The Malawian Initiative for National Development (MIND)
I’ve had
a particular interest in Malawi since I became friends with 3 Malawian
students during my first degree back in the 1970’s. The country
has remained close to my heart ever since and following the food shortages
in 2005 have closely watched its continuing development. Through this
interest it has become apparent that a primary cause of Malawi’s
slow economic development has been a shortage of skilled people across
a wide spectrum of professions. Therefore, when I learnt of an initiative
to encourage its DIASPORA to become more actively involved in its development
I was keen to find out more, both from a personal perspective and because
of potential interest to NAYDians.
The Malawian Initiative for National Development (MIND) main aim is
to ‘mobilise, streamline and coordinate volunteering efforts
of Diaspora Malawians in the United Kingdom’ .It has four objectives:
1. To support Malawi Government efforts in reducing poverty and enhancing
sustainable economic growth by aligning MIND’s programme with
the MGDS
2. To build and support skill base of Diaspora Malawians
3. To directly work with the most vulnerable and marginalised Malawians
in order to improve their living standards
4. To improve the Scottish and wider British awareness of Malawi and
best practises they can learn from Malawi.
It was clear from the presentations that a great deal of thought had
gone into the program’s future operation and the group were well
aware of the challenges facing them both within the UK and in Malawi.
The MIND Executive Director, Dr. Matthews Mtumbuka said ‘Our
strength lies in our passion to help some of the most underprivileged
people in Mother Malawi. We MIND about that child who has no mother
and no father and yet he wants to go far with education but has no
fees and no uniform and not even transport to go to Secondary School.
We MIND about that old woman on the street with an orphaned sick grand
daughter on her back, walking ten kilometers to a clinic which has
neither a medical doctor nor the medicine. We MIND about that Child-headed
family where the kids have to fend for themselves for survival.
MIND will focus on Education, Health and Secure Livelihoods. Strategies
to support these thematic areas will include Human and material support
for the Malawi Government, provision of a link between the government
and international agencies, volunteer assessment, training and matching
of volunteers, and networking with other DIASPORA organisations. The
presentation of the strategies for realising the stated objectives
can be downloaded at www.nayd.org/pdf/mind.ppt. The program is supported
by Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) in which 14 interested groups
now partake. Further details can be found at http://www.vso.org.uk/about/diaspora_volunteering/diaspora-volunteering-alliance.asp
I personally think it’s a great idea and offer my full support
to this initiative. However, you may not agree. Do you think it’s
a good idea? Would you be happy to accept DIASPORA volunteers in your
community projects? Please let us know. Paul Shaw
Posted
by Al King
on Oct 08 2008
Comment: I
think it it is in the right direction to collaborate with others
in the Diaspora for the purpose of national development,especially
for a country like Malawi that is brain drain. We are living in
a globalized world, where it is shown that to a larger extend we
are inter-dependent. Even the so called rich and powerful countries
depend to some extend on the existence of smaller under develop
and developing nations. Mind is in the right direction in providing
assistance for the most under privileged members of the Malawian
society and in helping in the development of their beloved country.
I strongly encouraged their efforts in volunteering with others
in the diaspora especially Malawian who went out in search of
greener pastures.
Posted
by Michael
Boampong on Oct 08 2008
Comment: With
international migrant nearing 200 million people it is important
that the diaspora are considered in community development through
initiatives like this which want to integrate the diaspora in the
development strategies and implementation of strategies in sending
countries. However i would recommend that more young people are
targeted for this cause as most young people will find it expedient
to support their home countries or country of origin. Young people
now form a larger composition of international migrants according
to relevant findings.
Posted
by Dixon
Ngwende on Oct 07 2008
Comment: It
is nice to see diasporas having strong interests to support their
country back home. There are a number of areas they can play
a significant role. Human resource challenges are indeed severe
such that one wonders if the contibutions of few diasporas in
providing their services directly would be worth pointing at.
Many challenges in the sectors that have been chosen. As a strategy,
I would suggest diasporas should also intensify in doing funding
campaigns for Malawi. We need to look at training many medical
personnel three times or more the currernt training capacities.
Look at the issues in schools. Inadequate classrooms and school
teachers. The irony is that we are lacking school teachers when
we have many Form Four graduates jobless. We need a programme
of putting these in fast track training and make them teachers
in their home areas. This will reduce the problem of shortage
of teachers. Strategies should include advocacy and lobbying.
You need government support and many other players to be in the
picture.
To me diasporas coming to work in Malawi for a couple of months
is good, but not good enough.
Posted
by Hariharan
PV on Sep 22 2008
Comment: The
development of any nation would have to be based on the Local Needs,
Local Resources, Local people, Local wisdom and local culture. However,
it is strange and a paradox that although every tropical nation,
including a small nation such as Malawi, has great volumes of Renewable
resources (plants/ vegetation, rains, sunlight etc), there has never
been ant attempt to work on these STRENGTHS. Instead, we are wrongly "pushed" toward
western intellectual tradition, that is based on Temperate Zone climatic
situations where natural resources are scarce. Thus, the poverty
of every Tropical nation is a result of alien technology/ economics/
business/ education/ governance systems, forced on these poor economies
by the local leaders, supported by the Western World. This wrong
approach has resulted in non-utilization of local resources, based
on local needs, and also without relying on local wisdom.
In order that these local resources are converted and locally relevant
economic developments do take place, we at Agro-Biogenics would support
the Youth in setting up various Sustainabilty Engineered Projects,
for which we offer FREE TECHNOLOGY and Free Technical/ Managerial
support. We appeal to the youth of these nations to take up the initiative;
and as first step, we invite every dynamic and positive oriented
youngster (and also Youth Groups) to visit our website: http://www.agro-biogenics.com email:
pvhramani@yahoo.com