FIRST Discount House (FDH) capital raising initiative ahead of listing on the Malawi Stock Exchange is now on course as the institution has paid the US$1.5 million for the banking licence.
The Malawian Stock Exchange had told the discount firm it was not prudent to raise money without a banking licence.
FDH, where Kingdom Financial Holdings (KFHL) is the the largest shareholder with 40.16 percent, want to embark on an Initial Public Offering (IPO) to raise US$1.8 million to set up a merchant bank.
Thomson Mpinganjira, FDH chief executive officer told Standardbusiness last week the three shareholders of the discount house had paid for the licence but were waiting for approval from the regulatory authority.
"In so far as the capital for the bank, all three shareholders, KFHL, Old Mutual, and The Thomson Frank Mpinganjira Trust have paid their up their portion for the licence as of August 16, 2007 and await further communication from the Reserve Bank of Malawi," Mpinganjira said.
He said FDH had as of 23 August 2007 FDH satisfied all conditions stipulated by the Malawian Stock Exchange for listing of its shares and now awaits its decision.
FDH has three shareholders: KFHL (40.16%), Thomson Frank Mpinganjira Trust (39.84%) and Old Mutual (20%).
The listing on the bourse will reduce the shareholders' equity in the company to 28.11%; 27.89% and 14% for KFHL, TF Mpinganjira Trust and Old Mutual respectively with 30% taken up by the public.
At its 12 June board meeting FDH directors gave the nod for the discount house to list on the MSE.
The IPO would have run from 9 July to 3 August with listing slated for 13 August "all things being equal".
"We could have listed it at the end of July," said Nigel Chanakira FDH chairman, "but it was unfortunate that the MSE said it was not prudent to raise money before getting a banking licence."
FDH started operations in 2002 and controls over 50% of the market share ahead of its nine-year-old competitor, Continental Discount House..
It also has a stockbroking firm, FDH Stockbrokers and in April announced that it had mutually agreed to stop negotiations with Nedbank Malawi, which would have led to FDH taking over Nedbank.
Monday, 3 September 2007
Village in Africa uplifts AIDS orphans
I woke up with a gentle breeze and kind thoughts, then I read the morning headlines: "Hollywood Starlet Robbed in SoHo Penthouse, $13,000 Handbag and More Stolen." My mood was instantaneously befouled. Why does anyone need, want or aspire to possess a $13,000 handbag?
It is obscene, nauseating and a clear sign that we are a society approaching the tipping point of excess, after which we will be incapable of redemption.
Several years ago I returned to Malawi, the land of my Peace Corps experience. The country had changed little. It remains a nation plagued by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — war, famine, pestilence and death — with AIDS now wickedly superimposed.
I recall being in a village talking with a grandmother, old, frail and in poor health, who was struggling to care for 13 children — the children of her own children who had all fallen to AIDS. In Malawi, a country of 12 million, an estimated 17 percent of the sexually active population is HIV-positive.
The estimated number of orphans is 800,000.
Meet Mr. Sibale. Years ago, when the severity of AIDS was still underestimated by many, this Malawian vowed to act. He turned to friends, those who had experienced the warmth of his country during their Peace Corps days, and asked for help. From this, a unique partnership was born.
His creation, the Malawi Children's Village just celebrated its first decade of caring for children who lost their parents to AIDS.
Serving more than 3,200 orphans and vulnerable children in 37 villages, MCV is designed to prove that the traditional extended family is still alive in Malawi.
Instead of placing children in orphanages, relatives get the support they need to care for their own. In Africa, many mothers, especially those at the end their battle with AIDS, die in childbirth. Their children, weak and afflicted with HIV in about 30 percent of cases, are extremely vulnerable.
Sibale's first step was to open a nutritional rehabilitation center with full-time caretakers, plus food and medicine to restore these children to health and allow them to return to their villages when they're strong enough. To date, more than 200 infants are thriving back in their own extended families.
But, for Sibale's children, mere survival is not sufficient. MCV combines ongoing community AIDS education with a commitment to provide each orphan the education he or she needs to prosper into adult life. Younger children are provided clothes, books and pencils to attend one of Malawi's free primary schools. Upon completing primary school, the program traditionally provided each orphan the tuition to attend a boarding secondary school. Recently, recognizing the deterioration in education resulting from the loss of so many teachers to AIDS, MCV opened its own secondary school, Gracious Academy, providing quality secondary education to more than 400 students.
Sadly, in Africa the reality is that only one child in 10 who starts primary school will make it to secondary school. For the other 90 percent, MCV's vocational training provides orphans training in tailoring, computer technology, building trades, carpentry, irrigation and automobile mechanics.
In addition, income-generating innovations such as maize mills, fish farms and sewing projects have been the route by which MCV has helped villages to protect the well-being of their most vulnerable children.
In the end, one large community in Africa has ceased to view itself as helpless. Villagers there have discovered they can work together. And this is taking place in a setting where half of Sibale's children are Muslims and half are Christians. Equally impressive is that the cost of caring for an orphan at MCV is just below $28 a year. Divide that into the cost of a starlet's purse to see how many orphans it could support.
Denny, of Canandaigua, is a child psychiatrist, former Peace Corps volunteer and past president, Malawi Children's Village.
It is obscene, nauseating and a clear sign that we are a society approaching the tipping point of excess, after which we will be incapable of redemption.
Several years ago I returned to Malawi, the land of my Peace Corps experience. The country had changed little. It remains a nation plagued by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — war, famine, pestilence and death — with AIDS now wickedly superimposed.
I recall being in a village talking with a grandmother, old, frail and in poor health, who was struggling to care for 13 children — the children of her own children who had all fallen to AIDS. In Malawi, a country of 12 million, an estimated 17 percent of the sexually active population is HIV-positive.
The estimated number of orphans is 800,000.
Meet Mr. Sibale. Years ago, when the severity of AIDS was still underestimated by many, this Malawian vowed to act. He turned to friends, those who had experienced the warmth of his country during their Peace Corps days, and asked for help. From this, a unique partnership was born.
His creation, the Malawi Children's Village just celebrated its first decade of caring for children who lost their parents to AIDS.
Serving more than 3,200 orphans and vulnerable children in 37 villages, MCV is designed to prove that the traditional extended family is still alive in Malawi.
Instead of placing children in orphanages, relatives get the support they need to care for their own. In Africa, many mothers, especially those at the end their battle with AIDS, die in childbirth. Their children, weak and afflicted with HIV in about 30 percent of cases, are extremely vulnerable.
Sibale's first step was to open a nutritional rehabilitation center with full-time caretakers, plus food and medicine to restore these children to health and allow them to return to their villages when they're strong enough. To date, more than 200 infants are thriving back in their own extended families.
But, for Sibale's children, mere survival is not sufficient. MCV combines ongoing community AIDS education with a commitment to provide each orphan the education he or she needs to prosper into adult life. Younger children are provided clothes, books and pencils to attend one of Malawi's free primary schools. Upon completing primary school, the program traditionally provided each orphan the tuition to attend a boarding secondary school. Recently, recognizing the deterioration in education resulting from the loss of so many teachers to AIDS, MCV opened its own secondary school, Gracious Academy, providing quality secondary education to more than 400 students.
Sadly, in Africa the reality is that only one child in 10 who starts primary school will make it to secondary school. For the other 90 percent, MCV's vocational training provides orphans training in tailoring, computer technology, building trades, carpentry, irrigation and automobile mechanics.
In addition, income-generating innovations such as maize mills, fish farms and sewing projects have been the route by which MCV has helped villages to protect the well-being of their most vulnerable children.
In the end, one large community in Africa has ceased to view itself as helpless. Villagers there have discovered they can work together. And this is taking place in a setting where half of Sibale's children are Muslims and half are Christians. Equally impressive is that the cost of caring for an orphan at MCV is just below $28 a year. Divide that into the cost of a starlet's purse to see how many orphans it could support.
Denny, of Canandaigua, is a child psychiatrist, former Peace Corps volunteer and past president, Malawi Children's Village.
Mota Engil wins 123 mln eur Malawi uranium mine project
Mota Engil SGPS has won a project for building and exploring a 123 mln eur uranium mine in Malawi, Jornal de Negocios said, citing CEO Arnaldo Figueiredo.
Figueiredo said the contract for the most important part of the project, the exploration of the mine, is valued at 108 mln eur and that the company has won a contract for eight years from Australia's Paladin, the project owner, to be extended if the mine's potential permits it, Jornal de Negocios added.
According to the newspaper, the constructor has also presented a bid to build the project's support infra-structures, including lodgings, offices and warehouses, a project worth 22 mln eur and for which it expects to receive a response soon.
Figueiredo said the company's five-year presence in Malawi, where it has built roads and bridges, 'made the win possible', the newspaper added.
Figueiredo said the contract for the most important part of the project, the exploration of the mine, is valued at 108 mln eur and that the company has won a contract for eight years from Australia's Paladin, the project owner, to be extended if the mine's potential permits it, Jornal de Negocios added.
According to the newspaper, the constructor has also presented a bid to build the project's support infra-structures, including lodgings, offices and warehouses, a project worth 22 mln eur and for which it expects to receive a response soon.
Figueiredo said the company's five-year presence in Malawi, where it has built roads and bridges, 'made the win possible', the newspaper added.
Death and squalor still stalk maternity wards promised Scottish aid
THE babies, lying swaddled beside their mothers on the floor, are small and pale. Mattresses are stacked in the corridor and the windows are cracked. The midwives are on 24-hour shifts and look exhausted.
This is Bottom Hospital, now known as Bwaila Hospital. Two years ago, Jack McConnell paid a visit and was so shocked that he pledged money on the spot to help. The First Minister said the future of the hospital would be his number-one priority.
Mr McConnell may have succeeded in raising the profile of Malawi in Scotland; £6.6 million has been spent there and the new Executive has pledged a minimum of £3 million per annum to the country. Yet just £10,000 of direct funding from the Executive has gone to Bwaila. In 2005, it had four gynaecologists - now there are two.
Malawi still has the worst maternal mortality of any non- conflict country in the world. In Bwaila hospital, a mother dies every week - and as the central hospital in Malawi's capital Lilongwe, its record is better than the country's rural centres.
On a normal day at Bwaila, there are just three midwives on duty, one clinical officer and one doctor - for up to 40 births. If there are complications, there is just one theatre, and the woman who is waiting will lose her baby - or could die herself.
There is no pain relief in labour and sometimes not enough for post-Caesarean section patients. Women deliver their babies on beds covered in a plastic sheet and there are no towels or sanitary products. There are few cots so most babies lay beside their mothers. Those needing extra warmth are transferred to the "kangaroo care" unit, where the child is strapped to the mother's bare skin in the hope of survival.
To Dr Tarek Meguid, one of the two gynaecologists at Bwaila, it is an infringement of human rights to have women deliver in such conditions. "Most of my doctor friends in developed countries have never seen a maternal death in their lives," he says. "Here we see a woman die every week on average.This is an injustice to these women."
There is no doubt Scotland has helped alleviate the problems. As well as the £10,000 - to build a private area for HIV/AIDS counselling - £360,000 has been spent training more than 700 midwives across Malawi in life-saving techniques. Dr Meguid is grateful, but also a little frustrated at the speed with which governments can help: "They [the Scottish Executive] have 100,000 ideas from 100,000 people and do not know where to spend the money. This is a human-rights violation of unimaginable proportions."
In the end, it was the generosity of the people of Scotland and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter that gave overworked hospital staff the hope they needed to go on. Sir Tom paid a visit, and pledged a new hospital.
Following an appeal, supported by the Executive, the Scottish public raised more than £300,000, matched by the Clinton Hunter Foundation. A £770,000 hospital is set to be finished by the end of next year.
A Scottish charity also funds 24-hour anaesthetic cover for the hospital and fundraising is collecting money for a support centre for healthcare staff. But the healthcare crisis in Malawi is one of almost unimaginable proportions, with underlying problems that will take decades to fully address.
In one of his first speeches as PM, Gordon Brown said the crisis in countries like Malawi - which has 250 doctors to 12 million people - was one of the biggest challenges to meeting the G8 goals set in 2005. His government has pledged £70 million to Malawi in aid in the last year.
A large proportion of this is going into a long-term programme working with the Malawian government to improve the health service, including boosting nurses' salaries by 52 per cent and increasing training capacity by more than half.
The Executive is also helping healthcare training but it is the help of ordinary people that is really making the difference. Voluntary Services Overseas is recruiting volunteers from Scotland to help Malawi's health services and took The Scotsman around hospitals to see the scale of the problem.
Immediately, we found a mother mourning her dead child in the waiting room of Kamuzu Central Hospital. The seven-year-old boy died of malaria on the way to hospital; if he had made it 12 hours earlier, doctors could have saved him.
Malawi has just one doctor to 50,000 people, compared to one to 350 in the UK. In Kamuzu, the main hospital for Lilongwe, there are 20 doctors for 600 in-patients and about 300 outpatients daily. By comparison, in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, there are 800 doctors for an 827-bed facility with 260 outpatients daily.
At district and central hospitals around the country, we saw similar scenes. At Zomba mental hospital, we met the only psychiatrist in Malawi, who does his best to look after 200 patients with old anti-psychotic drugs and electroconvulsive therapy.
VSO volunteers work in all these hospitals, but while charities battle to get Scottish healthcare workers to go to Malawi, Malawian staff are going to Britain. The irony is not lost on Martha Mondiwa, acting registrar of the Nurses and Midwives Council of Malawi, who said the country has lost 700 nurses to the UK and other countries, a huge proportion in a country where just 2,000 nurses are educated to a senior level.
The Malawian government is desperately trying to train more nurses and is introducing a bond to keep them in the country. Mrs Mondiwa said nurses need much more money as well as support in housing and educating children: "The government needs to do something. Otherwise they will wake up tomorrow and find all the nurses are gone."
This is perhaps no surprise when wages are as low as £50 per month, even after the recent pay rise. Most nurses are forced to work 24-hour shifts, to support families which often include orphans and other dependents.
Back at Bwaila Hospital, midwife Loveness Chikalamo, 42, is into her second of three back-to-back, eight-hour shifts. She will be paid less than £3 per shift and on a wage of 20,000 kwacha or £70 a month, every penny counts. Like most nurses, she supports nieces and nephews as well as her own five children.
She is motivated by a clear sense of duty. "I would earn more in the UK," she said. "But who would look after all the women and children here?"
AGED 6, BUT SHE MAY NOT LIVE PAST 15
MERCY Mwale is six and hides her missing teeth behind a shy smile. She is a serious girl dressed in ragged clothes. She goes to nursery school, often walking the 20 minutes along a dirt track alone, and helps her grandmother with her chores, even though she sometimes has a bad cough.
Like one million children in Malawi, Mercy is an AIDS orphan. She is HIV positive and will be lucky to live to 15. Her grandmother, Olive Ngwira, 52, took in Mercy and her brother Mapopa, 12, after their parents died. It is a typical modern family unit in Malawi, where 14 per cent of the population is infected with the virus and there are 84,000 new orphans every year.
Ms Ngwira speaks of the loss of her children to the "new disease" in hushed tones, but clearly loves Mercy and Mapopa: "It is a privilege to have them. Whenever I come home, they run out to give me a hug."
Mercy tested positive at three after visiting a local health clinic with a bad case of shingles. She is now on antiretrovirals (ARVs), taking half a tablet twice a day. The medicine to help the immune system costs 50 kwacha or around 12p a month, a huge amount for Ms Ngwira and her husband, who barely survive on subsistence farming.
All over Malawi, families face a similar challenge as the AIDS pandemic takes its toll - yet things are improving. At Gleneagles in 2005, the G8 agreed the target of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010. Progress is being made, thanks in large part to the generosity of the Global Fund for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis supported by Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of software giant Microsoft.
The number of people tested in Malawi tripled from about 150,000 in 2002 to 440,000 in 2005, while the number starting on ARV treatment has increased from 4,000 in 2003 to 100,000 in June 2007. However, new infections are estimated at 90,000 per year and coupled with the shortage of nurses needed to give out ARVs, it will be a massive challenge to achieve the G8 goal.
There is also concern that the focus on HIV/AIDS and ARVs is taking staff and funding away from primary healthcare for preventable diseases.
Many argue a more sustainable way to tackle AIDS is giving sufferers the best possible quality of life through better healthcare and nutrition and providing support within communities.
'PEOPLE SAY YOU GO TO HOSPITAL TO DIE BECAUSE SO MANY DO NOT SURVIVE'
IN FOUR years as a midwife in London, Debbie Connor had never seen a woman die in child birth. In six months in Malawi, she has lost two patients. The 29-year-old, from Kilmarnock, came to Malawi to return to the basics after becoming disillusioned in Britain. She trains midwives in health centres which are often low on basics like gloves and aprons. "A lot of people believe you go to hospital to die because so many people do not survive," she says.
Debbie trains midwives in programmes aimed at giving children born to HIV-positive mothers a better chance of survival. Although the programme will ultimately end in more orphans, she is passionate it is a good thing.
"You can't sit there and say: 'I could do something to stop you dying, but I am not going to'," she says. The Malawian government has stepped up the number of midwives in college and Debbie admits the level of training is not very high - but if she can help just one midwife perform better it could save a number of lives in the future: "If one student does something right without being told, you think 'Wow'. It is whether it continues - we wait and see."
Carol Carson, 51, from Perthshire, was treating mostly diabetes in Scotland brought on by the excesses of the western world. In Malawi she is treating malnutrition, malaria and TB. She says nothing could have prepared her for the under-staffed hospitals she would see in her work as a nurse trainer in Malawi.
The pair are among 100-plus volunteers working for Voluntary Services Overseas in Malawi. With £100,000 funding from the Scottish Executive, NHS Scotland is the only healthcare service in the UK to keep jobs open and pension payments ongoing for nurses and doctors who volunteer with VSO. Over the next two years 20 volunteers will be sent out to Malawi under the scheme, but VSO want it to be extended.
This is Bottom Hospital, now known as Bwaila Hospital. Two years ago, Jack McConnell paid a visit and was so shocked that he pledged money on the spot to help. The First Minister said the future of the hospital would be his number-one priority.
Mr McConnell may have succeeded in raising the profile of Malawi in Scotland; £6.6 million has been spent there and the new Executive has pledged a minimum of £3 million per annum to the country. Yet just £10,000 of direct funding from the Executive has gone to Bwaila. In 2005, it had four gynaecologists - now there are two.
Malawi still has the worst maternal mortality of any non- conflict country in the world. In Bwaila hospital, a mother dies every week - and as the central hospital in Malawi's capital Lilongwe, its record is better than the country's rural centres.
On a normal day at Bwaila, there are just three midwives on duty, one clinical officer and one doctor - for up to 40 births. If there are complications, there is just one theatre, and the woman who is waiting will lose her baby - or could die herself.
There is no pain relief in labour and sometimes not enough for post-Caesarean section patients. Women deliver their babies on beds covered in a plastic sheet and there are no towels or sanitary products. There are few cots so most babies lay beside their mothers. Those needing extra warmth are transferred to the "kangaroo care" unit, where the child is strapped to the mother's bare skin in the hope of survival.
To Dr Tarek Meguid, one of the two gynaecologists at Bwaila, it is an infringement of human rights to have women deliver in such conditions. "Most of my doctor friends in developed countries have never seen a maternal death in their lives," he says. "Here we see a woman die every week on average.This is an injustice to these women."
There is no doubt Scotland has helped alleviate the problems. As well as the £10,000 - to build a private area for HIV/AIDS counselling - £360,000 has been spent training more than 700 midwives across Malawi in life-saving techniques. Dr Meguid is grateful, but also a little frustrated at the speed with which governments can help: "They [the Scottish Executive] have 100,000 ideas from 100,000 people and do not know where to spend the money. This is a human-rights violation of unimaginable proportions."
In the end, it was the generosity of the people of Scotland and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter that gave overworked hospital staff the hope they needed to go on. Sir Tom paid a visit, and pledged a new hospital.
Following an appeal, supported by the Executive, the Scottish public raised more than £300,000, matched by the Clinton Hunter Foundation. A £770,000 hospital is set to be finished by the end of next year.
A Scottish charity also funds 24-hour anaesthetic cover for the hospital and fundraising is collecting money for a support centre for healthcare staff. But the healthcare crisis in Malawi is one of almost unimaginable proportions, with underlying problems that will take decades to fully address.
In one of his first speeches as PM, Gordon Brown said the crisis in countries like Malawi - which has 250 doctors to 12 million people - was one of the biggest challenges to meeting the G8 goals set in 2005. His government has pledged £70 million to Malawi in aid in the last year.
A large proportion of this is going into a long-term programme working with the Malawian government to improve the health service, including boosting nurses' salaries by 52 per cent and increasing training capacity by more than half.
The Executive is also helping healthcare training but it is the help of ordinary people that is really making the difference. Voluntary Services Overseas is recruiting volunteers from Scotland to help Malawi's health services and took The Scotsman around hospitals to see the scale of the problem.
Immediately, we found a mother mourning her dead child in the waiting room of Kamuzu Central Hospital. The seven-year-old boy died of malaria on the way to hospital; if he had made it 12 hours earlier, doctors could have saved him.
Malawi has just one doctor to 50,000 people, compared to one to 350 in the UK. In Kamuzu, the main hospital for Lilongwe, there are 20 doctors for 600 in-patients and about 300 outpatients daily. By comparison, in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh, there are 800 doctors for an 827-bed facility with 260 outpatients daily.
At district and central hospitals around the country, we saw similar scenes. At Zomba mental hospital, we met the only psychiatrist in Malawi, who does his best to look after 200 patients with old anti-psychotic drugs and electroconvulsive therapy.
VSO volunteers work in all these hospitals, but while charities battle to get Scottish healthcare workers to go to Malawi, Malawian staff are going to Britain. The irony is not lost on Martha Mondiwa, acting registrar of the Nurses and Midwives Council of Malawi, who said the country has lost 700 nurses to the UK and other countries, a huge proportion in a country where just 2,000 nurses are educated to a senior level.
The Malawian government is desperately trying to train more nurses and is introducing a bond to keep them in the country. Mrs Mondiwa said nurses need much more money as well as support in housing and educating children: "The government needs to do something. Otherwise they will wake up tomorrow and find all the nurses are gone."
This is perhaps no surprise when wages are as low as £50 per month, even after the recent pay rise. Most nurses are forced to work 24-hour shifts, to support families which often include orphans and other dependents.
Back at Bwaila Hospital, midwife Loveness Chikalamo, 42, is into her second of three back-to-back, eight-hour shifts. She will be paid less than £3 per shift and on a wage of 20,000 kwacha or £70 a month, every penny counts. Like most nurses, she supports nieces and nephews as well as her own five children.
She is motivated by a clear sense of duty. "I would earn more in the UK," she said. "But who would look after all the women and children here?"
AGED 6, BUT SHE MAY NOT LIVE PAST 15
MERCY Mwale is six and hides her missing teeth behind a shy smile. She is a serious girl dressed in ragged clothes. She goes to nursery school, often walking the 20 minutes along a dirt track alone, and helps her grandmother with her chores, even though she sometimes has a bad cough.
Like one million children in Malawi, Mercy is an AIDS orphan. She is HIV positive and will be lucky to live to 15. Her grandmother, Olive Ngwira, 52, took in Mercy and her brother Mapopa, 12, after their parents died. It is a typical modern family unit in Malawi, where 14 per cent of the population is infected with the virus and there are 84,000 new orphans every year.
Ms Ngwira speaks of the loss of her children to the "new disease" in hushed tones, but clearly loves Mercy and Mapopa: "It is a privilege to have them. Whenever I come home, they run out to give me a hug."
Mercy tested positive at three after visiting a local health clinic with a bad case of shingles. She is now on antiretrovirals (ARVs), taking half a tablet twice a day. The medicine to help the immune system costs 50 kwacha or around 12p a month, a huge amount for Ms Ngwira and her husband, who barely survive on subsistence farming.
All over Malawi, families face a similar challenge as the AIDS pandemic takes its toll - yet things are improving. At Gleneagles in 2005, the G8 agreed the target of universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care by 2010. Progress is being made, thanks in large part to the generosity of the Global Fund for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis supported by Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of software giant Microsoft.
The number of people tested in Malawi tripled from about 150,000 in 2002 to 440,000 in 2005, while the number starting on ARV treatment has increased from 4,000 in 2003 to 100,000 in June 2007. However, new infections are estimated at 90,000 per year and coupled with the shortage of nurses needed to give out ARVs, it will be a massive challenge to achieve the G8 goal.
There is also concern that the focus on HIV/AIDS and ARVs is taking staff and funding away from primary healthcare for preventable diseases.
Many argue a more sustainable way to tackle AIDS is giving sufferers the best possible quality of life through better healthcare and nutrition and providing support within communities.
'PEOPLE SAY YOU GO TO HOSPITAL TO DIE BECAUSE SO MANY DO NOT SURVIVE'
IN FOUR years as a midwife in London, Debbie Connor had never seen a woman die in child birth. In six months in Malawi, she has lost two patients. The 29-year-old, from Kilmarnock, came to Malawi to return to the basics after becoming disillusioned in Britain. She trains midwives in health centres which are often low on basics like gloves and aprons. "A lot of people believe you go to hospital to die because so many people do not survive," she says.
Debbie trains midwives in programmes aimed at giving children born to HIV-positive mothers a better chance of survival. Although the programme will ultimately end in more orphans, she is passionate it is a good thing.
"You can't sit there and say: 'I could do something to stop you dying, but I am not going to'," she says. The Malawian government has stepped up the number of midwives in college and Debbie admits the level of training is not very high - but if she can help just one midwife perform better it could save a number of lives in the future: "If one student does something right without being told, you think 'Wow'. It is whether it continues - we wait and see."
Carol Carson, 51, from Perthshire, was treating mostly diabetes in Scotland brought on by the excesses of the western world. In Malawi she is treating malnutrition, malaria and TB. She says nothing could have prepared her for the under-staffed hospitals she would see in her work as a nurse trainer in Malawi.
The pair are among 100-plus volunteers working for Voluntary Services Overseas in Malawi. With £100,000 funding from the Scottish Executive, NHS Scotland is the only healthcare service in the UK to keep jobs open and pension payments ongoing for nurses and doctors who volunteer with VSO. Over the next two years 20 volunteers will be sent out to Malawi under the scheme, but VSO want it to be extended.
Malawi national soccer team coach complains about preparations
Malawi national soccer team coach Steve Constantine said while there is much talk and hype on the 2010 World Cup and Africa Nations Cup qualifiers, there is virtually nothing that has been done so far in preparing for the global showcase event.
Responding to a question on how he is planning for the qualifiers, the upfront coach took a long breath and said "I don't think we have really began preparations...we should have started preparations sometime back considering that the qualifiers are just around the corner.
"Preparation is not just saying 'we're preparing,' we have got to match words with action...we got to walk the talk," Constantine was quoted as saying by the website of The Nation newspaper of Malawi Saturday.
"To be honest with you, we are not doing as we should. There are other countries that are serious like Mozambique who were in Portugal, Zimbabwe were in Malaysia, Tanzania were in Denmark while the Flames have been idle here in Blantyre," he added.
Commenting on the recently announced format for both the 2010 World Cup and the Africa Nations Cup competitions which will run concurrently, as the 2006 tournament, Constantine said "it will be extremely tough for us in that unlike the 2006 qualifiers, which were not complicated, the 2010 campaign is very difficult especially considering that we have to go through two stages."
"So we'll have to match our plans with action and make use of the FIFA calendar days and play as many international friendlies as we can and not just talk. Already we have lost out on the first day on which we were supposed to play against either Mozambique or Kenya and that should give us plenty of food for thought."
Constantine also said that what is obvious is that in the first qualifying round, the Flames will find themselves in a group headed by any of the following giants of African football - Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Guinea, Ghana, Mali, Angola and Togo, according to the latest FIFA world rankings.
"One, therefore, hopes that we win our next matches to go up from the current position (30th in Africa) and move into the top 24 so that we will avoid being third rates, which would see us in a group that has Cote d'Ivoire and Zambia.
Constantine said that Malawi has not had proper junior structures and hence no players from the Under-17s, Under-20s and Under-23s are good enough to be called up into the senor team, saying the coaches will have to dig deep to come up with a strong squad for the 2010 qualifiers.
"I watched the World Youth Championships that were held in Canada a few months ago and I felt Nigeria and Zambia had very good squads of Under-20 players who would probably dominate their squads for 2010.
"Let's not forget that these two countries also have Under-23 sides that are good and will be the main targets when the qualifiers get underway next year.
"They have solid junior structures that make life very easy for their coaches and that explains why they do not have embarrassing slides on the FIFA world rankings as is the case with the Flames," said Constantine.
He said the challenge is now on him and the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) to see to it that structures are in place for the Flames to scale the two tough hurdles and be part of the equation in the 2010 Nations Cup finals in Angola and possibly the bigger one in South Africa.
On his part, FAM president Walter Nyamilandu admitted the Flames are indeed behind the schedule in preparing for the 2010 World Cup.
"But hopefully things will be on track very soon. The 2010 qualification format is more rigorous than the previous format in which teams like Togo and Angola were able to qualify even for the World Cup based on luck unlike this time around," said Nyamilandu.
"It will be the survival of the fittest and only the best teams will make it to both the World Cup and Nations Cup finals and the coach is right to say we should have started our preparations sometime back."
Responding to a question on how he is planning for the qualifiers, the upfront coach took a long breath and said "I don't think we have really began preparations...we should have started preparations sometime back considering that the qualifiers are just around the corner.
"Preparation is not just saying 'we're preparing,' we have got to match words with action...we got to walk the talk," Constantine was quoted as saying by the website of The Nation newspaper of Malawi Saturday.
"To be honest with you, we are not doing as we should. There are other countries that are serious like Mozambique who were in Portugal, Zimbabwe were in Malaysia, Tanzania were in Denmark while the Flames have been idle here in Blantyre," he added.
Commenting on the recently announced format for both the 2010 World Cup and the Africa Nations Cup competitions which will run concurrently, as the 2006 tournament, Constantine said "it will be extremely tough for us in that unlike the 2006 qualifiers, which were not complicated, the 2010 campaign is very difficult especially considering that we have to go through two stages."
"So we'll have to match our plans with action and make use of the FIFA calendar days and play as many international friendlies as we can and not just talk. Already we have lost out on the first day on which we were supposed to play against either Mozambique or Kenya and that should give us plenty of food for thought."
Constantine also said that what is obvious is that in the first qualifying round, the Flames will find themselves in a group headed by any of the following giants of African football - Nigeria, Egypt, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia, Guinea, Ghana, Mali, Angola and Togo, according to the latest FIFA world rankings.
"One, therefore, hopes that we win our next matches to go up from the current position (30th in Africa) and move into the top 24 so that we will avoid being third rates, which would see us in a group that has Cote d'Ivoire and Zambia.
Constantine said that Malawi has not had proper junior structures and hence no players from the Under-17s, Under-20s and Under-23s are good enough to be called up into the senor team, saying the coaches will have to dig deep to come up with a strong squad for the 2010 qualifiers.
"I watched the World Youth Championships that were held in Canada a few months ago and I felt Nigeria and Zambia had very good squads of Under-20 players who would probably dominate their squads for 2010.
"Let's not forget that these two countries also have Under-23 sides that are good and will be the main targets when the qualifiers get underway next year.
"They have solid junior structures that make life very easy for their coaches and that explains why they do not have embarrassing slides on the FIFA world rankings as is the case with the Flames," said Constantine.
He said the challenge is now on him and the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) to see to it that structures are in place for the Flames to scale the two tough hurdles and be part of the equation in the 2010 Nations Cup finals in Angola and possibly the bigger one in South Africa.
On his part, FAM president Walter Nyamilandu admitted the Flames are indeed behind the schedule in preparing for the 2010 World Cup.
"But hopefully things will be on track very soon. The 2010 qualification format is more rigorous than the previous format in which teams like Togo and Angola were able to qualify even for the World Cup based on luck unlike this time around," said Nyamilandu.
"It will be the survival of the fittest and only the best teams will make it to both the World Cup and Nations Cup finals and the coach is right to say we should have started our preparations sometime back."
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