DaimlerChrysler Opens Training Center in Malawi

DaimlerChrysler opened a training center for vocational training of motor vehicle mechatronics in , today. The ceremony was attended by representatives of DaimlerChrysler and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), the Minister of Labour and Vocational Training, Anna Kachikho, the Minister for Trade and Private Sector Development, Dr. Ken Lipenga, and other high-ranking political and business representatives.

The state-approved is a public-private partnership project resulting from cooperation with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GTZ). With this new training location in the heart of , DaimlerChrysler is pursuing several objectives simultaneously. “Firstly, through the present vocational training location we want to ensure that the vehicles we sell in the region can also be professionally serviced and repaired in the long term”, explained Oskar Heer, who is responsible for Labour Relations at DaimlerChrysler. “Secondly”, continued Heer, “we are of course also happy that the challenging vocational training can do something positive for the people and the economy in on a sustained basis.”

The in is the region’s first training center for skilled vehicle maintenance and service staff in line with the European model. Each year, the center provides 16 young persons with training as motor vehicle mechatronic professionals. The two-year apprenticeship, which requires a completed course of basic education, is strongly aligned to German training contents. “Together with our partners we have set up a modern training workshop, including the current diagnosis equipment, as well as training rooms with computer stations”, explains Tich Robb, Managing Director at Stansfield Motors, the general distributor in for Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
For the first three years, the practical and theoretical content of the training will come from a German instructor. Parallel to the motor vehicle mechatronics, the German instructor will also train two instructors who will later assume the training in and continue it independently.

The location will serve as a center for vocational training and further education for the general distributors in Malawi, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The framework conditions in these countries are almost identical. There is a shortage of qualified service staff for vehicle maintenance. Consequently, the availability of skilled workers is also a decisive factor for the economic development in these African countries: “The more quickly we can reduce the massive shortage of skilled workers in the motor vehicle branch, the more rapidly we will be able to expand the infrastructure, and improve the mobility”, said Malawi Minister of Labour and Vocational Training, Anna Kachikho. “We are very grateful that DaimlerChrysler and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit are supporting us in these tasks, enabling the qualification of skilled workers”, continued Kachikho.

After completing their apprenticeship at the , the graduates will repair vehicles of the Mercedes-Benz brand, as well as cars and trucks by other manufacturers. An element of the cooperation with the GTZ includes training that goes beyond company requirements. “What is important for us is that the entire automobile branch in and the adjacent countries benefit from this training program,” commented Dr. Wilfried Goertler from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit. “ The DaimlerChrysler commitment enables us to build and maintain high quality training centres on a long-term basis. The cost-intensive repairs and maintenance of the sophisticated technical equipment could hardly be financed through government funds alone. The public-private partnership project creates a win-win situation, from which both government and private enterprise can benefit“, continued Görtler. GTZ is regularly commissioned for realisation of PPP projects by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

DaimlerChrysler wants to go one step further. In order to secure servicing and repairing vehicles from the DaimlerChrysler Group in and to improve the level of training, DaimlerChrysler wants to develop a network of training centers in in the long term. Here the Group will continue the successful cooperation with the GTZ and is also targeting an alliance with other automobile manufacturers. The DaimlerChrysler Group operates other training centers for motor vehicle skilled staff in Africa: in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

Paladin Resources denies corruption on Kayelekera uranium project

Paladin Resources Kayelekera uranium project has generated some vociferous local opposition. The latest tactic to try to embarrass the uranium mine developer and the Malawi government are allegations of corruption which the miner and government both strongly deny.

Uranium miner Paladin Resources Inc. (TSX, ASX:PDN) has denied corruption allegations levelled against it by the press that it gave some top government officials kick-backs in order that they fast-track the issuing of mining license for its Kayelekera uranium project.

An anti-government on-line publication, Nyasa Times carried a story on Tuesday, that Paladin gave Minister of Mines and Natural Resources Henry Chimunthu Banda 18 fuel tankers. The paper alleged that the company has given Banda a contract to supply fuel at the mine without calling for any tenders. Fifteen percent of the proceeds from the fuel contract, the paper alleged will be pocketed by the country's President Bingu wa Mutharika.

In addition, the publication alleged that the miner gave another government official - deputy Minister of Water Development Frank Mwenefumbo a contract to supply lime. This contract also was not tendered and was, so the paper alleges, to grease the palms of the official to support the project.

But in an interview with Mineweb from Australia, Paladin Resources legal counsel Michael Blakistone who has been involved in all negotiations between Paladin and host governments on the company's uranium projects denied signing any contracts with government officials, in particular, on the Kayelekera uranium project.

Blakistone said the policy of his company does not allow the awarding of contracts to individuals or organizations before they are tendered. He said it was not true that his company gave the Minister of Mines 18 tankers meant for the supply of fuel at
Kayelekera.

"We are currently scrutinizing tenders from two multi-national oil companies to supply oil to the Kayelekera project," said Blakistone. "We will not need fuel tankers from anyone. Once we finish scrutinizing the tenders we will announce who will supply fuel to the mine."

He added that his company has not yet awarded a contract for the supply of lime because it does not need the commodity yet.

"It is disappointing that people are making these appalling allegations when Malawi needs development. Our dealings with the Malawi government have been totally transparent because we believe in good governance and transparency.

"However such allegations will not deter us from developing the Kayelekera Uranium mine because whatever we are doing is honest and straightforward and we have been dealing with people who are straightforward from the Malawi side, everything was in good faith," he said.

Recently there have been other allegations of underhand activities between the Malawi government and Paladin. During the recently ended Parliament session, the opposition alleged in the National Assembly that Paladin gave fifteen percent equity in its Kayelekera project to a high ranking official and not the government as alluded to in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) the two parties signed.

However this was rebutted by Mines Minister Chimunthu Banda. The Minister assured Members of Parliament that it was the Malawi government which holds a 15 percent stake in the company and not an individual as alleged by the opposition MPs in the House.

Paladin's Malawi project has generated strong opposition. Some civil society organizations in the country have dragged it and the government to court for supposedly flouting procedures in handling uranium mining. The civil society organizations accuse Paladin of only highlighting the economic benefits of mining uranium and neglecting the dangers that are associated with the same in its EIA report.

But despite the controversies dogging the project, Paladin insists it will commission the mine in the third quarter of 2008. And towards making good this promise, the company awarded the engineering, procurement and construction-management (EPCM) contract to Johannesburg based mining and minerals engineering firm - Engineering and Projects Company (E&PC), part of the Aveng Group - as the Project Engineers last month.

‘White gold’ flows

AfricaNews - As some of South Africa’s dairy cows are now being taken to the abattoirs and some being cross bred into beef herds, in Malawi a dairy cow has become a golden animal that has catapulted smallholder farmers out of poverty.

The growth of the smallholder dairy sector has resulted in high demand for dairy cows which the country’s breeding capacity is failing to meet.

With a total cattle herd of 800 000, Malawi the world’s fourth poorest country, has only 20 000 dairy cattle resulting in the country’s four main processors failing to reach half of their production capacity. This has resulted in close to 50% of the country’s dairy products requirements being imported.

The country has an undersupplied local market, underutilised milk collection, cooling and processing capacity that has now been receiving support from private sector, government and donor community in a move that will see Malawi becoming Southern Africa’s milk hub.

According to Land O’Lakes country director, Gretchen Villegas, the success behind the dairy industry in Malawi is based on the 1999 establishment of the Malawi Dairy Development Programme (MDDP) aimed at increasing rural incomes through supporting the smallholder dairy farming sector.

Villegas says this goal was achieved through farmers managing high productivity small enterprises, and the improvement in their product quality making use of locally available resources and feed as supplements.

“MDDP was born out of a dairy sector assessment which we took in 1998. During the assessment we found deficient industry support services such as AI, dairy extension, animal health care within the smallholder sector. This saw the extension and professional management of the Milk Bulking Groups (MBGs) which saw farmers sharing a common milk collection and cooling centre,” she says.

MDDP was extended to June 2006 and was set up in three phases with a USAID support of US$9,2 million.
Villegas says her organisation together with the farmers set up a Heifer Loan Scheme which saw farmers increasing their access to high grade dairy animals, quality supplemental feed rations, mineral vitamin supplements as well as access to and availability of affordable high quality veterinary pharmaceuticals.

“The loan scheme was modelled on the Heifer International’s ‘passing on the gift’ model which is based on sharing and caring spirituality.

“This concept requires a family who receives an animal to pass on the first female off-spring to another family in need who is also require to pass on to the next,” she says.

Land O’Lakes has since moved this model a step further from being spirituality to commercialisation which requires a heifer recipient to pay an initial contribution as commitment and ownership.

According to Villegas the heifer loan scheme has five revolving loan products. “We have the heifer in kind loan for passing on the gift, dead cow fund for replacing a dead project cow, veterinary drug fund for increasing farmers’ access priority veterinary drugs for disease control.

“We also have the supplementary feeds fund for increasing farmers’ access to supplemental feeds such as dairy mash, concentrates, cane molasses, mineral supplements in order to increase milk yield. And the AI fund for the farmers to access improved genetics AI services” she says.

Each cow loan recipient signs a contract with the project stipulating terms and conditions of the loan and also writes a will to specify the heir in the event o death so that the cow does not go to wrong hands Villegas says.

This saw Land O’Lakes distributing 426 heifers to nine communities which have produced 238 calves. The collative number of calves born from improved semen increased from 191 in 2001 to 7 103 and there is room for expansion with local Zebu crosses.

“By 2006, more 7 500 farmers were members of MBGs an increase from 1 019 in 2001, with the number of MBGs with 10 or more cows growing from 16 to 57. Milk production went up from 1,3 million litres per year to 6,643 million.
“Adoption of best practices, productive enhancing technologies saw the average milk yield per cow increasing from 8 litres per cow per day to 21,2 litres per cow per day during the same period,” she says.

The value of milk marketed by MBGs increased from US$347 000 in 2001 to US$1,409 140 last year.
Brown Chiphazi Mwale, chairman general of the Central Region Milk Producers’ Association says the project has taught them to focus much on fertility and look at a dairy cow has a milk producer and at the same time have a calf every year at the lowest cost.

Mwale says with the technical, material and financial support from Land O’Lakes they are now aiming at professional commercial production. “We have started ensuring bio security by concentrating on quality and sustainable production, creating a support system that will maintain productivity and future expansion,” Mwale says.

Access to capital, expertise, proper training and sound managerial skills has been the yard stick that they are using to measure their success. “Most of our members who used to rely on subsistence agriculture are now having money to build modern houses, send children to school, open bank accounts and have three meals a day,” he says.

This success recorded by the project has seen the project receiving significant support from other partners.

The Opportunity International Bank of Malawi has approved dairy loans amounting to MK6 million (about US$43 000) for the purchase of cooling tanks. Plan International awarded Land O’Lakes a grant of US$55 035 in January 2005 to implement a pilot dairy project in one of its project areas.

Several other NGOs and donor organisations have also chipped in with animal donations, semen and AI equipment.
Wilson Lipita, director for the department of animal health and livestock development in the ministry of agriculture, irrigation and food security says after realising the potential dairy farming can have in the country the government started restocking its dairy farms some three years ago crossbreeding Malawian Zebu with Friesian sires to respond to the demand and may start selling heifers from this year.

20,000 Malawi children get free AIDS drugs: official

AIDS-ravaged Malawi is helping up to 20,000 children with free drugs, a top government official said Wednesday.

"Close to 20,000 children are now receiving treatment," Mary Shaba, permanent secretary for HIV/AIDS and nutrition in the president's office, told AFP.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says up to 50,000 children in the impoverished southern African country are in need of anti-retroviral therapy (ART).

According to Shaba, official reports show that 26-30,000 children a year have been infected with HIV since 2004, mainly through mother-to-child transmission.

"These are reports of children we have been getting since 2004 ... not all children need treatment now, but the government is serious now to reverse the situation and we have intensified the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV," she said.

She said government now had 144 delivery and service centres, up from 36 in 2004, throughout the nation's 28-districts to help stem transmission.

"We are getting dividends...we should be getting a different situation within one to two years," she added.

In 2005, UNICEF estimated there were some 83,000 children living with HIV, while close to a million children had been orphaned by AIDS.

The pandemic has cut life expectancy to 36 in Malawi, where some 14 percent of the country's 12 million population are infected with HIV, which claims the lives of some 80,000 people a year.

A free ARt programme launched in 2004 now provides some 110,000 adults with treatment.

Out of Africa

Sykes raising money for education in Malawi

Jeff Sykes knows how to stretch a dollar. He totes it to another continent and converts it to 140 kwatchas — the monetary unit of the world’s poorest nation.

The exuberant educator returned to his parents’ Havelock home last month from the African nation of Malawi, where he trains teachers at the Domasi College of Education on an international fellowship. He’s recounting his experiences and asking for donations — $32 will pay a child’s school fees for an entire year, he explains.

“We’re going to send another 25 kids to school,” he said, thanking the Havelock-Cherry Point Rotary Club for a recent contribution. “That’s not going to change the world, but it’s going to make a difference.”

Making a difference is exactly what Sykes set out to do. The Havelock High School graduate earned his bachelor’s in secondary English education from East Carolina University and taught Native American children in North Carolina and New Mexico for 13 years before accepting a fellowship to teach in Africa.

“I’ve always had the goal in mind to teach overseas — especially in Africa,” he said. “I felt directed to teach on the reservations and tribal schools to get an understanding of how cultural identity and academic achievement relate.”

Sykes toured Ghana with the National Endowment for the Humanities and accepted a teaching fellowship with the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help, or IFESH. In January, he arrived in Malawi, a nation marred by poverty and ravaged by HIV/AIDS.

‘Backbone of the culture’

Of the Western world’s various exports to Malawi, gender equality isn’t among them. Sykes explained that Malawan women are subservient to their husbands and fathers in this male-dominated culture, noting that women and girls perform nearly all domestic work and usually aren’t given the chance to attend school.

Girls are tasked with walking from their families’ homes to a borehole, or community well, and retrieving water with galvanized plastic buckets they carry on their heads, he said. They form a long line from 5 to 7 a.m., and the ritual is repeated from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Malawan villages Sykes has observed.

“Women really are the backbone of the culture and the backbone of the community,” he said. “You might say they are underserved, but they are still what’s holding that community together. They’re responsible for most of the work in the family. They’re such strong, beautiful women.”

Sykes said the culture is unlikely to change quickly, but more girls are now able to attend school. He ensures that the donations he receives for school fees will be used to educate girls as well as boys.

Life in Malawi

Native Malawans are black, and the majority are Christian, but Sykes said there is a growing merchant class of Middle Eastern people who brought Islam to the country of 13 million.

“It’s a very religious community,” he said. “One of the first questions everyone will ask in Malawi is, ‘Where do you go to church?’”

He said Christianity and Islam “coexist without turbulence, without friction and without competition,” with mosques sprouting up in more and more Malawan villages.

The native language is Chachewa, and Sykes said about 20 percent of Malawans — the educated class — are proficient in English. In Malawan primary schools, the curriculum is taught in Chachewa until third grade, and students who advance will learn English.

Communities are organized in small villages of several hundred people, and Sykes noted they “seem to be spaced out about five or so miles.”

Sykes said the climate is usually hot, with warm weather 80 percent of the year and a rainy season during the remaining 20 percent. During the rainy season, temperatures can be brisk, and snow forms in the mountains and higher elevations.

“I was very surprised to find out that it gets cold in Malawi,” he said. “I was not prepared for that.”

Poverty and unemployment

Most Malawans live on less than $1 a day, Sykes said, due to the high unemployment rate and difficult nature of daily life in the villages.

“There is not a lot of laziness,” he said. “Malawans want to work, but there is a lack of jobs, a lack of industry. There’s a lot of unemployment, but there are a lot of people who are just working on day-to-day living — getting the water, getting the food, going back and forth to the market.”

Agriculture is the top industry in Malawi, he explained, with many families growing corn and other crops on small subsistence farms.

Most Malawans walk or ride bicycles, while those with more money can afford fare to ride the minibus. Sykes said only the wealthiest Malawans can afford a motorcycle or car.

“There’s a constant flow of people walking to and from the market on the side of the road,” he said. “People can work their whole life in a whole variety of jobs and they’ll never afford a car. They’ll never come close.”

Sykes said about 80 percent of people in Malawi walk barefoot because they can’t afford shoes.

A devastating disease

About one in three people in Malawi have the human immunodeficiency virus or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, which results from the virus. Sykes said 55 percent of those with HIV or AIDS are women.

Half of Malawi’s 13 million people are under the age of 14 due to the low life expectancy, which has dropped about one year every year since 2002. A child born in Malawi today will live an average of 37.8 years, Sykes said.

“I’m 37 years old today, and I still feel like a young man,” he said.

Most Malawans can’t afford the antiretroviral medication to treat HIV, which is available for 500 kwatcha, or about $3.60, per month, he said.

“If you have access to the drugs, HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence,” Sykes explained. “You can still go on.”

One man’s mission

Sykes’ parents, Marion and Gwen Sykes, have opened a bank account for contributions to Malawi that will be used to pay children’s school fees and buy HIV/AIDS medication for those afflicted with the disease.

He pledges to give 100 percent of all contributions to Malawan causes.

“There are no administrative fees,” he said. “There is no director. It’s going to go to individuals in Malawi. For a very small amount, you can make a world of difference for someone else.”

Local groups have offered their support, with the Havelock-Cherry Point Rotary sponsoring about 25 students and the Havelock Civitan Club contributing nearly $1,000 split between a club contribution and donations from individual members.

Craven Community College is collecting books to send to Malawi for use at Domasi College where Sykes teaches.

The global-minded educator isn’t affiliated with a nonprofit group or nongovernmental organization, but he promises that he will account for every dollar — and every kwatcha — he receives for his work in Malawi.

“As of right now, I’m not a nonprofit. I’m not an NGO. My name is Jeff Sykes,” he said. “I will give you a report, and I will let you know how the money you donate is spent. That’s my responsibility.”

Mission to Malawi

The Football Association has sent a team of coaches to Lesotho and Malawi to deliver an intense 10-day coaching workshop, aimed at preparing up to 50 students to take The FA’s International Coaching Licence Course in the future.
The FA’s Geoff Pike and Chris Dowhan will be leading the course in Lesotho while Andy Foster and Chris Whalley will work alongside Malawi’s national team coach Stephen Constantine, who took the job in Africa after a stint at League One side Millwall.

The students will be taken through a mixture of Level 2 and Level 3 coaching and theory sessions, aimed at improving the overall standard of coaching in both countries.

Pike and Dowhan will be assisted by two participants who attended this year’s International Coaching Licence Course at Lilleshall with a view to the principle of cascading coaching being established in Lesotho, one of The FA’s partners in the UEFA-CAF Meridian Project.

In Malawi, Constantine – who holds the UEFA ‘Pro’ Licence and is an FA Coach Educator and FIFA Coach Instructor - is well placed to join Foster and Whalley in the delivery of the coaching sessions.

Both countries are looking to improve their coaching infrastructures to enable them to develop their grassroots programmes as well as to have quality coaching for their elite teams which will be aiming to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The FA has shown consistent support to Malawi and Lesotho under the auspices of the UEFA-CAF Meridian Project, providing the southern Africa nations with coaching, administration and refereeing courses in addition to kit donations and other resources.

“The FA has been a major source of support for the Football Association of Malawi and I for one am grateful for their assistance in developing football here,” said Constantine.

“I hope this course will enable me to identify coaches who show genuine promise and ability so that we can begin to put in place a long-term plan for the development of the grassroots game throughout Malawi.

“It is a small step towards what I hope will become an impressive picture of Malawian football in the future.”

HIV creates TB crisis

When the first cases of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) were reported in South Africa in 2006, the World Health Organisation (WHO) urged other countries in the region to improve their laboratory capacity and implement infection control measures, but Malawi still cannot test for the virtually untreatable TB strain.

Multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) strains cannot be treated by at least two of the main first-line TB drugs, while XDR-TB is resistant to most first and second-line drugs, severely limiting treatment options.

Patients usually develop MDR-TB as a result of not completing treatment for an earlier bout of TB. Failure to complete lengthy MDR-TB treatment creates the risk of developing XDR-TB.

In 2006, at the height of fears that XDR-TB would spread to Malawi, health and population minister Marjolie Ngaunje told the nation that according to surveillance done by the WHO there was no evidence that any extremely resistant strains had reached the country. She added that XDR-TB still posed a threat to Malawi because of its relatively close proximity to South Africa.

Henry Chimbali, a spokesperson for the National TB Control Programme, explained that Malawi could not test for XDR-TB because it lacked the anti XDR-TB drugs needed to test cultures (samples of TB bacteria cultivated in a special liquid). He added, however, that testing of cultures from patients with recurring TB was routine and would alert them to the emergence of drug-resistant strains.

The Central Reference Laboratory in the capital, Lilongwe, which coordinates all TB testing, reported that between 1995 and 2005, there were 71 MDR-TB cases in a total of 95,116 TB patients. Malawi currently has 15 MDR-TB patients undergoing treatment that can take up to two years.

Ngaunje pointed out that Malawi was in a strong position to avoid an XDR-TB outbreak because guidelines for treatment of the disease were being adhered to, with only about four percent of patients failing to complete their six-month course of first-line TB treatment.

Co-infection challenge

While MDR-TB cases remain rare, poverty and a 14.4 percent HIV prevalence have increased the incidence of TB in Malawi to about 27,000 diagnosed cases a year. According to the National TB Control Programme, the disease is now the biggest single cause of adult illness and death, killing about 22 people a day and 8,000 annually. In March 2007, the Malawian government declared TB a national emergency and a number of strategies were put in place.

"Health workers are on high alert to pick up all suspected TB patients at the earliest time possible. Community awareness campaigns have been intensified, and we are opening up more diagnosis and treatment centres with the aim of improving the accessibility of these services," said Dr Ibrahim Idana, deputy director of the National TB Control Programme.

People with immune systems compromised by HIV are 50 times more likely to develop active TB, but the sputum tests most commonly used to detect TB often fail to recognise it in HIV-infected patients.

Idana said only about 30 percent of TB cases in Malawi were diagnosed using sputum tests. Health workers have to rely on other screening tools such as x-rays and biopsies for the 40 percent of TB patients who are sputum-negative, and the 23 percent who have TB in other organs besides the lungs. For TB patients who were on treatment before and are experiencing new episodes of the disease, culture samples are sent to the Central Reference Laboratory in Lilongwe to check for drug resistance, Idana told IRIN/PlusNews.

Despite the obvious links between HIV infection and TB, in most cases, co-infected patients still have to attend two seperate clinics to access treatment. Adamson Muula, a lecturer in community health at the College of Medicine in Blantyre, Malawi's commercial capital, explained that while TB clinics could be manned by health surveillance assistants (Malawi's lowest qualified cadre of health workers), HIV clinics had to be manned by a clinical officer or doctor. "There are few clinical officers and medical doctors to provide both TB drugs and ARVs [antiretroviral drugs], compelling patients to attend two clinics," he said.

Treatment under one roof

At Chiradzulu district hospital, about 40km outside Blantyre, the government, in collaboration with international medical relief organisation, Medecins San Frontieres (MSF), is providing medical services to scores of TB and HIV patients from surrounding districts. Some even come from urban Blantyre, where the shortage of health workers at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Malawi's largest infirmary, has limited capacity.

MSF provides human resource support and equipment to existing government programmes aimed at TB and HIV prevention and treatment. "Our collaborated efforts have helped TB patients who are also HIV positive to get all the treatment they need at one site," said Gerald Zomba of MSF France.

Chiradzulu has a 40-bed in-patient facility in the TB ward, but so far only two cases of MDR-TB have been identified, according to Zomba. Last year, the programme achieved a 78 percent treatment success rate, not far behind the target of 85 percent recommended by the WHO.

Similar programmes are being put in place at Blantyre's Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, at Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, and several other district hospitals around the country.

Chimbali, of the National TB Control Programme, said the HIV/AIDS Unit in the Ministry of Health was working with his organisation to ensure the success of joint TB/HIV programmes. All patients diagnosed with TB were encouraged to test for HIV.

However, "Most TB patients who are also HIV positive have problems accessing ART [antiretroviral therapy], just as is the case with TB patients having problems accessing counselling and testing services [for HIV infection]," he said.

Health workers also ran the risk of becoming infected with TB in spite of precautionary measures taken while treating patients. A nurse at a TB clinic in Blantyre said it was easy to become infected. "It's a challenge that government has to look into," she said.

Muula said limited resources and a lack of pressure from health workers to push authorities to provide safer working environments was jeopardising their health. "There is evidence from the Ministry of Health's own reports that health workers have a high incidence of TB."

Small People Big Ideas

Up on the Thyolo Escarpments in southern Malawi in a nondescript area that would not earn itself as a tourist attraction area, is Samson Village where the Manthimba Irrigation Project is being implemented.

Sandwiched between hills and rivers, Samson Village two years ago would appear like any other ordinary village, where the sound of a car would attract throngs of children. The elderly would stop their daily chores to catch a glimpse or gaze in amazement at the passing vehicle.

With its high population density and small cultivatable land, many in Samson Village faced starvation. As a result, most of the men migrated to the lower lying areas along the Shire River in Chikwawa District or to the metropolitan City of Blantyre some 70km away in search of a means of livelihood. The women, the elderly and children were left behind to cultivate the unyielding land.

Today, the story is different. This ordinary village with its extraordinary people has earned itself national recognition through its irrigation project, funded by the World Bank through the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) Public Works Programme. People are thronging to this remote village to see how people’s ideas when nurtured and their efforts harnessed, can turn fortunes around.

The Manthimba Irrigation Project is the brainchild of Charles Mkwapatira, a grade school dropout, who was pushed to the edge by poverty and hunger.

One day, in the year 2001, Mkwapatira woke up and thought he would do something about the perpetual starvation in his family. Picking up a hoe, a panga and a watering can he headed for a small patch of land that he owned on the banks of Mapelera River, a perennial river flowing through the village. Using his hoe, he dug a canal out of a pool and diverted water from the river into his garden. He then cleared the small patch of land with his panga and started watering the garden with his watering can. Unknown to him, that day marked the beginning of an era for Samson village.

In an area where people laze out most of the year, lying in the shelter of their mud huts during the day and dancing lopoto in the evenings, a man working in a garden in summer would attract attention. Within a short period, Mkwapatira was the subject of gossip and fireside stories in the village and beyond. Some thought he had gone mad. A few, however, went to see what Mkwapatira was up to and were convinced into trying irrigation as a solution to their hunger.

“At first, there was only one irrigation canal which I had constructed to divert water to my one hectare garden in 2001. One afternoon in 2002, my friend Richard Gelevulo, and I were listening to the then Minister of Agriculture as he extolled the virtues of irrigation farming. At this time we were walking along Mapelera River and we started wondering if we could not apply the idea, which in any case, I had already started on a modest scale with my small canal” said Mkwapatira.

Mkwapatira and four other men who shared his quest to make hunger a thing of the past resorted to seek permission from community leadership, Village Headman Samson, to dig a canal from Mapelera River into their fields in a bid to expand their production.

Realizing that the group was reaping fruits from this initiative, more people in the community started flocking to the group to participate in the project. By 2004 membership had risen to 150 but more people kept expressing interest to join the group.

“Initially we were only five members probably because people thought that we were just wasting our time” said Mkwapatira.

The ever-increasing requests for membership impelled the group to seek assistance from MASAF through Thyolo Local Authority to enable them extend the canal and accommodate more people.

In May 2005, MASAF responded to the financing request from the Local Assembly and funded the Manthimba Project with a sum of MWK1.7 million (US$12,200.00). The project aimed to build and extend the canal first built by Mkwapatira to run a 3.6km length covering about 93 hectares of land. As part of the project, members of the community were asked to dig the canal and were paid MWK200 (US$1.40) per day for one month. People used the wages to buy farm equipment which they then used to develop their own small pieces of irrigable land.

Some of the project funds were used for civil works and buying pipes to ensure water was reaching the furthest points of the project.

Today, each garden has a pond where fish are grown. Vetiver grass, a special type of grass provided by the project, is also grown along the canal to protect the land from soil erosion and siltation of the canals.

By the end of 2005, membership had risen to 500 and the lives of people of Samson Village have been transformed.

The small project has become a national phenomenon and migrants are coming back to the village. The land all around the area is green throughout the year. Maize, the country’s staple, is grown three times a year. The sorry sight of malnourished children sitting solemnly under mango trees, flies all round their faces, is a story of the past. People are now flocking to Samson Village to buy various food items grown throughout the year using water from the Manthimba Irrigation Project. If replicated across the country, food security in Malawi will be a reality.

MASAF is now showcasing Manthimba Project as one whose impact is widely appreciated.

Dotted across the country are other projects funded under the Public Works Programme that have changed people’s lives for the better. Some have benefited through irrigation projects such as the Manthimba, others have covered the bare land and hills with trees, and others have opened up their areas to the world through better roads and bridges.

Daily HIV/Aids Report

WFP To Increase Food Handouts in Malawi After Receiving Maize Donation From Government
The World Food Programme on Monday announced that it will almost double food handouts to people living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi after receiving maize donations from the government, Reuters Health reports. Before the donation, WFP was providing monthly food assistance to more than 110,000 people living with HIV/AIDS and about 1,500 malnourished women and children in the country. The agency in a statement said with the donation, it will be able to provide food to up to 203,000 Malawians in November and December.

According to Reuters Health, Malawi has had two consecutive good harvests, producing 3.4 million tons of maize last year -- 1.3 million tons more than it needed. The rising production has prompted the government to donate 10,425 tons of maize to WFP for Malawi and another 10,000 tons to Lesotho and Swaziland. The government also plans to sell about 400,000 tons of excess maize to Zimbabwe, which is experiencing an inflation rate of 7,600%, high unemployment and chronic food shortages.

"Food is absolutely crucial to the fight against HIV/AIDS, and people affected by the pandemic are already starting to benefit from this latest donation by the Malawian government, and thousands more will now receive vital food assistance in the coming months," Dom Scalpelli, country director for WFP's Malawi office, said. An estimated 14% of Malawi's 12 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, and 240 people die daily of AIDS-related illnesses, Reuters Health reports (Reuters Health, 9/17).

"The contribution will ensure that tens of thousands of vulnerable Malawians continue to receive crucial food assistance until the end of 2007," Scalpelli said, adding that it will allow WFP to "meet the needs of all our nutrition and HIV/AIDS beneficiaries until the end of the year"