday, son Narai, as you celebrate two months(Oct 7, 2010).May the Almighty continue being with you - Papa
Sunday, September 26, 2010
AGFAX Network – September 2010
Congratulations to Leke!
Our congratulations and very best wishes go to Adeleke Adeyemi, a Better Science Reporting participant based in Lagos – he’s getting married on October 9th. We don’t know anything about the lucky lady – maybe he’ll send us a photo from the special day!?
More news from the Agfax Network
Bernice in America – but looking to make links in Nigeria
Bernice Agyekwena, a Ghanaian writer who attended a Better Science Reporting workshop in Kumasi earlier this year, is now studying for a year at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, part of the University of California.
About her course, she writes:
“Some of the issues that have been raised in class include why there is so much food insecurity in Africa. The reasons that have come up are many; from the effects of colonialism to international trade that forces African countries to concentrate on cash crops like cocoa, forcing them to put large tracts of land under cash crop cultivation to the detriment of domestic food production. Other issues like the land tenure system of some parts of Africa, ethnic conflicts, drought and floods and climate change have been mentioned. Even some conditions put in place by the International Monetary Fund which have forced African countries not to subsidise agriculture have been sited as one of the reasons why agricultural productivity is low.
Another thing the class has been looking at is how Africa is being portrayed by the media and how most people have a distorted view of Africa; that Africa is a land of disease and poverty filled with ignorant people who are always fighting. They are calling for a more balanced reportage of Africa that will give people a true picture of what actually exists. “
That point is very pertinent for AGFAX – we have a responsibility to be reporting accurately, and helping to correct the distorted picture by highlighting the positive work being done in Africa.
Request for help in Nigeria
Bernice writes:
“I am considering Nigeria's presidential initiative on cassava as one of the areas to research on. I have downloaded some information from the internet on the issue, but I am a bit apprehensive about going to Nigeria. I hear they are hostile to journalists and I do not know how much cooperation I will receive from other journalists to help me with my research.”
If you think you can assist Bernice, or give her some advice, please get in touch with her. Her email address is anice732001@yahoo.com .
And if you want to keep in touch with how she’s doing, her blog address is http://berniceagyekwena.wordpress.com
Winnie Onyimbo – busy, busy, busy!
“I am doing the online FARMRADIO course and script writing competition and it is exciting and very engaging. I also got the Cancun climate change fellowship in Mexico coming up in November/December. On another note, I re-aired programs that I had done some time back - the Agfax that featured Cancer in Africa - on a new radio station called Imani in western Kenya and there were several responses on that. People asking questions and requiring more information on cancer. There is one particular lady who called to say that she listened to the program and went to hospital to have some suspicious lumps checked and she was told that it was cancerous. She is starting treatment this week!”
That final part of Winnie’s message shows what an impact our reporting can have – and also demonstrates that the benefits or outcomes from our work may continue for much longer than we realise. Thanks Winnie for sharing it with us!
And congratulations also to Joy Ful, editor of The Farmer’s Voice in Cameroon, who has also been selected to attend the Cancun meeting.
Eric Kadenge – a convert to agricultural reporting
“I think my agricultural work with WREN has shaped my career as a development communicator and also increased my passion for agricultural reporting and more so, the desire to see rural farmers earning for their hard labour. It has also contributed to my academic development. I am working on my thesis whose topic is: The role of radio and the cell phone in enabling rural farmers to access timely and reliable market information.”
Thanks Eric – and good luck with the thesis!
Yinka Olawode – an aspiring script writer with a secret plan
Yinka has been funded by the British Council to attend a script writing course, but has plans to do more than just write dramas.
She writes: “I am interested in script writing because of my desire for creativity. I also believe strongly that in the near future I would be reporting science on screen or perhaps produce science programmes, preferably docu-dramas, so that it would appeal to a wider audience, especially very young ones. Could also be good instructional materials on latest science research for students, especially as related to agriculture, and entertaining but intellectual programmes for scientists and farmers.
Getting people excited about watching it would be easy with what I'm learning on screenplay development. The lecturers are from the University of London. They are really good, but they don't know yet that I have plans beyond the regular dramas.”
George Kalungwe – babies, blogs and biotechnology
Congratulations to George and his wife Bertha for the birth of their first born, a baby boy Narai (God is great) on August 7th.
And George has been pretty busy with work as well:
In July he attended the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) Workshop on Effective Reporting of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and its role in socio-economic development, in Nairobi. He writes, “The most critical thing I learnt at ATPS workshop was blogging. I had personal chat with a Zambian reporter who taught me how to blog as a beginner. Now I am posting my articles on: http://journalistgeorgekalungwe.blogspot.com/
https://georgekalungwe.wordpress.com/
“Among other we learnt about ways of strengthening science-based media peer networks/association to enable them play bigger roles in improving the quality and quantity of science reporting on the continent. The other thing I will advance from the training is the formation of a network of Malawi agriculture and science reporters at least by the end of this year.”
While in Nairobi George also attended the a monthly session of the Open Forum for Agricultural Biotechnology which centred on the issue of stewardship; in other words how stakeholders developing biotechnology can police themselves other than being regulated by governments. He has also been invited to Burkina Faso on a BT Cotton Study Tour organized by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) AfriCenter to be held from November 8-12, 2010.
Domfeh at the World Cup – if you don’t know him, he’s standing next to the bored/tired man in the yellow shirt!
Tips and techniques
Hooks –wait for them or make them?
Editors love them, listeners respond them, journalists work to them: hooks give our stories relevance and interest value. The hook is the reason why the story should be covered at all, why now and may even determine how you cover it.
Hooks come from the calendar e.g. World Food Day coming up on October 16th.
Hooks come from the news and current affairs. E.g. latest food price rise.
But sometimes you have to make your own hook!
Take cowpeas - an annual legume that is one of the most ancient crops known to man. A crop that is massively important to people, livestock and the rural economy in Africa, Asia and South America. So?
Later this month in Senegal there will be the 5th global conference on cowpea science with hundreds of scientists and their stories. So what?
To generate interest, the organisers of the conference had to create some hooks.
They are presenting the sights (cowpea crops and farmers’ stories), sounds (music and culture) and tastes (restaurant event of different dishes) of cowpeas as well as the latest science. AGFAX network member Busani Bafana will be there and we will be hearing what hooks grabbed him in AGFAX in the coming months.
So what does this mean for us as journalists? As well we being reactive to the hooks we are given, have an eye or an ear for what you can do proactively to create the hook for your own reporting.
Finally, don’t forget to hook our interest if you have a story for AGFAX.
Opportunity: African radio producers wanted
Radio Netherlands Worldwide is looking for radio producers in Africa who are interested in making long documentaries for them.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) has been producing background radio programmes (30 minutes in length) for Africa for the past 10 years. Rencontres et Profils in French (http://www.rnw.nl/afrique/radioprogramme/rencontres-et-profils) and Africa in Progress http://www.rnw.nl/africa/radio-program-list/22703 in English. The audio is made available on CDs and then mailed to hundreds of partner radio stations on the continent. Electronic links are also provided.
The programmes are co-ordinated by Helene Michaud in the Netherlands. And she also produces and presents a few editions a year of both programmes herself.
RNW needs more young, dynamic producers in Africa for Africa in Progress. The aim is to produce 55 programmes per year.
There are two formats: the long profile interview and the package. For packages they want speakers from at least three different ( African) countries. That is why it is often easier for producers to attend international conferences or seminars on themes that are of interest to us.
After vetting the theme and focus for the programme, RNW expects the producer to produce an entire programme, including recording the interviews, editing, scripting, presentation and mixing.
If you are interested to find out more you can contact Helene Michaud by email: Helene.Michaud@rnw.nl
More blogs – to nourish the planet
You might want to subscribe to Danielle Nierenberg’s ‘Nourishing the Planet’ blog. The blog runs a weekly newsletter, which has interesting stories about agricultural development written in a very reader-friendly format. Each newsletter includes an innovation of the week, and she also writes good profiles of lesser known crops – you could find some good ideas here for your own reporting, or for AGFAX.
Go to http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/ to sign up for the newsletter.
And Finally…
Journalists briefing scientists – what do we need to tell them?
We are used to the idea of scientists briefing journalists on their work. But if you are interviewing a scientist for AGFAX, what do you need to tell them to help them make the best of the opportunity?
We are putting together a list of top tips of how to get the best from scientists and researchers – what would you put on your list? Send us your thoughts and we’ll compile a comprehensive guide!
We hope you enjoy reading this latest collection of news and updates – please let us know what you think, and if you have useful tips or resources for our next edition, send them and we’ll share them!
All the best,
Susie and Mike
_____________________________________
AGFAX is radio resource pack produced by WRENmedia
Our congratulations and very best wishes go to Adeleke Adeyemi, a Better Science Reporting participant based in Lagos – he’s getting married on October 9th. We don’t know anything about the lucky lady – maybe he’ll send us a photo from the special day!?
More news from the Agfax Network
Bernice in America – but looking to make links in Nigeria
Bernice Agyekwena, a Ghanaian writer who attended a Better Science Reporting workshop in Kumasi earlier this year, is now studying for a year at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, part of the University of California.
About her course, she writes:
“Some of the issues that have been raised in class include why there is so much food insecurity in Africa. The reasons that have come up are many; from the effects of colonialism to international trade that forces African countries to concentrate on cash crops like cocoa, forcing them to put large tracts of land under cash crop cultivation to the detriment of domestic food production. Other issues like the land tenure system of some parts of Africa, ethnic conflicts, drought and floods and climate change have been mentioned. Even some conditions put in place by the International Monetary Fund which have forced African countries not to subsidise agriculture have been sited as one of the reasons why agricultural productivity is low.
Another thing the class has been looking at is how Africa is being portrayed by the media and how most people have a distorted view of Africa; that Africa is a land of disease and poverty filled with ignorant people who are always fighting. They are calling for a more balanced reportage of Africa that will give people a true picture of what actually exists. “
That point is very pertinent for AGFAX – we have a responsibility to be reporting accurately, and helping to correct the distorted picture by highlighting the positive work being done in Africa.
Request for help in Nigeria
Bernice writes:
“I am considering Nigeria's presidential initiative on cassava as one of the areas to research on. I have downloaded some information from the internet on the issue, but I am a bit apprehensive about going to Nigeria. I hear they are hostile to journalists and I do not know how much cooperation I will receive from other journalists to help me with my research.”
If you think you can assist Bernice, or give her some advice, please get in touch with her. Her email address is anice732001@yahoo.com .
And if you want to keep in touch with how she’s doing, her blog address is http://berniceagyekwena.wordpress.com
Winnie Onyimbo – busy, busy, busy!
“I am doing the online FARMRADIO course and script writing competition and it is exciting and very engaging. I also got the Cancun climate change fellowship in Mexico coming up in November/December. On another note, I re-aired programs that I had done some time back - the Agfax that featured Cancer in Africa - on a new radio station called Imani in western Kenya and there were several responses on that. People asking questions and requiring more information on cancer. There is one particular lady who called to say that she listened to the program and went to hospital to have some suspicious lumps checked and she was told that it was cancerous. She is starting treatment this week!”
That final part of Winnie’s message shows what an impact our reporting can have – and also demonstrates that the benefits or outcomes from our work may continue for much longer than we realise. Thanks Winnie for sharing it with us!
And congratulations also to Joy Ful, editor of The Farmer’s Voice in Cameroon, who has also been selected to attend the Cancun meeting.
Eric Kadenge – a convert to agricultural reporting
“I think my agricultural work with WREN has shaped my career as a development communicator and also increased my passion for agricultural reporting and more so, the desire to see rural farmers earning for their hard labour. It has also contributed to my academic development. I am working on my thesis whose topic is: The role of radio and the cell phone in enabling rural farmers to access timely and reliable market information.”
Thanks Eric – and good luck with the thesis!
Yinka Olawode – an aspiring script writer with a secret plan
Yinka has been funded by the British Council to attend a script writing course, but has plans to do more than just write dramas.
She writes: “I am interested in script writing because of my desire for creativity. I also believe strongly that in the near future I would be reporting science on screen or perhaps produce science programmes, preferably docu-dramas, so that it would appeal to a wider audience, especially very young ones. Could also be good instructional materials on latest science research for students, especially as related to agriculture, and entertaining but intellectual programmes for scientists and farmers.
Getting people excited about watching it would be easy with what I'm learning on screenplay development. The lecturers are from the University of London. They are really good, but they don't know yet that I have plans beyond the regular dramas.”
George Kalungwe – babies, blogs and biotechnology
Congratulations to George and his wife Bertha for the birth of their first born, a baby boy Narai (God is great) on August 7th.
And George has been pretty busy with work as well:
In July he attended the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS) Workshop on Effective Reporting of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) and its role in socio-economic development, in Nairobi. He writes, “The most critical thing I learnt at ATPS workshop was blogging. I had personal chat with a Zambian reporter who taught me how to blog as a beginner. Now I am posting my articles on: http://journalistgeorgekalungwe.blogspot.com/
https://georgekalungwe.wordpress.com/
“Among other we learnt about ways of strengthening science-based media peer networks/association to enable them play bigger roles in improving the quality and quantity of science reporting on the continent. The other thing I will advance from the training is the formation of a network of Malawi agriculture and science reporters at least by the end of this year.”
While in Nairobi George also attended the a monthly session of the Open Forum for Agricultural Biotechnology which centred on the issue of stewardship; in other words how stakeholders developing biotechnology can police themselves other than being regulated by governments. He has also been invited to Burkina Faso on a BT Cotton Study Tour organized by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) AfriCenter to be held from November 8-12, 2010.
Domfeh at the World Cup – if you don’t know him, he’s standing next to the bored/tired man in the yellow shirt!
Tips and techniques
Hooks –wait for them or make them?
Editors love them, listeners respond them, journalists work to them: hooks give our stories relevance and interest value. The hook is the reason why the story should be covered at all, why now and may even determine how you cover it.
Hooks come from the calendar e.g. World Food Day coming up on October 16th.
Hooks come from the news and current affairs. E.g. latest food price rise.
But sometimes you have to make your own hook!
Take cowpeas - an annual legume that is one of the most ancient crops known to man. A crop that is massively important to people, livestock and the rural economy in Africa, Asia and South America. So?
Later this month in Senegal there will be the 5th global conference on cowpea science with hundreds of scientists and their stories. So what?
To generate interest, the organisers of the conference had to create some hooks.
They are presenting the sights (cowpea crops and farmers’ stories), sounds (music and culture) and tastes (restaurant event of different dishes) of cowpeas as well as the latest science. AGFAX network member Busani Bafana will be there and we will be hearing what hooks grabbed him in AGFAX in the coming months.
So what does this mean for us as journalists? As well we being reactive to the hooks we are given, have an eye or an ear for what you can do proactively to create the hook for your own reporting.
Finally, don’t forget to hook our interest if you have a story for AGFAX.
Opportunity: African radio producers wanted
Radio Netherlands Worldwide is looking for radio producers in Africa who are interested in making long documentaries for them.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) has been producing background radio programmes (30 minutes in length) for Africa for the past 10 years. Rencontres et Profils in French (http://www.rnw.nl/afrique/radioprogramme/rencontres-et-profils) and Africa in Progress http://www.rnw.nl/africa/radio-program-list/22703 in English. The audio is made available on CDs and then mailed to hundreds of partner radio stations on the continent. Electronic links are also provided.
The programmes are co-ordinated by Helene Michaud in the Netherlands. And she also produces and presents a few editions a year of both programmes herself.
RNW needs more young, dynamic producers in Africa for Africa in Progress. The aim is to produce 55 programmes per year.
There are two formats: the long profile interview and the package. For packages they want speakers from at least three different ( African) countries. That is why it is often easier for producers to attend international conferences or seminars on themes that are of interest to us.
After vetting the theme and focus for the programme, RNW expects the producer to produce an entire programme, including recording the interviews, editing, scripting, presentation and mixing.
If you are interested to find out more you can contact Helene Michaud by email: Helene.Michaud@rnw.nl
More blogs – to nourish the planet
You might want to subscribe to Danielle Nierenberg’s ‘Nourishing the Planet’ blog. The blog runs a weekly newsletter, which has interesting stories about agricultural development written in a very reader-friendly format. Each newsletter includes an innovation of the week, and she also writes good profiles of lesser known crops – you could find some good ideas here for your own reporting, or for AGFAX.
Go to http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/ to sign up for the newsletter.
And Finally…
Journalists briefing scientists – what do we need to tell them?
We are used to the idea of scientists briefing journalists on their work. But if you are interviewing a scientist for AGFAX, what do you need to tell them to help them make the best of the opportunity?
We are putting together a list of top tips of how to get the best from scientists and researchers – what would you put on your list? Send us your thoughts and we’ll compile a comprehensive guide!
We hope you enjoy reading this latest collection of news and updates – please let us know what you think, and if you have useful tips or resources for our next edition, send them and we’ll share them!
All the best,
Susie and Mike
_____________________________________
AGFAX is radio resource pack produced by WRENmedia
Sunday, September 12, 2010
George Kalungwe Diploma Thesis
MALAWI INSTITUTE OF JOURNALISM
DIPLOMA IN JOURNALISM
RESEARCH PAPER SUBMITTED IN FUFILMENT OF THE AWARD OF DIPLOMA IN JOURNALISM
PROJECT TITLE:
Effectiveness of participatory radio campaigns in assisting farmers adopt effective agriculture technologies – a case study of Mlera Nthaka radio programme on ZBS
By
GEORGE KALUNGWE
(DJ/13/09/LL)
SUPERVISED BY: Miss P. Kakhobwe
DATE: June 15, 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..4
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………....4
Chapter 1…………………………………………………………………………………5
Introduction…………………………………………………………………......................5
Contextualization…………………………………………………………..……………...7
Objectives of the research project…………………………..……………………………..8
Chapter 2…………………………………………..……………………………………..9
Rationale ………………………………………………………………………………….9
Hypothesis……………………………………………………………………..................10
Research Questions………………………………………………………………………10
Chapter 3……………………………………………………………………………..…11
Literature review……………………………………………………………....................11
Radio as tool for communication………………………………………………………..……...11
Background to farm radio production in Malawi………..………………………...…………13
Current trends………………………………………………………………………………..……15
Theoretical framework…………………………………………………………………...15
Theory application……………………………………………………………………….……….16
Chapter 4……………………………………………………………………………......17
Research design………………………………………………………………………….17
Data collection methods………………………………………………………………….18
Study sample and size………......……………………………………………………......18
Sampling methods…………………………………………………………………..........19
Chapter 5………………………………………………………………………………..20
Data analysis and measurement………………………………………………………….20
Chapter 6……………………………………………………………………………..…33
Data interpretation ……………………………………………………………………....33
Chapter 7……………………………..………………………………………………....36
Conclusion and recommendations …………………………………………………........36
References ………………………………………………………………….....................39
Appendix.…………………………………………………………………………..........40
List of Acronyms...…………………………………………………………………........40
Names of Focus Group Discussion Participants…………………………………………41
Focus Group Discussion Guide………………………………………………………….42
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank the management of the African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI) Malawi Chapter, in particular the National Coordinator, Mr. Rex Chapota and Research Assistant Clare Likangwa for the guidance and information provided to me during this research.
I also thank my supervisor, Miss. Penelope Kakhobwe for her guidance. Her assistance enabled me to follow the right course towards the accomplishment of this thesis which was rather technical and complicated for a beginner like me.
I also acknowledge the role played by Mr Andrew Kaipanyama, Agriculture Extension Development Coordinator for Mvera Extension Planning Area in Dowa for assisting me in mobilizing communities for focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. My appreciations also goes to the General Manager for Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS), Mr Matthias Manyeka for authorizing funds that enabled me to travel to Mvera for purposes of this project.
Above all, I thank God that He provided me with good health and enabled me to go through my Diploma Course at the Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ) successfully. All would have been worthless and impossible without Him.
DEDICATION
This research is dedicated to my, wife Bertha, and the management of Zodiak Broadcasting Station for the psychological and financial support rendered to me during the period of my study at the Malawi Institute of Journalism.
Chapter 1
1.1 Introduction
Farmers in rural parts of Malawi heavily rely on agriculture for food production and income generation. However, due to lack of knowledge on best farming practices coupled with high costs of farm inputs and soil infertility as a result of over usage of land, not many harvest enough from the land they cultivate. This leads to recurrent hunger and poverty (2007 AFRRI baseline survey results).
Government employs extension workers to teach farmers best farming practices, but these are not enough to carter for all farmers across the country. In view of this radio is increasingly becoming a tool for complementing the work of agriculture extension workers. This is so because, radio as a means of communication has the ability to communicate instantly and influence people’s minds in decision making. Radio has been cited over and over as the ideal medium for communication, especially in developing nations, because it transcends literacy and geographic barriers, and its relative low cost in comparison to other technologies makes it most accessible to people .
To complement the role of extension workers many radio stations in the country run programmes on agriculture. Most of these run as regular slots. In some cases, they are produced as promotions for activities of non-governmental organizations and farm input companies. In addition, government through the Ministry of Agriculture funds, some agriculture programmes both on public and private radio stations. Usually, in all these cases, there is no emphasis on a particular agriculture technology that farmers ought to adopt to improve their production . Producers come up with topics based on the material readily available – so that would be either after having attended a launch of a manure scheme in a remote village, a launch of a farmers club or when an expert addressees a press conference about the emergence of a strange disease or pest or development of new seed verities ! Farmers are not consulted in the production process.
As a new approach, the African Radio Research Initiative (AFFRI) introduced a project to enhance campaign-based participatory farm radio production in 2007 – the first of its kind in Malawi. The project aimed at finding out how farmers can make use of radio in getting information about farming techniques to supplement the role of agriculture extension officers in ensuring food security in rural parts of five African countries. Funded by Farm Radio International of Canada, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the project also offered capacity-building and training for radio broadcasters to help them improve their programming for rural listeners in the five countries – namely Mali, Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania. The researcher was part of the trainees.
In Malawi, the initiative roped in five radio stations including public, commercial and community – split across the country. Each radio station had its own thematic massages based on the needs of farmers in its chosen impact area – i.e. what farmers considered the most useful knowledge to learn through radio in order to improve their agriculture production.
The radio stations involved were MBC Radio One, Mudzi Wanga Community of Mchinji, Dzimwe Community of Mangochi, Nkhotakota Community and ZBS.
After a baseline survey conducted in 2007, the following year ZBS started airing a 30-minute programme titled Mlera Nthaka, based on the theme ‘soil and water conservation’ with the Mvera Extension Planning Area (EPA) in Dowa as its impact area. In the first phase of the campaign, its technology for improvement was the use of Vetiver grass as a soil and water conservation technology and in the second, it was the use of organic manure in retaining soil fertility.
The theme was selected in line with the baseline survey, which indicated that farmers in Mvera suffered low crop harvests because of soil infertility due to land over usage and water runoff due to the area’s hilly topography.
ZBS had three impact communities – the villages of Lavu, Makombe and Lovimbi in Mvera EPA. Each campaign was earmarked for six months with first done in the 2008/2009 farming season and the second in the 2009/2010 farming season. The 30-minute programme was aired every Friday from 6:30 pm and repeated on Tuesday from 4: 30 in the afternoon.
1.2 Contextualization
In this study, a participatory radio campaign (PRC) is: “a planned radio-based activity conducted over a specific period of time in which a broad population of farmers is encouraged to make an informed decision about adopting a specific improvement selected by their peers, based on the best available information, to improve the food security of their families . It then provides the adopting farmers with the information and other support they require to implement the improvement” (Ward 2009).
1.3 Objectives of the study
The aim of this study was to unravel the effectiveness of the Mlera Nthaka as a participatory radio campaign in assisting farmers to adopt effective agriculture technologies. To do this, the project investigated the following aspects:
• Involvement of farmers in the programme
• Type of information and messages carried in Mlera Nthaka campaign
• Usefulness of the information in promoting agriculture
• How farmers understand radio messages presented in different formats
• If farmers have adopted the new technologies following the campaign
• Suggestions that could be adopted to make participatory radio campaigns more effective
In this context, effectiveness means the extent to which the campaign fulfilled its desired goals and objectives.
Chapter 2
2.1 Rationale
Agriculture is the backbone of the country’s economy as it provides the source of income and food for most citizens. On the other hand, radio is one of the oldest and most reliable sources of media for exchange of information. Over time, nations and community groups have utilized radio as a tool for national development (Butner 2003).
However, in Malawi relatively few programme evaluations exist that reveal how radio can influence the food production or food security of farmers. Nonetheless, a larger body of research does exist on the impact of social marketing strategies—often including radio—on health-related behaviour change .
This research was therefore necessary to determine whether Mlera Nthaka achieved its objectives. This study also was necessary to enlighten radio stations, in particular ZBS, on knowledge gaps that exist, highlight challenges and opportunities for participatory radio programming and make recommendations on how best to improve the effectiveness of PRCs.
2.2 Hypothesis
This study was based on the hypothesis that Mlera Nthaka has the potential and capacity to improve and increase crop production among rural farmers in Malawi by teaching them effective farming technologies.
2.3 Research Questions
The project sought answers to the following questions:
How did communities participate in the in the campaign?
What type of information and messages were carried in Mlera Nthaka?
Did farmers like the way the programme was arranged (format)?
Can farmers pinpoint differences between a PRC and other types of programmes
Were the messages and information useful and relevant to farmers?
Was the information they got enough?
What has been the impact of the campaign
What significant changes indicate the impact of the programme
What suggestions can make PRCs more effective
Chapter 3
3.1 Literature Review
This study was developed based on various literature such as research papers, books and the internet on the role played by radio in teaching farmers modern methods of farming in Malawi and also what other third world countries have achieved in using radio as a tool for communicating agriculture information.
3.1.2 Radio as tool for communication
Radio remains the most important medium for communicating with the rural populations in developing countries, particularly in Africa. A BBC World Service survey found that there were an estimated 65 million radio receivers in 1996 in the region. By the end of the 1990s there were 198 radios for every 1000 Africans. On the other hand, however, there were only approximately 12 newspapers and 52 television sets every 1000 Africans . With this in mind, radio can safely be recognized as the best and most efficient mass communication medium in developing countries compared to the other types of the mass media as several writers outline its advantages.
Dominick J.R (1990), states that the principle role of the mass media which includes radio, in developing countries, is to help develop and build a nation economically and politically. The media is essentially used for development journalism, and thus according to Dominick, it must support objectives such as national unity, stability and economic development.
Vivian J. (2001) writes that the portability of radio means that it is everywhere in our daily lives. This means that one is able to carry around a radio receiver. In the case of farmers, they are able to have with them a radio receiver even in gardens. Other media, such a newspaper, can only be utilized while at one place. Radio comes with the advantage that it can be listened to while doing other things like working in the fields as Hanson R.E (2005) states.
Using radio in development communication is advantageous because the medium has the ability to act as a companion. It is personal as the broadcaster talks personally to the listener (Baran, 2004). The radio voice becomes more familiar to the listener and is never the voice of the stranger. Lester J. (2005) writes:
Radio is so integral a part of us now that we do not consciously notice its presence, it is a member of a family, a companion and the voices issuing through its speakers are not those of strangers but of friends.
A study the African Farm Radio Research Initiative (March 2008) recognizes that “although radio does not grow food, nor does it work in the fields, but as a communication tool, it has proven power to improve farmers’ decision making by providing them with relevant information and sharpening their analytical perspectives as they undertake decisions that lead to improved farm management, yields, nutrition and food security” .
In Tanzania an AFFRI research (1970) observed that farm and development radio increases people’s development knowledge, but lack sustained attendance. It also established that radio study groups and drama are a considerable help in getting people to adopt better development practices .
A research done by Chapman R and company, in Ghana (Chirwa 2006), found that radio could be used to improve the sharing of agricultural information by remote rural farming communities. With the use of local languages, radio can be used to communicate directly and effectively with farmers and a format that combines drama performed by local actors with corresponding thematic discussions, is popular amongst farmers listening to agricultural extension radio programs and is effective . Formats similar to this were used in the Mlera Nthaka campaign. Just like in Ghana, the programme under study carries interviews with farmers who share their successes and offer advice to others; it uses the vernacular language and one of the formats used is drama. On other hand extension workers, agriculture experts and scientists are interviewed to provide informed opinion.
3.1.3 Background to Farm Radio Production in Malawi
Farm radio production in Malawi dates back to the 1960s, when in response to the country’s challenges of population density, small land surface, lack of minerals, and destructive agricultural practices, government and the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) intensified utilization of radio as a communication tool in agricultural development .
At that time, government introduced a Farmer’s Forum Radio Listening Group Project. The use of radio as an agricultural communications strategy also addressed financial and logistical shortfalls of the extension service of the Ministry of Agriculture in teaching farmers better agricultural methods.
In their March 2008 review of Linje Mazonyozo’s Communicating With Radio Chapota, Cuddeford, Hambly-Odame and other Farm Radio International country coordinators argue that radio was chosen to intensify rural agricultural communication because it was widely perceived that it could provide “more exposure faster and cheaper than some alternative media.”
The Malawi Mass Communication Project, a research initiative of the University of Missouri, carried out a five-week assessment between July and August 1967 to measure the impact of the forum project. Nonetheless, evaluating the effectiveness of the farm forum project was challenging because some groups had no radio sets; as well, there were problems with inaccurate forum attendance registers (Chapota, Cuddeford, et el 2008).
Some of the lessons learnt were that about 95 per cent of those attending forum meetings had a high degree of concentration. The forum project initiated interest from many rural farmers, so that the number of farmers’ listening groups increased rapidly. Not long after the first forum broadcasts, over 100 groups were meeting every week in schools, public buildings and under trees. As a result, agricultural programming increased . Most of the programmes were broadcast in chiChechewa and chiTumbuka.
3.1.4 Current trends
Unlike in the early years where producers decided topics to be covered in agriculture programmes, current trends are taking a participatory approach - the target audience, extension workers and producers discuss the information before putting it on air.
In a tracer study of Kanthu N’khama, a participatory magazine production on MBC Radio One Chirwa, Kayanula and Lijenda observed that as a result of the programme communities took up development initiatives with relevant service providers. This was possible because of the bottom-up production process, which allows communities to open up and clean out communication barriers with government bureaucracy (Manyozo, 2007). The participatory broadcasting approach has empowered communities to the point of summoning high public officers—such as cabinet ministers—to villages to account for decisions or services provided by their respective departments.
3.2 Theoretical Framework
This study was sorely be based the Development Media Theory
3.2.1 Theory application
The theory states that the mass media should take a positive role in stimulating development (McQuail, 1983). The theory looks at the media in developing countries as the effective way of communicating to the masses developmental issues that are in line with national policies. The theory applies in this study because Malawi’s economic development depends on agriculture. The radio campaign/programme under study is one effort in stimulating development through messages aimed at improving agriculture production.
The theory also applies in the sense that Mlera Nthaka was established mainly to support government’s national goal of improving food security as well as improving income generation and nutritional status of Malawian rural farmers by adopting effective agriculture practices (Chapota 2007). According to Butner (2003) recent trends in the theory emphasize participatory approaches toward development communication by focusing on networking and more non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involvement largely due to the explosion of the Internet in global communications and the rise of satellite radio technology:
The flow of communication has changed based on two-way and interactive patterns, which are enhanced by increasing networks across the globe .
Mlera Nthaka as indicated earlier was a participatory radio campaign – further emphasizing the relevance of the application of this theory in this study.
Chapter 4
4.1 Research Design
The study used qualitative research methods. This involved focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews. This method was used because it is the most recommended by researchers in analyzing media audiences .
Case Study Research Design, employed for this study, is a type of qualitative research in which the researcher explores a single entity or phenomenon bounded by time and activity and collects detailed information by using a variety of data collection procedures. Cases are in terms of people, programmes, organizations, or communities.
A guide for Family Health International field data collectors defines qualitative research as a type of scientific research that generally seeks answers to a question and produces findings not determined in advance which are applicable beyond the immediate boundaries of the study. It is also the most effective method of understanding a given research problem or topic from the perspectives of the local population it involves.
Qualitative research is especially effective in obtaining culturally specific information about the values, opinions, behaviours and social contexts of particular populations. This method was, therefore, the most effective to analyze the efficacy of a participatory radio campaign in the likes of Mlera Nthaka since the programme involves rural masses and is produced based on views of rural farmers in Mvera Extension Planning Area.
4.2 Data collection methods
The study used focus group discussions and in-depth interviews which are some of the strategies used in obtaining information in qualitative research. The data was generated through field notes and audio recordings (of the focus group discussions and in-depth interviews). The researcher collected all the data alone.
The study involved three focus groups of five people each. The groups were combinative of men, women and the youth in the age range of 20 to 50.
The in-depth interviews involved three extension workers and three lead farmers. The National Coordinator for AFRRI was also interviewed. The names of participants in the FDGs and in-depth interviews are indicated Appendix 2.
4.3 Study Sample
4.3.1 Site and size
The study area was Lavu Village. This was one of the three impact communities of Mlera Nthaka in Mvera Extension Planning Area. According to Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security extension worker Anne Kalimwayi, Lavu Village has 437 farming families. Of these 163 are female and 364 are male.
The researcher chose this village for the study because it was easily accessible since he is based in Lilongwe. The other reason for the choice of this site was that Mvera is generally a farming community (2007 AFRRI baseline survey results).
Further, the area also provided a perfect sample site for the research because it receives clear signals of ZBS.
4.3.2 Sampling methods
The study used probability-sampling method. This involved a total of fifteen farmers and three extension workers based on stratified sampling i.e. on the basis on gender and age. AFRRI staff provided background information.
4.3.3. Eligibility of respondents
To identify the farmers the researcher “purposeful random sampling”, meaning the respondents were selected based on their previous involvement with the Mlera Nthaka radio programme. All of them had been involved with the programme since it started in 2007.
According to the researcher, 18 respondents (which include AFRRI staff) was a reasonable number to generalize the results since all the participants were familiar with the subject and therefore provided a perfect sample for the study.
Chapter 5 Findings: contact george@journalist.com or geok19810@yahoo.co.uk for details of this chapter
5.1.4 Impact of Mlera Nthaka messages
In general respondents said they have leant how to manage Vetiver grass as well the best practices in the use of organic manure. These include the types of organic manure, appropriate times for application, the right material to use and the right application methods. Previously the farmers would just let their Vetiver grass to grow bushy without taking care of it. Because of this there was a misconception that the use of Vetiver attracts insects and mice into their fields. However, through the programme, they have learnt that there is need to occasionally trim the grass to avoid it becoming bushy: One respondent said:
Maliseni Joseph:
“All along I would not allow growing any grass in marker ridges, let alone Vetiver. Experience told us that marker ridges produce health crops. Even when you don’t apply fertilizer in your garden, you are assured to getting something from the marker ridges. However with this programme, I leant that marker ridges produce healthy crops simply as a result of water runoff. The marker ridges trap all the nutrients washed in the garden and therefore the maize grown there takes up those nutrients. Now when you plant Vetiver in garden you control soil wash away which means all the nutrients remain in the field and the result is that you have a healthy crop throughout the garden”.
Chapter 6 Data interpretation: contact geok19810@yahoo.uk or george2journalist.com for details of this chapter.
6.1 Credibility of findings
This study involved experienced farmers who actively participated in the Mlera Nthaka radio campaigns as well extension workers who are on the ground in the sample area. This provides a hundred percent credibility to the findings based on the logic that the respondents were narrating their practical situations. Therefore, the research has proved that a participatory radio campaign is effective in assisting farmers to adopt effective farming technologies.
6.1 Explanation of the findings in relation to objectives, hypothesis, theory and, literature review
6.1.1 Objectives
As regards the objective this research ably confirms that a participatory radio campaign is effective in assisting farmers to adopt effective farming technologies. It has also proven that a magazine is an appropriate for farm radio production. Above all, it drives home the fact that farmers understand better new technologies through radio messages when their views and experiences are not only heard, but reflected in the broadcasts. This is demonstrated by the fact that all respondents had listened to Mlera Nthaka programmes and could relate its influence to the changes they have made in their farming tendencies.
6.1.2 Hypothesis
This study was based on the hypothesis that Mlera Nthaka, as a participatory radio campaign, has the potential and capacity to improve and increase crop production in Malawi by assisting farmers adopt effective farming technologies.
6.1.3 Theoretical Framework
The study was built on the Development Communication Theory which says the media should take a positive role in stirring development. From the findings community participation is vital in enhancing this theory.
As Butner says, it should be a two way approach where the masses and communicators develop messages that best suit the demands for the target audience. He quotes Moemeka (2000) reinforcing this by saying:
People use accumulated knowledge to assess incoming messages and take action on the basis of individual differences. But in the tradition-conscious world, where the culture is communalistic, to inform is never to communicate, and to talk to is not to talk with. In communalistic communities, whether in the developed or the developing world, communication is a matter of interrelationship; and reaction to messages is predicated on how it would affect existing and/or future relationships.
6.1.4 Literature Review
The researcher reviewed literature on the role of radio in enhancing socio-economic development in the context of participatory approach. The review concluded that participatory approaches are becoming effective in radio communication. The research has proved has proved one of the old key communication theories employed by the early media effects researchers included - the two-step flow hypothesis - which centres on the belief that people’s experiences of media content are complemented by discussions about it with others, particularly with opinion leaders. In the Mlera Nthaka campaign opinion leaders included lead farmers, traditional leaders, extension staff, Ministry of Agriculture experts and AFRRI staff.
Chapter 7 Conclusion and Recommendation: contact geok198110@yahoo.co.uk or george@journalist.com for details of this chapter
7.1 Conclusion: ontact geok198110@yahoo.co.uk or george@journalist.com for details of this chapter
7.5 Area for further study
Further research could be done to find out how the use of ICT can be intensified as a communication aid in obtaining feedback in a participatory radio campaign. This study has not detailed exactly why the proposed use of mobile phone short message did not succeed as a tool for getting feedback.
7.5 Reference:
Chapota, Cuddeford, Hambly-Odame, Hudson, McKay, Ngobo, Perkins and Ward (2008) - Communicating with Radio: What Do We Know? Findings from selected rural radio effectiveness evaluations, African Farm Radio Research Initiative, Ottawa, Canada
Manyozo, L. (2006). Rural radio and the promotion of people-centred development in Africa: Radio listening clubs and community development in Malawi. Paper presented at the Codesria 11 General Assembly- Rethinking African Development: Beyond impasse, towards alternatives. Maputo, Mozambique, December 2005 http://www.codesria.org/Links/conferences/general_assembly11/papers/manyozo.pdf
Moemeka, A. A. (2000). Development communication: Planning for social change, New York: University Press of America
Ward, D (2009) Manual for Participatory Radio Campaigns, Revised manual for Participatory Campaign Number Two, Farm Radio International, Ottawa, Canada
Dominick, J.R, (1990), Dynamics of Mass Communication, New York, McGraw
Hill Inc.
Family Health International (2010), Qualitative Research Methods, A Data Collector’s Field Guide http://www.highwayafrica.com/media/HAProgramme2010.pdf
McQuail, D; (1987) Mass Communication Theory, an Introduction 2nd ed, Sage
Publications, London
Vivian, J, (2001), The Media of Mass Communication, London, Mayfield Publishing
Company
Chirwa, T, 2006, Effectiveness of Ulimi Wa Phindu radio program on the tobacco industry, a case study of Small- holder tobacco farmers in Kasungu District , University of Malawi Research Paper
APPENDIX: 1 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
No Acronym
Definition
1 AFRRI African Farm Radio Research Initiative
2 BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
3 DJ Diploma in Journalism
4 EPA Extension Planning Area
5 FDG Focus Group Discussion
6 MBC Malawi Broadcasting Corporation
7 MIJ Malawi Institute of Journalism
8 MSW Master of Science in Social Work
9 NGO(s) Non-governmental organization(s)
10 PRC(s) Participatory Radio Campaign(s)
11 ZBS Zodiak Broadcasting Station
APPENDIX: 2 Names of Focus Group Discussion Participants
Name Gender/Age Group Number
Maliseni Joseph Male/Adult Group 1
Kadyatudzuke Beni Male/Adult
Benson Phillip Male/Youth
Richard Limited Male/Adult
Kabiza Chiwoza Male/Youth
Verson Amos Male/Youth Group 2
Eunice Saidi Female/Adult
Gift Tembo Male/Youth
Olive Mpembedza Female/Youth
Zeleni Matiyasi Female/Adult
Eunice Saidi Female/Adult Group 3
Binson Nakutuwa Male/Adult
Salome Banda Male/Adult
Pansipowuma Mgoni Female/Adult
Elinati Yotamu Female Adult
Other interviewees:
1. Andrew Amos Kaipanyama, Mvera Extension Planning Area Coordinator
2. Mathews Kalimwayi, Extension Worker, Mvera EPA
3. Annie Kalimwayi, Extension Worker, Mvera EPA
4. Rex Chapota, National Coordinator, Farm Radio International, Malawi
APPENDIX: 3 Focus Group Discussion Guide
FDG Questionnaire for MIJ research – George Kalungwe
NAME OF TOOL: FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR SMALL HOLDER FARMERS ON IMPACT OF MLERA NTHAKA RADIO CAMPAIGN
This will be done by a moderator (the researcher) who also will be the note taker. Where possible, the discussion will be tape recorded. The FGD will involve about 15 people to be divided into three groups of five each. Selection to be gender balanced.
A: statistics
Name of members and their respective communities: ……………………………….
Name of the EPA/District:…………..…………………………
Name of Village
Record gender composition of group members (e.g. the number of youth, male or female)/Gender (e.g. 6 male; 7 female) and Age range: ………...…………… years, get the names of the participants:
.
B: Discussion guide
1. Remind group of purpose of discussion and trace history so far. From Initial research processes of the Rapid Appraisal, Baseline Survey, Improvement selection, Formative research, production and airing of Mlera Nthaka programs?
2. Listernership issues: The role of radio in food security; what other programs the people listen to, can they explain any difference of such programs from Mlera Nthaka?
3. What is the best timing of programs, was this the case with Mlera Nthaka
4. What is the situation as regards access to radio sets, i.e. were they able to listen to all the time?
5. How was awareness of the campaign done?
6. Ask them to recall the messages they heard in the radio program: they should recall not less the three key messages from each campaign; was there any difference between the two campaigns
7. Do they remember the style of presentation (the format?) /quality of program/content of program/gender balance on farmers’ voices
8. Participatory Approach: How were they involved in the programming process?
9. Ask how they participated (through sms, fixed phone, feedback, signature tune production, interviews, listeners club). Probe the frequency, the feedback channels and use of the feedback at station level.
10. Let them recount most significant changes in the community/i.e., at household and individual level in line with the improvement/technology. (Especially which they can attribute to Mlera Nthaka
11. Take out sheet containing indicators of success which the community mentioned during formative research. Ask them which ones have been fulfilled and why (or why not). Take note that others were short term, medium term and long term.
12. Ask them to explain if the radio messages during the campaign period were enough for them to understand new methods/information or they still required the services of the extension officer at the community level. Probe views on role of radio alone, role of extension alone or need for both?
13. Ask on what have been the key successes and challenges of the farm radio campaign? Probe on presentation styles/timing of the program
14. Ask on what can be done to make future agricultural radio programs better?
DIPLOMA IN JOURNALISM
RESEARCH PAPER SUBMITTED IN FUFILMENT OF THE AWARD OF DIPLOMA IN JOURNALISM
PROJECT TITLE:
Effectiveness of participatory radio campaigns in assisting farmers adopt effective agriculture technologies – a case study of Mlera Nthaka radio programme on ZBS
By
GEORGE KALUNGWE
(DJ/13/09/LL)
SUPERVISED BY: Miss P. Kakhobwe
DATE: June 15, 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..4
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………....4
Chapter 1…………………………………………………………………………………5
Introduction…………………………………………………………………......................5
Contextualization…………………………………………………………..……………...7
Objectives of the research project…………………………..……………………………..8
Chapter 2…………………………………………..……………………………………..9
Rationale ………………………………………………………………………………….9
Hypothesis……………………………………………………………………..................10
Research Questions………………………………………………………………………10
Chapter 3……………………………………………………………………………..…11
Literature review……………………………………………………………....................11
Radio as tool for communication………………………………………………………..……...11
Background to farm radio production in Malawi………..………………………...…………13
Current trends………………………………………………………………………………..……15
Theoretical framework…………………………………………………………………...15
Theory application……………………………………………………………………….……….16
Chapter 4……………………………………………………………………………......17
Research design………………………………………………………………………….17
Data collection methods………………………………………………………………….18
Study sample and size………......……………………………………………………......18
Sampling methods…………………………………………………………………..........19
Chapter 5………………………………………………………………………………..20
Data analysis and measurement………………………………………………………….20
Chapter 6……………………………………………………………………………..…33
Data interpretation ……………………………………………………………………....33
Chapter 7……………………………..………………………………………………....36
Conclusion and recommendations …………………………………………………........36
References ………………………………………………………………….....................39
Appendix.…………………………………………………………………………..........40
List of Acronyms...…………………………………………………………………........40
Names of Focus Group Discussion Participants…………………………………………41
Focus Group Discussion Guide………………………………………………………….42
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I thank the management of the African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI) Malawi Chapter, in particular the National Coordinator, Mr. Rex Chapota and Research Assistant Clare Likangwa for the guidance and information provided to me during this research.
I also thank my supervisor, Miss. Penelope Kakhobwe for her guidance. Her assistance enabled me to follow the right course towards the accomplishment of this thesis which was rather technical and complicated for a beginner like me.
I also acknowledge the role played by Mr Andrew Kaipanyama, Agriculture Extension Development Coordinator for Mvera Extension Planning Area in Dowa for assisting me in mobilizing communities for focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. My appreciations also goes to the General Manager for Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS), Mr Matthias Manyeka for authorizing funds that enabled me to travel to Mvera for purposes of this project.
Above all, I thank God that He provided me with good health and enabled me to go through my Diploma Course at the Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ) successfully. All would have been worthless and impossible without Him.
DEDICATION
This research is dedicated to my, wife Bertha, and the management of Zodiak Broadcasting Station for the psychological and financial support rendered to me during the period of my study at the Malawi Institute of Journalism.
Chapter 1
1.1 Introduction
Farmers in rural parts of Malawi heavily rely on agriculture for food production and income generation. However, due to lack of knowledge on best farming practices coupled with high costs of farm inputs and soil infertility as a result of over usage of land, not many harvest enough from the land they cultivate. This leads to recurrent hunger and poverty (2007 AFRRI baseline survey results).
Government employs extension workers to teach farmers best farming practices, but these are not enough to carter for all farmers across the country. In view of this radio is increasingly becoming a tool for complementing the work of agriculture extension workers. This is so because, radio as a means of communication has the ability to communicate instantly and influence people’s minds in decision making. Radio has been cited over and over as the ideal medium for communication, especially in developing nations, because it transcends literacy and geographic barriers, and its relative low cost in comparison to other technologies makes it most accessible to people .
To complement the role of extension workers many radio stations in the country run programmes on agriculture. Most of these run as regular slots. In some cases, they are produced as promotions for activities of non-governmental organizations and farm input companies. In addition, government through the Ministry of Agriculture funds, some agriculture programmes both on public and private radio stations. Usually, in all these cases, there is no emphasis on a particular agriculture technology that farmers ought to adopt to improve their production . Producers come up with topics based on the material readily available – so that would be either after having attended a launch of a manure scheme in a remote village, a launch of a farmers club or when an expert addressees a press conference about the emergence of a strange disease or pest or development of new seed verities ! Farmers are not consulted in the production process.
As a new approach, the African Radio Research Initiative (AFFRI) introduced a project to enhance campaign-based participatory farm radio production in 2007 – the first of its kind in Malawi. The project aimed at finding out how farmers can make use of radio in getting information about farming techniques to supplement the role of agriculture extension officers in ensuring food security in rural parts of five African countries. Funded by Farm Radio International of Canada, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the project also offered capacity-building and training for radio broadcasters to help them improve their programming for rural listeners in the five countries – namely Mali, Ghana, Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania. The researcher was part of the trainees.
In Malawi, the initiative roped in five radio stations including public, commercial and community – split across the country. Each radio station had its own thematic massages based on the needs of farmers in its chosen impact area – i.e. what farmers considered the most useful knowledge to learn through radio in order to improve their agriculture production.
The radio stations involved were MBC Radio One, Mudzi Wanga Community of Mchinji, Dzimwe Community of Mangochi, Nkhotakota Community and ZBS.
After a baseline survey conducted in 2007, the following year ZBS started airing a 30-minute programme titled Mlera Nthaka, based on the theme ‘soil and water conservation’ with the Mvera Extension Planning Area (EPA) in Dowa as its impact area. In the first phase of the campaign, its technology for improvement was the use of Vetiver grass as a soil and water conservation technology and in the second, it was the use of organic manure in retaining soil fertility.
The theme was selected in line with the baseline survey, which indicated that farmers in Mvera suffered low crop harvests because of soil infertility due to land over usage and water runoff due to the area’s hilly topography.
ZBS had three impact communities – the villages of Lavu, Makombe and Lovimbi in Mvera EPA. Each campaign was earmarked for six months with first done in the 2008/2009 farming season and the second in the 2009/2010 farming season. The 30-minute programme was aired every Friday from 6:30 pm and repeated on Tuesday from 4: 30 in the afternoon.
1.2 Contextualization
In this study, a participatory radio campaign (PRC) is: “a planned radio-based activity conducted over a specific period of time in which a broad population of farmers is encouraged to make an informed decision about adopting a specific improvement selected by their peers, based on the best available information, to improve the food security of their families . It then provides the adopting farmers with the information and other support they require to implement the improvement” (Ward 2009).
1.3 Objectives of the study
The aim of this study was to unravel the effectiveness of the Mlera Nthaka as a participatory radio campaign in assisting farmers to adopt effective agriculture technologies. To do this, the project investigated the following aspects:
• Involvement of farmers in the programme
• Type of information and messages carried in Mlera Nthaka campaign
• Usefulness of the information in promoting agriculture
• How farmers understand radio messages presented in different formats
• If farmers have adopted the new technologies following the campaign
• Suggestions that could be adopted to make participatory radio campaigns more effective
In this context, effectiveness means the extent to which the campaign fulfilled its desired goals and objectives.
Chapter 2
2.1 Rationale
Agriculture is the backbone of the country’s economy as it provides the source of income and food for most citizens. On the other hand, radio is one of the oldest and most reliable sources of media for exchange of information. Over time, nations and community groups have utilized radio as a tool for national development (Butner 2003).
However, in Malawi relatively few programme evaluations exist that reveal how radio can influence the food production or food security of farmers. Nonetheless, a larger body of research does exist on the impact of social marketing strategies—often including radio—on health-related behaviour change .
This research was therefore necessary to determine whether Mlera Nthaka achieved its objectives. This study also was necessary to enlighten radio stations, in particular ZBS, on knowledge gaps that exist, highlight challenges and opportunities for participatory radio programming and make recommendations on how best to improve the effectiveness of PRCs.
2.2 Hypothesis
This study was based on the hypothesis that Mlera Nthaka has the potential and capacity to improve and increase crop production among rural farmers in Malawi by teaching them effective farming technologies.
2.3 Research Questions
The project sought answers to the following questions:
How did communities participate in the in the campaign?
What type of information and messages were carried in Mlera Nthaka?
Did farmers like the way the programme was arranged (format)?
Can farmers pinpoint differences between a PRC and other types of programmes
Were the messages and information useful and relevant to farmers?
Was the information they got enough?
What has been the impact of the campaign
What significant changes indicate the impact of the programme
What suggestions can make PRCs more effective
Chapter 3
3.1 Literature Review
This study was developed based on various literature such as research papers, books and the internet on the role played by radio in teaching farmers modern methods of farming in Malawi and also what other third world countries have achieved in using radio as a tool for communicating agriculture information.
3.1.2 Radio as tool for communication
Radio remains the most important medium for communicating with the rural populations in developing countries, particularly in Africa. A BBC World Service survey found that there were an estimated 65 million radio receivers in 1996 in the region. By the end of the 1990s there were 198 radios for every 1000 Africans. On the other hand, however, there were only approximately 12 newspapers and 52 television sets every 1000 Africans . With this in mind, radio can safely be recognized as the best and most efficient mass communication medium in developing countries compared to the other types of the mass media as several writers outline its advantages.
Dominick J.R (1990), states that the principle role of the mass media which includes radio, in developing countries, is to help develop and build a nation economically and politically. The media is essentially used for development journalism, and thus according to Dominick, it must support objectives such as national unity, stability and economic development.
Vivian J. (2001) writes that the portability of radio means that it is everywhere in our daily lives. This means that one is able to carry around a radio receiver. In the case of farmers, they are able to have with them a radio receiver even in gardens. Other media, such a newspaper, can only be utilized while at one place. Radio comes with the advantage that it can be listened to while doing other things like working in the fields as Hanson R.E (2005) states.
Using radio in development communication is advantageous because the medium has the ability to act as a companion. It is personal as the broadcaster talks personally to the listener (Baran, 2004). The radio voice becomes more familiar to the listener and is never the voice of the stranger. Lester J. (2005) writes:
Radio is so integral a part of us now that we do not consciously notice its presence, it is a member of a family, a companion and the voices issuing through its speakers are not those of strangers but of friends.
A study the African Farm Radio Research Initiative (March 2008) recognizes that “although radio does not grow food, nor does it work in the fields, but as a communication tool, it has proven power to improve farmers’ decision making by providing them with relevant information and sharpening their analytical perspectives as they undertake decisions that lead to improved farm management, yields, nutrition and food security” .
In Tanzania an AFFRI research (1970) observed that farm and development radio increases people’s development knowledge, but lack sustained attendance. It also established that radio study groups and drama are a considerable help in getting people to adopt better development practices .
A research done by Chapman R and company, in Ghana (Chirwa 2006), found that radio could be used to improve the sharing of agricultural information by remote rural farming communities. With the use of local languages, radio can be used to communicate directly and effectively with farmers and a format that combines drama performed by local actors with corresponding thematic discussions, is popular amongst farmers listening to agricultural extension radio programs and is effective . Formats similar to this were used in the Mlera Nthaka campaign. Just like in Ghana, the programme under study carries interviews with farmers who share their successes and offer advice to others; it uses the vernacular language and one of the formats used is drama. On other hand extension workers, agriculture experts and scientists are interviewed to provide informed opinion.
3.1.3 Background to Farm Radio Production in Malawi
Farm radio production in Malawi dates back to the 1960s, when in response to the country’s challenges of population density, small land surface, lack of minerals, and destructive agricultural practices, government and the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) intensified utilization of radio as a communication tool in agricultural development .
At that time, government introduced a Farmer’s Forum Radio Listening Group Project. The use of radio as an agricultural communications strategy also addressed financial and logistical shortfalls of the extension service of the Ministry of Agriculture in teaching farmers better agricultural methods.
In their March 2008 review of Linje Mazonyozo’s Communicating With Radio Chapota, Cuddeford, Hambly-Odame and other Farm Radio International country coordinators argue that radio was chosen to intensify rural agricultural communication because it was widely perceived that it could provide “more exposure faster and cheaper than some alternative media.”
The Malawi Mass Communication Project, a research initiative of the University of Missouri, carried out a five-week assessment between July and August 1967 to measure the impact of the forum project. Nonetheless, evaluating the effectiveness of the farm forum project was challenging because some groups had no radio sets; as well, there were problems with inaccurate forum attendance registers (Chapota, Cuddeford, et el 2008).
Some of the lessons learnt were that about 95 per cent of those attending forum meetings had a high degree of concentration. The forum project initiated interest from many rural farmers, so that the number of farmers’ listening groups increased rapidly. Not long after the first forum broadcasts, over 100 groups were meeting every week in schools, public buildings and under trees. As a result, agricultural programming increased . Most of the programmes were broadcast in chiChechewa and chiTumbuka.
3.1.4 Current trends
Unlike in the early years where producers decided topics to be covered in agriculture programmes, current trends are taking a participatory approach - the target audience, extension workers and producers discuss the information before putting it on air.
In a tracer study of Kanthu N’khama, a participatory magazine production on MBC Radio One Chirwa, Kayanula and Lijenda observed that as a result of the programme communities took up development initiatives with relevant service providers. This was possible because of the bottom-up production process, which allows communities to open up and clean out communication barriers with government bureaucracy (Manyozo, 2007). The participatory broadcasting approach has empowered communities to the point of summoning high public officers—such as cabinet ministers—to villages to account for decisions or services provided by their respective departments.
3.2 Theoretical Framework
This study was sorely be based the Development Media Theory
3.2.1 Theory application
The theory states that the mass media should take a positive role in stimulating development (McQuail, 1983). The theory looks at the media in developing countries as the effective way of communicating to the masses developmental issues that are in line with national policies. The theory applies in this study because Malawi’s economic development depends on agriculture. The radio campaign/programme under study is one effort in stimulating development through messages aimed at improving agriculture production.
The theory also applies in the sense that Mlera Nthaka was established mainly to support government’s national goal of improving food security as well as improving income generation and nutritional status of Malawian rural farmers by adopting effective agriculture practices (Chapota 2007). According to Butner (2003) recent trends in the theory emphasize participatory approaches toward development communication by focusing on networking and more non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involvement largely due to the explosion of the Internet in global communications and the rise of satellite radio technology:
The flow of communication has changed based on two-way and interactive patterns, which are enhanced by increasing networks across the globe .
Mlera Nthaka as indicated earlier was a participatory radio campaign – further emphasizing the relevance of the application of this theory in this study.
Chapter 4
4.1 Research Design
The study used qualitative research methods. This involved focus group discussions (FGDs) and in-depth interviews. This method was used because it is the most recommended by researchers in analyzing media audiences .
Case Study Research Design, employed for this study, is a type of qualitative research in which the researcher explores a single entity or phenomenon bounded by time and activity and collects detailed information by using a variety of data collection procedures. Cases are in terms of people, programmes, organizations, or communities.
A guide for Family Health International field data collectors defines qualitative research as a type of scientific research that generally seeks answers to a question and produces findings not determined in advance which are applicable beyond the immediate boundaries of the study. It is also the most effective method of understanding a given research problem or topic from the perspectives of the local population it involves.
Qualitative research is especially effective in obtaining culturally specific information about the values, opinions, behaviours and social contexts of particular populations. This method was, therefore, the most effective to analyze the efficacy of a participatory radio campaign in the likes of Mlera Nthaka since the programme involves rural masses and is produced based on views of rural farmers in Mvera Extension Planning Area.
4.2 Data collection methods
The study used focus group discussions and in-depth interviews which are some of the strategies used in obtaining information in qualitative research. The data was generated through field notes and audio recordings (of the focus group discussions and in-depth interviews). The researcher collected all the data alone.
The study involved three focus groups of five people each. The groups were combinative of men, women and the youth in the age range of 20 to 50.
The in-depth interviews involved three extension workers and three lead farmers. The National Coordinator for AFRRI was also interviewed. The names of participants in the FDGs and in-depth interviews are indicated Appendix 2.
4.3 Study Sample
4.3.1 Site and size
The study area was Lavu Village. This was one of the three impact communities of Mlera Nthaka in Mvera Extension Planning Area. According to Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security extension worker Anne Kalimwayi, Lavu Village has 437 farming families. Of these 163 are female and 364 are male.
The researcher chose this village for the study because it was easily accessible since he is based in Lilongwe. The other reason for the choice of this site was that Mvera is generally a farming community (2007 AFRRI baseline survey results).
Further, the area also provided a perfect sample site for the research because it receives clear signals of ZBS.
4.3.2 Sampling methods
The study used probability-sampling method. This involved a total of fifteen farmers and three extension workers based on stratified sampling i.e. on the basis on gender and age. AFRRI staff provided background information.
4.3.3. Eligibility of respondents
To identify the farmers the researcher “purposeful random sampling”, meaning the respondents were selected based on their previous involvement with the Mlera Nthaka radio programme. All of them had been involved with the programme since it started in 2007.
According to the researcher, 18 respondents (which include AFRRI staff) was a reasonable number to generalize the results since all the participants were familiar with the subject and therefore provided a perfect sample for the study.
Chapter 5 Findings: contact george@journalist.com or geok19810@yahoo.co.uk for details of this chapter
5.1.4 Impact of Mlera Nthaka messages
In general respondents said they have leant how to manage Vetiver grass as well the best practices in the use of organic manure. These include the types of organic manure, appropriate times for application, the right material to use and the right application methods. Previously the farmers would just let their Vetiver grass to grow bushy without taking care of it. Because of this there was a misconception that the use of Vetiver attracts insects and mice into their fields. However, through the programme, they have learnt that there is need to occasionally trim the grass to avoid it becoming bushy: One respondent said:
Maliseni Joseph:
“All along I would not allow growing any grass in marker ridges, let alone Vetiver. Experience told us that marker ridges produce health crops. Even when you don’t apply fertilizer in your garden, you are assured to getting something from the marker ridges. However with this programme, I leant that marker ridges produce healthy crops simply as a result of water runoff. The marker ridges trap all the nutrients washed in the garden and therefore the maize grown there takes up those nutrients. Now when you plant Vetiver in garden you control soil wash away which means all the nutrients remain in the field and the result is that you have a healthy crop throughout the garden”.
Chapter 6 Data interpretation: contact geok19810@yahoo.uk or george2journalist.com for details of this chapter.
6.1 Credibility of findings
This study involved experienced farmers who actively participated in the Mlera Nthaka radio campaigns as well extension workers who are on the ground in the sample area. This provides a hundred percent credibility to the findings based on the logic that the respondents were narrating their practical situations. Therefore, the research has proved that a participatory radio campaign is effective in assisting farmers to adopt effective farming technologies.
6.1 Explanation of the findings in relation to objectives, hypothesis, theory and, literature review
6.1.1 Objectives
As regards the objective this research ably confirms that a participatory radio campaign is effective in assisting farmers to adopt effective farming technologies. It has also proven that a magazine is an appropriate for farm radio production. Above all, it drives home the fact that farmers understand better new technologies through radio messages when their views and experiences are not only heard, but reflected in the broadcasts. This is demonstrated by the fact that all respondents had listened to Mlera Nthaka programmes and could relate its influence to the changes they have made in their farming tendencies.
6.1.2 Hypothesis
This study was based on the hypothesis that Mlera Nthaka, as a participatory radio campaign, has the potential and capacity to improve and increase crop production in Malawi by assisting farmers adopt effective farming technologies.
6.1.3 Theoretical Framework
The study was built on the Development Communication Theory which says the media should take a positive role in stirring development. From the findings community participation is vital in enhancing this theory.
As Butner says, it should be a two way approach where the masses and communicators develop messages that best suit the demands for the target audience. He quotes Moemeka (2000) reinforcing this by saying:
People use accumulated knowledge to assess incoming messages and take action on the basis of individual differences. But in the tradition-conscious world, where the culture is communalistic, to inform is never to communicate, and to talk to is not to talk with. In communalistic communities, whether in the developed or the developing world, communication is a matter of interrelationship; and reaction to messages is predicated on how it would affect existing and/or future relationships.
6.1.4 Literature Review
The researcher reviewed literature on the role of radio in enhancing socio-economic development in the context of participatory approach. The review concluded that participatory approaches are becoming effective in radio communication. The research has proved has proved one of the old key communication theories employed by the early media effects researchers included - the two-step flow hypothesis - which centres on the belief that people’s experiences of media content are complemented by discussions about it with others, particularly with opinion leaders. In the Mlera Nthaka campaign opinion leaders included lead farmers, traditional leaders, extension staff, Ministry of Agriculture experts and AFRRI staff.
Chapter 7 Conclusion and Recommendation: contact geok198110@yahoo.co.uk or george@journalist.com for details of this chapter
7.1 Conclusion: ontact geok198110@yahoo.co.uk or george@journalist.com for details of this chapter
7.5 Area for further study
Further research could be done to find out how the use of ICT can be intensified as a communication aid in obtaining feedback in a participatory radio campaign. This study has not detailed exactly why the proposed use of mobile phone short message did not succeed as a tool for getting feedback.
7.5 Reference:
Chapota, Cuddeford, Hambly-Odame, Hudson, McKay, Ngobo, Perkins and Ward (2008) - Communicating with Radio: What Do We Know? Findings from selected rural radio effectiveness evaluations, African Farm Radio Research Initiative, Ottawa, Canada
Manyozo, L. (2006). Rural radio and the promotion of people-centred development in Africa: Radio listening clubs and community development in Malawi. Paper presented at the Codesria 11 General Assembly- Rethinking African Development: Beyond impasse, towards alternatives. Maputo, Mozambique, December 2005 http://www.codesria.org/Links/conferences/general_assembly11/papers/manyozo.pdf
Moemeka, A. A. (2000). Development communication: Planning for social change, New York: University Press of America
Ward, D (2009) Manual for Participatory Radio Campaigns, Revised manual for Participatory Campaign Number Two, Farm Radio International, Ottawa, Canada
Dominick, J.R, (1990), Dynamics of Mass Communication, New York, McGraw
Hill Inc.
Family Health International (2010), Qualitative Research Methods, A Data Collector’s Field Guide http://www.highwayafrica.com/media/HAProgramme2010.pdf
McQuail, D; (1987) Mass Communication Theory, an Introduction 2nd ed, Sage
Publications, London
Vivian, J, (2001), The Media of Mass Communication, London, Mayfield Publishing
Company
Chirwa, T, 2006, Effectiveness of Ulimi Wa Phindu radio program on the tobacco industry, a case study of Small- holder tobacco farmers in Kasungu District , University of Malawi Research Paper
APPENDIX: 1 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
No Acronym
Definition
1 AFRRI African Farm Radio Research Initiative
2 BBC British Broadcasting Corporation
3 DJ Diploma in Journalism
4 EPA Extension Planning Area
5 FDG Focus Group Discussion
6 MBC Malawi Broadcasting Corporation
7 MIJ Malawi Institute of Journalism
8 MSW Master of Science in Social Work
9 NGO(s) Non-governmental organization(s)
10 PRC(s) Participatory Radio Campaign(s)
11 ZBS Zodiak Broadcasting Station
APPENDIX: 2 Names of Focus Group Discussion Participants
Name Gender/Age Group Number
Maliseni Joseph Male/Adult Group 1
Kadyatudzuke Beni Male/Adult
Benson Phillip Male/Youth
Richard Limited Male/Adult
Kabiza Chiwoza Male/Youth
Verson Amos Male/Youth Group 2
Eunice Saidi Female/Adult
Gift Tembo Male/Youth
Olive Mpembedza Female/Youth
Zeleni Matiyasi Female/Adult
Eunice Saidi Female/Adult Group 3
Binson Nakutuwa Male/Adult
Salome Banda Male/Adult
Pansipowuma Mgoni Female/Adult
Elinati Yotamu Female Adult
Other interviewees:
1. Andrew Amos Kaipanyama, Mvera Extension Planning Area Coordinator
2. Mathews Kalimwayi, Extension Worker, Mvera EPA
3. Annie Kalimwayi, Extension Worker, Mvera EPA
4. Rex Chapota, National Coordinator, Farm Radio International, Malawi
APPENDIX: 3 Focus Group Discussion Guide
FDG Questionnaire for MIJ research – George Kalungwe
NAME OF TOOL: FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR SMALL HOLDER FARMERS ON IMPACT OF MLERA NTHAKA RADIO CAMPAIGN
This will be done by a moderator (the researcher) who also will be the note taker. Where possible, the discussion will be tape recorded. The FGD will involve about 15 people to be divided into three groups of five each. Selection to be gender balanced.
A: statistics
Name of members and their respective communities: ……………………………….
Name of the EPA/District:…………..…………………………
Name of Village
Record gender composition of group members (e.g. the number of youth, male or female)/Gender (e.g. 6 male; 7 female) and Age range: ………...…………… years, get the names of the participants:
.
B: Discussion guide
1. Remind group of purpose of discussion and trace history so far. From Initial research processes of the Rapid Appraisal, Baseline Survey, Improvement selection, Formative research, production and airing of Mlera Nthaka programs?
2. Listernership issues: The role of radio in food security; what other programs the people listen to, can they explain any difference of such programs from Mlera Nthaka?
3. What is the best timing of programs, was this the case with Mlera Nthaka
4. What is the situation as regards access to radio sets, i.e. were they able to listen to all the time?
5. How was awareness of the campaign done?
6. Ask them to recall the messages they heard in the radio program: they should recall not less the three key messages from each campaign; was there any difference between the two campaigns
7. Do they remember the style of presentation (the format?) /quality of program/content of program/gender balance on farmers’ voices
8. Participatory Approach: How were they involved in the programming process?
9. Ask how they participated (through sms, fixed phone, feedback, signature tune production, interviews, listeners club). Probe the frequency, the feedback channels and use of the feedback at station level.
10. Let them recount most significant changes in the community/i.e., at household and individual level in line with the improvement/technology. (Especially which they can attribute to Mlera Nthaka
11. Take out sheet containing indicators of success which the community mentioned during formative research. Ask them which ones have been fulfilled and why (or why not). Take note that others were short term, medium term and long term.
12. Ask them to explain if the radio messages during the campaign period were enough for them to understand new methods/information or they still required the services of the extension officer at the community level. Probe views on role of radio alone, role of extension alone or need for both?
13. Ask on what have been the key successes and challenges of the farm radio campaign? Probe on presentation styles/timing of the program
14. Ask on what can be done to make future agricultural radio programs better?
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