THE parents of a Dereham woman who died in a sightseeing plane crash in Malawi spoke about their “bubbly” daughter, who always lived life to the full.
Dawn Rollins and her husband Colin Smith, both 45 and chartered accountants, were among five British tourists who died when their sightseeing plane went down in a river valley in June. The plane had been travelling from the capital Lilongwe to the north of Malawi.
The Malawi trip was just one of the many cycling adventures the keen travellers had been on together, including holidays in New Zealand, Costa Rica, Norway, Canada and Japan. They had already planned their next trip, which was to be to Bhutan.
“Dawn and Colin thought the world of each other and did everything together. They visited more than 30 countries together. They had gone to Malawi because they had wanted to explore the scenery and wildlife,” said Ms Rollins' mum Linda Rollins, from Dereham, who described her daughter as bubbly and outgoing.
She added that when she saw the couple off at Norwich Airport a week before the tragedy they had been “so happy.”
Ms Rollins' dad Victor Rollins said: “Dawn lived her life to the full. I could not do in two lifetimes what Dawn did in hers. She just loved adventure.
“She was brilliant, always organising everybody, and a bit of a daddy's girl. We shall miss her a lot.”
Ms Rollins, who has a brother, Stuart, was brought up in Dereham, and was a pupil at Dereham Infant and Junior Schools, Dereham High School for Girls, and Dereham Sixth Form.
She developed a love of music as a child and she began learning the piano from the age of six until she went to university. When she was about 15 years old she began playing the cornet for the Dereham Band and in 2001 she became the band's chairman.
After she graduated from Hull University she met Mr Smith, from Salisbury, in the early 1980s at a seminar in Newcastle. Mr Smith, who had graduated from Bristol University, then moved to Norfolk to be with Ms Rollins.
Ms Rollins and Mr Smith, who lived in Brundall, were together for about 20 years before they decided to get married in April 2004 at the Ice Chapel in Sweden.
Ms Rollins, who loved cats, cookery and flower-arranging, worked as a senior manager at the Norwich office of chartered accountants Lovewell Blake, specialising in agricultural accountancy, and Mr Smith worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers, in Norwich.
More than 400 people attended the joint funeral of Ms Rollins and Mr Smith at St Nicholas' Church, Dereham.
They included members of Dereham Band and other musicians who played at the funeral in tribute to the couple. Items included a tribute piece, The Old Rugged Cross one of Dawn's favourites and recently obtained by her for the band to perform at future events.
The band was supplemented by band members from across the country, including Black Dyke, Delph, and others from bands in Cawston, King's Lynn, Aylsham, Fakenham and Wherry, Cromer and Sheringham. There were 51 musicians in total.
Fiona Joisce, from Dereham Band, said it was one of the hardest jobs the band had ever undertaken.
“As the tragic news of their deaths first spread across the banding fraternity we started to receive letters, phone calls and emails from not only the many bands and players across Norfolk that Dawn had helped, but also from some of the big Yorkshire bands as well.
“Dawn was held in high regard by all who had the pleasure to know her and this was reflected in the number of guests who joined with Dereham Band to honour her memory.”
Wednesday, 18 July 2007
Malawi takes measures to stop Rift Valley Fever spilling over from Tanzania
Malawi said on Wednesday that there were risks of having the Rift Valley Fever (RVF) enter the country from neighbouring Tanzania where the authorities have been struggling to stop RVF from spreading further for months.
RVF is a disease caused by a virus which can affect both animals and human beings, health officials said.
According to Secretary for Agriculture Patrick Kabambe, the RVF outbreak in Tanzania is currently progressing in the northern-southerly direction towards Malawi.
In order to strengthen preparedness and ensure adequate capacity to deal with the RVF, the Malawi government through its Department of Animal Health and Livestock Development has put in place preventive and control measures for the virus, Kabambe said.
Among the measures, Kabambe said importation of animals such as cattle, goats, sheep and pigs from infected countries, including Tanzania, has been suspended for now.
He added that the cited animals would not be allowed to move in or out of Karonga and Chitipa districts, which border southern Tanzania.
"Government will continue to intensify awareness campaigns, conduct disease surveillance and border patrols so as to keep the disease out of Malawi," the official said.
RVF can be transmitted from animals to humans through mosquitoes which are the major reservoir hosts.
Direct contact with infected animals and their meat is also another route for animal-human infections.
Malawi’s livestock officials learnt of the spreading RVF from their Tanzanian counterparts, according to agriculture ministry officials here.
RVF is a disease caused by a virus which can affect both animals and human beings, health officials said.
According to Secretary for Agriculture Patrick Kabambe, the RVF outbreak in Tanzania is currently progressing in the northern-southerly direction towards Malawi.
In order to strengthen preparedness and ensure adequate capacity to deal with the RVF, the Malawi government through its Department of Animal Health and Livestock Development has put in place preventive and control measures for the virus, Kabambe said.
Among the measures, Kabambe said importation of animals such as cattle, goats, sheep and pigs from infected countries, including Tanzania, has been suspended for now.
He added that the cited animals would not be allowed to move in or out of Karonga and Chitipa districts, which border southern Tanzania.
"Government will continue to intensify awareness campaigns, conduct disease surveillance and border patrols so as to keep the disease out of Malawi," the official said.
RVF can be transmitted from animals to humans through mosquitoes which are the major reservoir hosts.
Direct contact with infected animals and their meat is also another route for animal-human infections.
Malawi’s livestock officials learnt of the spreading RVF from their Tanzanian counterparts, according to agriculture ministry officials here.
WB pledges 65 million USD for Malawi's development projects
The World Bank and the Malawi government Tuesday entered into two agreements through which 65 million U.S. dollars will be spilled out towards the country's water supply and investment climate projects.
The agreements for the two projects were signed in the Malawi capital, Lilongwe, by the bank's Country Manager Timothy Gilbo and Malawi's Finance Minister, Goodall Gondwe.
The first project, for which the bank would provide 50 million dollars in grant and loan, would be improvement of water supply for Malawi's urban areas.
Gilbo said that through the project the bank envisaged that about 250,000 more people in Malawi would have access to clean and safe water.
The second project, the Business Environment Strengthening Technical Assistance Project (BESTAP), would be a grant to the tune of 15 million US dollars through which Malawi intends to accelerate investment climate reforms to accelerate private sector- led growth during the five years of implementation.
Gilbo said the BESTAP project was aimed at supporting the development of the private sector in Malawi as an engine for sustained economic growth.
"The foundations for economic growth have been laid in Malawi with improvements in the macro-economic situation, and this opportunity needs to be seized," he said.
The project has four components designed to strengthen property rights institutions, private sector support institutions, growth and development of Small and Medium Enterprises, and government capacity to implement reforms.
The agreements for the two projects were signed in the Malawi capital, Lilongwe, by the bank's Country Manager Timothy Gilbo and Malawi's Finance Minister, Goodall Gondwe.
The first project, for which the bank would provide 50 million dollars in grant and loan, would be improvement of water supply for Malawi's urban areas.
Gilbo said that through the project the bank envisaged that about 250,000 more people in Malawi would have access to clean and safe water.
The second project, the Business Environment Strengthening Technical Assistance Project (BESTAP), would be a grant to the tune of 15 million US dollars through which Malawi intends to accelerate investment climate reforms to accelerate private sector- led growth during the five years of implementation.
Gilbo said the BESTAP project was aimed at supporting the development of the private sector in Malawi as an engine for sustained economic growth.
"The foundations for economic growth have been laid in Malawi with improvements in the macro-economic situation, and this opportunity needs to be seized," he said.
The project has four components designed to strengthen property rights institutions, private sector support institutions, growth and development of Small and Medium Enterprises, and government capacity to implement reforms.
July 17: Malawi's culture
The Sentinel's Laura Brost joins 46 other volunteers from Central Florida who are spending 10 days in Malawi, Africa to help fight the AIDS pandemic. This is a blog post from her trip.
A few things I'm learning about the Malawi culture:
- It's a very formal and respectful culture -- everyone always looks their best, whatever that may be. They dress as a sign of respect for one another, not necessarily for themselves.
- They're very touch-oriented between female and female and male and male. Its normal to see two men or two women holding hands, for someone to hold your hand while they are speaking to you or for children to be touching and hugging us -- as they did today.
On the contrary, men and women are very separate -- you might be able to tell a man and women are married if they are standing only a foot apart from one another --because that's considered close. In groups, men usually sit separate from the women -- even our married couples that came with us here on the trip were instructed to not show signs of affection while here, as it would offend and be inappropriate.
- Dating is never talked about until the couple is actually engaged. Pregnancy is never even acknowledged (even at nine months) until the baby is actually born because Malawi has such a high infant mortality rate.
- To greet a person correctly, you shake hands, placing your left hand on the upper part of your own forearm at the same time, as a sign of being open with that person. "Muoli Buanji." Hello, how are you? Girls make a little curtsy and boys make a little head bow.
- In such a formal culture, bringing up HIV/AIS is a bit difficult. When pregnancy isn't even addressed until a baby is born, how do you talk about or encourage teenagers or even children to get tested for the virus? Especially when a lot of villages still believe you still only get the disease from being really promiscuous.
- Children of the Nations national staff as well as the Malawi government have worked to try to break those stereotypes and bring HIV into the light. Now that COTN has the ability to provide antiretroviral drugs to those who test positive, one of our group's main purposed of being here in Malawi is to convince these children and teens in this village to get tested. The main way will be through a big "celebration" on Saturday where we will have games, singing, educational talks and HIV testing.
A few things I'm learning about the Malawi culture:
- It's a very formal and respectful culture -- everyone always looks their best, whatever that may be. They dress as a sign of respect for one another, not necessarily for themselves.
- They're very touch-oriented between female and female and male and male. Its normal to see two men or two women holding hands, for someone to hold your hand while they are speaking to you or for children to be touching and hugging us -- as they did today.
On the contrary, men and women are very separate -- you might be able to tell a man and women are married if they are standing only a foot apart from one another --because that's considered close. In groups, men usually sit separate from the women -- even our married couples that came with us here on the trip were instructed to not show signs of affection while here, as it would offend and be inappropriate.
- Dating is never talked about until the couple is actually engaged. Pregnancy is never even acknowledged (even at nine months) until the baby is actually born because Malawi has such a high infant mortality rate.
- To greet a person correctly, you shake hands, placing your left hand on the upper part of your own forearm at the same time, as a sign of being open with that person. "Muoli Buanji." Hello, how are you? Girls make a little curtsy and boys make a little head bow.
- In such a formal culture, bringing up HIV/AIS is a bit difficult. When pregnancy isn't even addressed until a baby is born, how do you talk about or encourage teenagers or even children to get tested for the virus? Especially when a lot of villages still believe you still only get the disease from being really promiscuous.
- Children of the Nations national staff as well as the Malawi government have worked to try to break those stereotypes and bring HIV into the light. Now that COTN has the ability to provide antiretroviral drugs to those who test positive, one of our group's main purposed of being here in Malawi is to convince these children and teens in this village to get tested. The main way will be through a big "celebration" on Saturday where we will have games, singing, educational talks and HIV testing.
Mozambique, Malawi Boost Electricity Trade
The World Bank Board of Directors today approved two International Development Association (IDA) credits* totaling US$93 million for Malawi (US$48 million) and Mozambique (US$45 million) that will increase the availability and reliability of low cost, environmentally friendly electricity in the Southern Africa region, increasing industrial competitiveness and fostering economic growth.
As the second phase of the Southern African Power Market Program, the Mozambique-Malawi Transmission Interconnection Project will connect Malawi to the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), allowing two-way energy trade between the two countries. This will ensure much-needed diversification in Malawi’s electricity supply and allow the export of any off-peak power surpluses. It will also provide Mozambique’s energy sector with a new revenue source.
“The interconnection will allow Malawi to reap the full benefits of membership of the Southern African Power Pool, both to import electricity when necessary – particularly if there’s a drought – and also to export any surplus electricity Malawi doesn’t use at night-time,” said Wendy Hughes, World Bank Senior Energy Specialist and the project’s Task Team Leader.
For Mozambique, it will build approximately 135 km of 220 kV transmission line and extend the existing Matambo substation. On the Malawi side, approximately 75 km of 220 kV transmission line will be constructed and a new 220 kV substation will be installed.
The project will provide technical assistance, capacity building, training, and equipment necessary for the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) and Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) to strengthen and expand the networks to maximize the benefits of power trading. It will also help replace worn-out, inadequate, or obsolete equipment in order to remove critical bottlenecks in the networks that could impede the flow of traded electricity.
Southern AfricaPower Pool
The Southern Africa Region as a whole is entering a period of generation capacity shortage. At least 1,000 MW of additional capacity will be required each year to meet demand growth. Much of the new demand could be met through large, regional generation projects. Regional trade in electricity is expected to increase, highlighting the need to address transmission-related constraints.
In August 1995, Southern African Development Community member countries created the SAPP by concluding an Intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding and related agreements. The utilities of 12 Southern African countries were its original members. The main grid systems of Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe form the existing regional network. Angola, Malawi, and Tanzania are not yet connected. In February 2006, membership in the SAPP expanded to include private generation and transmission companies.
As the second phase of the Southern African Power Market Program, the Mozambique-Malawi Transmission Interconnection Project will connect Malawi to the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), allowing two-way energy trade between the two countries. This will ensure much-needed diversification in Malawi’s electricity supply and allow the export of any off-peak power surpluses. It will also provide Mozambique’s energy sector with a new revenue source.
“The interconnection will allow Malawi to reap the full benefits of membership of the Southern African Power Pool, both to import electricity when necessary – particularly if there’s a drought – and also to export any surplus electricity Malawi doesn’t use at night-time,” said Wendy Hughes, World Bank Senior Energy Specialist and the project’s Task Team Leader.
For Mozambique, it will build approximately 135 km of 220 kV transmission line and extend the existing Matambo substation. On the Malawi side, approximately 75 km of 220 kV transmission line will be constructed and a new 220 kV substation will be installed.
The project will provide technical assistance, capacity building, training, and equipment necessary for the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM) and Electricidade de Moçambique (EDM) to strengthen and expand the networks to maximize the benefits of power trading. It will also help replace worn-out, inadequate, or obsolete equipment in order to remove critical bottlenecks in the networks that could impede the flow of traded electricity.
Southern AfricaPower Pool
The Southern Africa Region as a whole is entering a period of generation capacity shortage. At least 1,000 MW of additional capacity will be required each year to meet demand growth. Much of the new demand could be met through large, regional generation projects. Regional trade in electricity is expected to increase, highlighting the need to address transmission-related constraints.
In August 1995, Southern African Development Community member countries created the SAPP by concluding an Intergovernmental Memorandum of Understanding and related agreements. The utilities of 12 Southern African countries were its original members. The main grid systems of Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe form the existing regional network. Angola, Malawi, and Tanzania are not yet connected. In February 2006, membership in the SAPP expanded to include private generation and transmission companies.
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