MALAWI: Martyrs Day & more – 7th Mar 2024

Muli bwanji from BA! This is the Rorshok Malawi Update from the 7th of March twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Malawi.

Malawi commemorates Martyrs Day on the 3rd of March. The day is set apart to honor the sacrifices of over fifty individuals who were massacred on the 3rd March nineteen fifty-nine while fighting British colonial rule. This year, the day fell on a Sunday, so locals enjoyed a long weekend as Monday was considered a holiday.

This year’s commemoration was held under the theme Remembering our heroes: Upholding the legacy through unity and progress. President Chakwera, Vice-President Saulos Chilima, Speaker of Parliament Catherine Gotani Hara‌, among other dignitaries, gathered to lay wreaths at Kakumbi Cemetery and the Memorial Pillar for Martyrs in Nkhata Bay district.

In healthcare news, the International Blantyre Cancer Center (or IBCC) opened on Tuesday the 5th.

Thomson Mpinganjira, the Chairperson of the IBCC, launched the project under the Thomson and Barbara Mpinganjira Foundation, founded by him and his late wife. He told local media that he felt compelled to open the Cancer Center after his late wife had to be treated for cancer in South Africa in twenty nineteen, since there were no reliable hospitals in Malawi. She died three months later. He said he didn’t want locals to have the same experience.

The center will provide radiotherapy and chemotherapy services, and is expected to offer diagnosis and accommodation facilities soon.

The launch of the Cancer Center came with some staggering statistics. According to the Ministry of Health, over seventeen thousand people in Malawi are diagnosed with cancer every year, and about twelve thousand people don’t survive.

They also said cancer contributes to nearly fifty percent of deaths caused by non-communicable diseases in Malawi.

According to the twenty twenty-three Youth Friendly Health Services and Sexually Transmitted report Released on Thursday the 29th of February, Kasungu district treats an average of 600 youths for sexually transmitted infections every month.

Dr Emanuel Golombe, the Director of Health and Social Services, said the statistics are largely due to the low usage of condoms among most youths in the district.

Still on health, on Sunday the 3rd, local news said Balaka district had registered a COVID-19 case. Mercy Nyirenda, the Spokesperson for the Balaka District Hospital, said the case involves a woman from Ntcheu district.

This is the second case recorded in Balaka this year.

News about COVID doesn’t seem to move locals anymore. Comments on the news indicated that most people think COVID-19 is fake.

Let’s go back to statistics as we have numbers from the economic sector too.

The latest data from the World Bank Malawi Economic Monitor (or MEM) say Malawi’s poverty levels are increasing. In twenty twenty-three, almost 72 percent of the population lived under the international poverty line, pegged at two dollars and fifteen cents per person per day. Last year, the statistics were at 70 percent.

One of the causing factors is the ganyu wages and their availability. Ganyu refers to casual labor and It is the main source of income for vulnerable households. The World Bank said ganyu now pays less and is more scarce. In twenty twenty-two, about 12 percent of households in rural areas said they had challenges finding ganyu, but those numbers reached 20 percent in twenty twenty-three.

The Bank doubts the government’s recent salary hike will make much of a difference.

Meanwhile, the country’s passport situation is looking up. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship Services released a statement on Monday the 4th saying they are confident that they will resume issuing passports within the twenty-one-day deadline that President Chakwera gave.

The Department said they have recovered the demographic data that was lost when the passport issuing system was hacked last month, but that they are still working to recover all the stolen information.

They said the passport hack did not affect the validity, security and usability of any passports.

The Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (or MUBAS) is in high spirits after launching a new innovation hub called the University Innovation Pod (or UniPod). President Chakwera inaugurated UniPod’s official launch at the MUBAS Blantyre campus on Wednesday the 6th.

UniPod is a project funded by the UN Development Program or UNDP that aims to support young innovators by offering state-of-the-art infrastructure for innovation prototyping, experimentation, and small-scale manufacturing. It comprises a collaborative ideation space, a design laboratory, and a business nursery, among others.

In his speech, President Chakwera thanked the UNDP for providing two million dollars to construct UniPod, saying it is in line with Malawi’s vision to utilize innovation and technology for an improved economy.

Moving on, if you buy electricity units for your prepaid meter and your receipt comes with three tokens, that means the Electricity Supply Corporation (or ESCOM) is prompting you to upgrade your meter.

A statement shared on their social media platforms on Saturday the 2nd said that ESCOM has been upgrading the software in their electricity prepaid meters since last June.

To upgrade your software, you have to load the three once-off tokens that you receive in the exact order they come in. Load them one by one, and wait fifteen seconds after loading each token before proceeding to the next. Your software should be upgraded after that.

Not upgrading your software will eventually render your meter useless.

To get in touch with ESCOM, head over to our show notes.

In trending news, several HIV patients were duped into buying what they believed to be the cure for Aids.

On Tuesday the 5th, police in Mangochi arrested twenty-five-year-old Mary Julius for allegedly selling Gammora Injection Medicine on her TikTok page. She told people it could cure HIV. But Amina Daud, the Spokesperson for Mangochi Police, said the alleged cure was merely a gentamicin injection used to treat bacterial infections.

Daud said Julius bought gentamicin from local pharmacies, removed the original stickers, and rebranded them with her own. She sold three bottles at 120 thousand Kwacha, or a little over seventy dollars.

Also making headlines was a devastating weather report.

On Monday the 4th, The Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services (or DCCMS) said there is a high chance that a cyclone might develop in the Indian Ocean.

The DCCMS said there is a small cyclone between Madagascar and Mozambique, but they are unsure which direction it will take. They assured the public that they are keeping an eye on it.

Talks of cyclones bring back memories of Cyclone FREDDY, which hit Malawi last March.

Malawians joined Nigerians in mourning the death of a Nigerian comedy actor, Mr Ibu. He was sixty-two.

Mr Ibu died on Saturday the 2nd, after being in a hospital in Nigeria’s capital Lagos for a while.

Many people took to social media to share their condolences. Many comments showed that Mr Ibu was part of the Nigerian movies that people watched in their childhood, and that many considered him a legend.

And to close this edition, locals can now look forward to the Lake of Stars (or LoS) Festival too. The festival organizers announced their comeback. They went on a break after COVID-19 hit. They have themed this year’s festival Lake of Stars Reactivated.

Zilanie Gondwe, the LoS Head of Media, Public Relations and Relationships, said this year’s LoS will mark the festival’s 20th anniversary, and also celebrate Malawi’s sixty years of independence. She said the festival will run from the 6th to the 8th of September along “the pristine beaches of Lake Malawi” but did not mention where exactly.

The news has social media buzzing, especially because LoS is Malawi’s biggest arts and culture festival.

Aaaaand that’s it for this week.

We want to invite you to take a look at one of Rorshok's other projects. The Daily Knowledge is a daily pocket newspaper that comes out Monday through Friday. It is in our Ourzine format, a little booklet that you have to print in order to read. In the Daily Knowledge ourzine you’ll find a collection interesting newsletters and selected articles that takes about an hour to read. Visit rorshok.com/ourzines/thedailyknowledge to find the latest editions. The link will also be in the show notes.

Pitani bwino!