Biking as a tool of female empowerment

Alba Kunadu Sumprim says back in England, cycling was a key method of transport for her and part of her daily routine.

By Michelle Newlands

In Ghana's northern regions bicycles are used as a necessary means of transportation, but in the capital city of Accra, this is not the case. Cycling in the city can not only be dangerous, but attached to social stigmas - especially for women cyclists.

This is what Alba Kunadu Sumprim, along with 10 others, discovered as participants in the Woman on Bike workshop, which is also part of the Prêt-à-partager art exhibition.

The purpose of the workshop is to explore the limits and possibilities of bikes in an urban West African atmosphere with particular significance to biking as a tool of female empowerment.

Sumprim is a British-born Ghanaian and a participant in the workshop. Sumprim says back in England, cycling was a key method of transport for her and part of her daily routine. She has spent the past decade living in Ghana and says this workshop gave her the courage and confidence to get on a bike for the first time since her arrival 10 years ago.

“When I first started I was a little scared,” she says. “It's a matter of confidence... as I became more confident I realized it was my right to be on the road with everybody else.”

Sumprim says, based on her experience riding in the city, she has felt social discrimination as a female cyclist, stating one man she met while riding told her that as far as he was concerned, the only women who should be on bicycles are villagers, women from the north or foreigners, and Ghanaian women in Accra, should not be on bicycles.

“It is all about status - and riding a bike says that you are poor. That is the perception. I think there is also a gender thing, we have very typical ideas of what women can do and what women can't do,” Sumprim says.

This is the type of discrimination the workshop aims to eliminate. Sandrine Micosse-Aikins, co-creator of Prêt-à-partager art exhibition in collaboration with the German Institute of Foreign Cultural Relations, says the initiative is related to ideas of freedom and Pan African Empowerment.

As a German-Ghanaian, she says female empowerment is an important issue for her and feels biking is something people in the city aren't practicing and aren't claiming as their right.

“[It's] about promoting biking as a practice available for women, especially Ghanaian women,” Micosse-Aikins says.

The women involved in the workshop agree the perception of female cyclists in Accra and the discrimination towards them is not something that is going to vanish overnight. It is, however, something they believe they can work towards and plan to continue.

Zohra Opoku is a German-Ghanaian, avid cyclist, artist and coordinator of the Woman on Bike workshop. Opoku says this workshop is just the beginning and they have started to think of actions to strengthen their goal. It begins with public interaction, she says.

“In terms of empowerment it is something that has to grow,” Opuku says. “I think this is good. People will see more bikes on the streets because of our workshop.”

In addition to the empowerment associated with female riders, Sumprim states that although the workshop is focused on women and female empowerment, it has potential to extend into the greater community.

According to her, less traffic congestion, decreased pollution, lower economic demand for oil and overall health and fitness are benefits of the cycling initiative.

“It is Woman on Bike because it is a novelty, but society in general can be empowered... it is actually a huge thing for society as a whole,” Sumprim says.

The hidden life of Tomefa Island

(L-R) Chief Oposika Tetteh and Phillip Lomotey (Photo: Ekow Anderson, CITI-FM)

By Sandra Ferrari

When two children drowned in the deep waters of the Weija Dam just outside of Accra in 2008, very few people had even heard of Tomefa Island.

Not many people knew that it existed because it was, and remains today, a place that is virtually inaccessible from the mainland of the Greater Accra area - unless you have a solid canoe, good upper body strength and an hour or two to kill.

Generations ago, ancestors of those in this hidden community, migrated south from Ada and other areas in the Volta region of Ghana to settle on a section of land they called “Tomefa”.

Tomefa means “piece of mind.”

With the construction of the Weija Dam in 1979, however, this piece of mind – so to speak - would no longer be afforded to them. 

The Weija Dam began harnessing tons of water from the Densu River, which continues to be treated by the Weija Water Works plant 15 kilometres west of Accra. Today the plant itself serves millions of Ghanaians who would otherwise have little or no access to clean water in the city.

What this construction also did was leave the farming village of Tomefa almost completely submerged under water, isolating it from the Greater Accra region.

Four decades later, this small community of 1,500 continues to live, farm and fish, tucked away not far from a bustling metropolis of Accra. They survive off the land with minimal support from the government and have no access to the clean water being pumped out just near by.

Around election time, local candidates will visit the area, making promises and urging their constituents to vote.

“If they can give us a net to fish, a school, a road, then doctor, maybe life jackets…” says Chief Tetteh. “We are happy.”

The people of Tomefa have grown frustrated and claim that their government officials have not delivered on any of their promises.

Current MP for Weija, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, says she continues to advocate for the people of Tomefa, but ultimately it is not up to her to approve and implement developmental projects in the area.

“I can promise the people of Tomefa that I have not shirked my responsibilities,” she says.

According to Botchway, the projects can only be approved at the level of the Municipal Assembly.

Ga South Municipal Assembly person, Mr. Sheriff Dodoo believes, “Tomefa has a peculiar problem. They are on government land. The whole place has been acquired for the Ghana Water Company and the place is not supposed to be habited. They are squatting on Government property.”

The real issue, according to Dodoo, is not about extending services such as health care and education to Tomefa. The problem is that they are “illegal squatters” and this problem needs to be acknowledged.  

“Finding resources to extend services to them. That is not a big deal. We can always do that.”

No timeline was made available for any plans to extend resources to the people of Tomefa.

What a difference some ingenuity makes

Juliet Degadzor and Vann Hokey of UCOMS have a plan.

When the news story broke about the tragedy, Degadzor and Vann Hokey, along with a small team of their colleagues at The University College of Management Studies (UCOMS) in Accra started asking some questions. 

Why has this community been neglected? What do they need? What can be done?

You know, simple questions.

At UCOMS, “We identify social, economic and environmental problems in our communities and apply economic and social concepts through the theoretical knowledge we have from class to solve those complex problems we have seen in our society,” says Hokey.

Their plan: To turn the Island of Tomefa into the first agro-tourism site in Ghana in order to help the community start generating money for itself.

According to SIFE – an international, not-for-profit, business organization that brings together young entrepreneurs from countries all over the world – the plan is a good one.

It’s so good, in fact that it won them a spot at the SIFE World Cup being hosted in Malaysia.

What this means for the people of Tomefa is that 900 of them have been registered for National Health Insurance, they have business students working with them and teaching them how to garner money and support themselves, and they also have piece of mind.

Personal contributions and funds garnered through the private sector to the tune of GHC 9,050 (approx. 6,000 Cdn) and some ingenuity. Some of this money comes from fundraising, while a fair portion of it came out of the students themselves.

To date, no government support has been contributed.

For the students and for the people of Tomefa, the next step is awareness.

They will present their project, along with its initial successes, to business leaders present at the SIFE World cup – an international competition for young entrepreneurs implementing development projects and initiatives in underdeveloped communities in their own country.

According to Hokey: “Tomefa has now been identified as one of the villages with the highest poverty rates in Ghana. Now the Government of Ghana is aware of the plight of the people.”

Files from Isaac Kaledzi, CITI-FM

Combating botched abortions in Northern Ghana

Safia Zakaria works overtime to treat women coming in with abortion complications (Photo by Megan Ainscow)

By Megan Ainscow

On Aug. 4 a teenage girl walked into Ghana’s Tamale Teaching Hospital bleeding from her uterus. She had taken Cytotec, a drug meant for stomach ulcers but can induce abortion. Three hours later she bled to death.

On average rouhgly 40 women a month have been admitted to the hospital with complications from at-home abortions. Their methods are numerous – some have inserted concoctions into themselves, others have used broken bottles to try and remove the fetus or some ingest drugs.

Abortion is a leading cause of maternal death in Ghana, reports say.

Safia Zakaria is the principal nurse in the gynaecology ward in the predominantly Muslim capital. Though at first she often advises women to keep the child, she has chosen to loosely interpret Ghanaian law and performs abortions with NGO-donated equipment.

“Me in particular, I swore never even to do it, but there are instances... just to save life," she said.

In Ghana abortion is a criminal offence with practitioners facing a penalty of up to five years in prison. Many are afraid to seek safe abortion services for fear they will be stigmatized.

The lack of clarity in government policies is a reflection of the ongoing struggle in Ghanaian society – a race towards modernity running up against limited resources and deeply traditional beliefs.

Dr. Husein Zakaria is executive director of CODYAC, an Islamic youth centre in Tamale that seeks to address key issues affecting the lives of young people. He conceded that the young women showing up at TTH need medical care, but does not support offering them abortion services.

“The kind of legalization you are talking about is where everybody can walk to the doctor and say 'I’m pregnant I don’t want it, please just quash it'. I think that system is not the best for people like us,” he said.

In the meantime, to curb the growing problem of teenage pregnancy his office encourages abstinence.

 

What’s yours is mine: Property grabbing in Malawi

                  As victims of property grabbing, widows and children become vulnerable to perpetrating families of the deceased, often leaving them without a home. Photo by Katie Lin.

 

By Ali Schofield

Imagine you are a woman whose husband has recently passed away.

You are distraught, dealing with grief. One day, on top of all of the emotions and trials you are trying to overcome, your in-laws inform you that the place where you are living no longer belongs to you. They claim that having belonged to their son the house is theirs and they are there to take it.

Now not only have you lost your husband, you’ve also lost your home.

Interested in the magnitude of this problem, I was glad when some students at the Malawi Institute of Journalism involved in Neighborhood Watch, a radio program highlighting human rights issues in Blantyre and the surrounding communities, produced a segment on the topic. In North America this problem probably wouldn’t occur, and if it did, the property owner wouldn’t hesitate to sue.

As it turns out, property grabbing is a serious issue in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa. For the student contributors at Neighborhood Watch, finding a victim was relatively easy, as with increasing deaths related to HIV and AIDS, many women in Malawi are left widowed and vulnerable to property grabbing.

One such story comes from one Mrs. Msokho, a mother of five children who was recently widowed after 15 years of marriage. Soon after her husband’s death, his family showed up to lay claim to her property.

“After my husband died and the mourning period passed, my husband’s family came to tell me I could remarry as per our culture,” Mrs. Msokho said. “On the day they came, my brother-in-law told me that we should sell part of the land on which I was living.”

Mrs. Msokho’s mother-in-law justified her claims, “After the mourning period, I told my daughter-in-law that [she] should be assisting me because when my son was alive he was the one who was assisting me," she said.

Culturally, perpetrating families believe that widows - particularly those who are young - will have the opportunity to marry again. However, the prospect of marriage so soon after eviction is very slim and immediate needs for the family must be met, which can lead to prostitution. Children also bear the brunt of supporting the family, often as street children.

Equal right to property between the genders is enshrined in the core principles of Malawi’s constitution dealing with gender equality. Furthermore, the constitution recognizes that women have the right and are fully protected under the law “to acquire and maintain rights in property, independently or in association with others, regardless of their marital status.”

Sadly, because 50 per cent of Malawian women are illiterate, many women who are victims of property grabbing do not know what rights they have.

“During the discussion the police officer told my in-laws that the property which is acquired during a marriage between a man and woman belongs to the two of them,” Mrs. Msokho later said.

Inspector Horus Chabuka of the Victim Support Unit of the Blantyre Police explained that when such cases of property grabbing arise, police seek out a confrontation with both parties and attempt to provide counselling.

“We have to follow the procedures of dialogue,” Chabuka explained. “The widow and the husband planned what they have to do for the development of their family in that house.”

“People who have been grabbed of their property should not be afraid to come to police to sue the other party,” Chabuka advised, “We are there to protect them and the law is there to protect them.”

The greatest thing that Chabuka advises in matters that involve or could lead to property grabbing is consideration.

“I have to advise all parties that have dead relatives to think about the family that has been left behind,” Chabuka cautioned, “because they are the people directly involved in the development of the family.”

With files from Mphatso Mwanvani, Ivory Kalemera and Clement Msiska

 About the 2011 summer/fall jhr bloggers 

What’s missing in Malawian political cartoons

Political cartoonist Hazwel Kunyenje draws, on average, 15 cartoons per week. Depending on the level of detail, creating a cartoon might take him from 15 minutes to four hours. Photo by Elena Sosa Lerín.

By Elena Sosa Lerín

Hazwel Kunyenje is a political cartoonist who has spent more than 15 years illustrating articles, editorials and short stories for one of the country’s largest media houses, Blantyre Newspapers Limited.

Of affable allure and with a serene expression, Kunyenje remembers drawing on any piece of paper or surface he could find as a child.

“Drawing was a necessity,” he says, “I just felt I had to do it and I knew I wasn’t bad at it.”

Although he studied painting at the University of Malawi, he is mostly a self-taught caricaturist, who has “picked [up] some tricks along the way.” He follows cartoonists at Newsweek and the Washington Post, and enjoys Dik Browne’s “Hägar the Horrible” because of its unclassifiable humour.

Political cartooning is relatively new in this country. Prior to the 1990s, the press was just an outlet for government propaganda, and cartoons were mere depictions of places or events, often published in lieu of photographs.

But between 1993 and 1994, the 33-year rule of President Hastings Banda came to an end and the press was liberated. Suddenly, there was a demand to graphically satirize the new political atmosphere and editors were hiring anyone who could caricature it.

Kunyenje started working as a cartoonist at New Voice, back then, a small, local newspaper in the northern city of Mzuzu - but he had larger aspirations.

In 1994, he mailed samples of his work to the editors of BNL, a move that has placed him on the national press scene for the past 17 years.

Political cartoonists in other countries (like Burkina Faso’s Damien Glez, Kenya-based Godfrey Mwampwemba, or Canada’s André Pijet) are usually accepted as serious commentators and analysts of political and social issues due to their satirical but critical look at local and world issues.

But unlike them, Kunyenje feels that cartoonists in Malawi are merely considered “people that can draw well.”

He believes that editors and readers overlook the impact of cartoons on democratization.

As a matter of fact, Kunyenje has limited control over the creation of his cartoons, as they regularly follow the vision of his editors. Most of the time, they are the ones who decide on the subject of a cartoon, and, even the jokes.

“Editors in Malawi don’t have a good idea of what a cartoon can do,” he explains.

At this point, Kunyenje’s stutter takes over his speech. He stops talking, reaches for his briefcase and pulls out a folder. He starts flicking through dozens of carefully catalogued cartoon clippings from different national and international newspapers and magazines he has collected throughout the years, and soon finds what he wats.

“This. This is what we don’t have in Malawi.” Kunyenje holds a small, aged clipping dated Feb. 16 1989. It shows a fat vulture wearing a headscarf, about to prey on an emaciated bear lying on the ground. It is the editorial take by world-renowned Israeli cartoonist, Ranan Lurie, on the end of the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. 

“We aren’t this sophisticated,” emphasizes Kunyenje. He thinks Malawian cartoons lack the degree of visual metaphor and symbolism that other cartoonists bring to their work, in part due to editorial decisions, but also because cartoonists are still forging their identity in the newsroom.

Something that would contribute to the betterment of cartoonists in Malawi is criticism. But Kunyenje points out that he only gets positive feedback from the readers, who he says, “think cartoons are just something to laugh at.”

Yet there is always the occasional government official who threatens the papers with censorship, like the Minister of Information and Tourism, Patricia Kaliati, who in April 2006, considered cartoons from national newspapers The Daily Times and The Nation to be “disgracefully castigating the government.”

Although his editors deal directly with the censorship threats, he welcomes such comment on his cartoons - even if they’re negative - because such comments are an acknowledgement of the art of cartooning.

 About the 2011 summer/fall jhr bloggers 

Malawi abandons tobacco for crop diversification, food security

At a farm estate in Zomba District, Malawi, chickpeas now dry in the sun where previously space was only made for tobacco. Photo by Travis Lupick.

By Travis Lupick

This past season, Henry Tambula saw his farm narrowly avoid financial ruin.

“I’ve grown tobacco for 25 years,” he said on the property he manages in Zomba District, Malawi, “and what happened this year has never happened in Malawi – it has forced us not to grow tobacco this season so we have stopped. We will never go back to tobacco.” 

Strong words for a farm manager in a country that once relied on “green gold”, as is it commonly known in Malawi, for as much as 70 per cent of its exports and 15 per cent of its GDP. But Tambula is in good company for renouncing the crop.

For 2011, Malawi’s tobacco earnings are down 57 per cent from what they were the previous year. After five consecutive seasons of declining returns on tobacco, a combination of the global recession, oversaturated markets, and increasingly-popular anti-tobacco campaigns is forcing Malawian farmers to look to other crops.

According to Prince Kapondamgaga, executive director for the Farmers Union of Malawi, this is not bad news. “Diversification is long overdue,” he said.

A group of Canadians working in Malawi agrees.

Canadian Physicians for Aid Relief’s Putting Farmers First program has long supported food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. In an email sent from Toronto, Kevin O’Niell, a program officer with the group, wrote that CPAR builds on the strengths of small-scale farming communities by promoting conservation agriculture principles such as crop diversification. 

“Crop diversification is one of a series of sustainable farming techniques at the core of CPAR's approach that improve crop production and expand opportunities for farmers to lead competitive agricultural production efforts,” he explained. “By moving away from mono-cropping (planting only one staple crop such as maize), small-scale farmers lessen their dependency on the success of that crop.” 

What’s more, he continued, this strategy also helps to improve the nutritional content of household diets. As arable land previously used to grow maize and tobacco –the two most-common crops in Malawi– is cleared of those plants, more room is made available for healthier fruits and vegetables.

O’Niell maintained that for CPAR, these issues are very much a matter of human rights. 

“People's right to food is driven by the notion that food should be accessible to all (sustained year-round access to a stable supply of food), available to all (a sufficient supply), adequate for all (nutritionally adequate and from a sustainable food system), and acceptable to all (culturally appropriate and respectful of traditions),” he wrote.

“Our work with small-scale farmers is based around these principles.”

A success story posted on CPAR’s website highlights how crop diversification is a means to achieving those goals.

It recounts how Harold, the head of a family of 10 living in the Lilongwe District, learned to diversify his crops in order to bolster food security.

“This training was an eye opener to me,” Harold is quoted as saying. “Through this training we learned the importance of growing different crops like cassava, sweet potato, vegetables and others throughout the year rather than just relying on rain fed maize production.”

With climate change altering rainfall patters, such stories are increasingly important to sustainable agriculture, CPAR maintains.

“In the face of dwindling natural resources and an ever-increasing demand for food due to high populations, crop diversification remains key to achieving food security,” it states on its website.

Back in Zomba District, Tambula toured his farm and pointed out more than a dozen different fruits and vegetables for which his fields have been prepared. But he noted that the transition will not be so easy for others in Malawi.

A reliance on mono-cropping holds the most risk for small-holder farmers, which, in Malawi’s case, account for 80 per cent of agricultural production in the country.

The company that Tambula works for, Mulli Brothers Limited, is large enough to recoup the money it lost on tobacco last year. “But the poor people in the village, the farmers there who grew tobacco, they bought fertilizers and also employed people to help them. And they are not going to be able to recover their money,” Tambula said. “Those people are even worse off. It is terrible. A disaster.”

About the 2011 summer/fall jhr bloggers 

Big aspirations, small budgets - and disenfranchised mental patients

                     A mental health patient undergoing a medical check-up. Epilepsy, depression, schizophrenia and                                           bipolar disorders are some of the top mental afflictions in Malawi. Photo by Blantyre News Limited. 

 By Elena Sosa Lerin and Lucas Bottoman

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health problems are already the fourth leading cause of the global health burden, representing a third of all years of healthy life lost to disability among adults.

By 2020, they will rank second, behind heart disease.

In Africa, regional WHO studies show that mental health issues such as epilepsy, depression, psychosis, mental retardation, substance abuse, and other psychotic disorders, are among the top ten causes of disability in the region.

But in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world, where health policies and development goals are primarily centered on the prevention of HIV and AIDS, the reduction of maternal mortality, tuberculosis, and malaria, mental healthcare is - at best - an afterthought.

Case in point, the Ministry of Health has no solid data on the nature and the extent of those suffering mental illness.

Its National Mental Health Policy Plan admits that in the absence of research on mental health patients, it has had to rely on studies done in neighbouring countries.

Based on these studies, health officials estimate that at least 10 per cent of Malawi’s 15 million people are affected by a mental health problem, also meaning that mental health afflictions are as common as infectious diseases.

And yet, given these dire statistics, the Ministry of Health’s Strategic Plan for 2011-2016 recognizes that the government’s budget for the health sector is “inadequate.”

Health places third in budgetary allocation, (at 10.2 per cent) after education (13.7 per cent) and agriculture (18.9 per cent).

Less than two percent of the national health budget is spent on mental care.

In 2007 and 2009, respectively, Malawi signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care.

Among the guiding principles of this Convention are accessibility to facilities and services, the right to health, as well as habilitation and rehabilitation services and programs.

The Malawian Constitution addresses the right to development, declaring that the State commits itself to “take all necessary measures” to guarantee “access to basic resources, […and] health services.”

But with such a tight budget, intentions can only go so far.

Mental patients have to deal with public mental healthcare institutions that suffer chronic shortages of essential drugs, inadequate if not, deteriorating facilities, insufficient and overworked nurses and doctors, and no access to counseling.

For instance, the psychiatric section of the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), the largest hospital in the city of Blantyre, has been out of essential drugs, (like Chlorpromazine and Modecate, which are used in the treatment of conditions such as schizophrenia, psychoses and manic episodes) for over a year, while the one at the Bwaila Hospital in the capital, Lilongwe, has lacked medication for 10 months.

Based on hospital records, six out of 10 patients are relapsing due to the lack of drugs at QECH.

“There’s no hope for many patients,” says one of the psychiatric nurses from QECH. “It is a very sad situation to see – and we can’t do much about it.”

The little the nurses can do is to use substitute drugs if possible. But sometimes they have to turn patients away if there are not adequate drugs to treat their specific needs.

“We feel very sorry to tell the patients who have walked for many hours to get their medication that we don’t have any,” says another nurse from Bwaila Hospital.

As if the lack of essential drugs were not enough, there is also the issue of the scarcity of mental healthcare workers.

For instance, QECH has just one psychiatrist and 18 nurses to attend an average of 2700 patients a year. Bwaila Hospital does not even have a psychiatrist. It is entirely run by five nurses who attend about 200 patients every day.

Two years ago, Dr. Rob Stewart, the head of the psychiatric unit at QECH decided to shut down admissions of patients because the rooms lacked windows and toilets.

One of the nurses from QECH, when asked what improvements she’d like to see in the mental healthcare system, said having a computer would make a big difference, as patients’ records are still handwritten and usually get lost or mixed with other papers.

“The only piece of technology we have here is a telephone, “ she says. 

 About the 2011 summer/fall jhr bloggers 

 

South African indie makes waves

Gazelle's Xander Ferreira performs the band’s single "Chic Afrique" at Bushfire, Swaziland's annual international festival of arts. Photo by Sarah Berman.

South African indie music has rarely crossed the ocean to North America's mass markets, but the genre is developing, and the sound is big, bright and bold. 

Gazelle frontman Xander Ferreira says South African indie music is in a renaissance period: "We believe this is the future for African music, for people to gather a scene here first and then go and take over the world."

At the Bushfire festival held in Ezulwini, Swaziland, Journalists for Human Rights reporters Sarah Feldbloom and Sarah Berman explored this movement of new music. In this podcast produced by Sarah Feldbloom, you can hear what bands Gazelle, Hot Water and Tshe Tsha Boys have to say about what makes South African indie so hot right now.

Listen to the podcast: South African indie 

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God’s word in Malawi

By Nina Lex

In Malawi, God’s word is everywhere.

Minibuses have “Fear God” scrolled across their hoods, salons signs are painted with “God is Great Beauty Salon” and restaurants menus read “God’s Tasty Foods.”

And it doesn’t stop there.

Questions about your religious beliefs are common among co-workers and friends – even from strangers.

God is also the answer to all problems.  As my Canadian co-workers and I were told, “You aren’t married? Because you don’t go to church” and “You are unhappy? You need Jesus.”

With another four months ahead of me here in Malawi, I longed to be a part of a community – and attending the Catholic Church in my neighbourhood seemed like the perfect introduction.

It had been 15 years since I last attended a church service and, even then, I only went a handful of times with my German                                                                  Worshippers line-up outside St. Montfort’s Parish in Blantyre                                                                                                to attend Sunday morning service. Photo by Nina Lex. 

grandmother. I dreaded those early Sunday mornings full of endless preaching that left me feeling little more than a cynical sinner.

I arrived half an hour early at St. Montfort’s Parish to attend the 8:30 a.m. English service.  A vast crowd had already formed outside the red brick archways. I held my breath and pictured myself going up in flames as I was shoved through the threshold of the church.

Inside, the church was simple: the walls were whitewashed and filled with wooden pews - a far cry from the over-embellished churches I had seen in Europe and Latin America.

The pews were packed and the aisles full. Smoke and incense filled the air and white and purple fabric was draped throughout the church celebrating September, which was declared by the Pope as "Bible month."

I shuffled around searching for a seat and found the last remaining spot, front row and centre, right beside a nun.

In Canadian churches, it always seems as though there is an abundance of free seats.  Here, even with five services on Sundays, the church is overflowing with worshippers. While 84 per cent of Canadians adhere to a religion, approximately 97 per cent of Malawians attend church or are religious.

As is the case in many other African countries, Malawians have a profound and perpetual belief in God.

Christianity is the main religion in Malawi, with 60 per cent of Christians being Protestant and 15 per cent Catholic. Other sects include Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Anglicans, Church of Central African Presbyterians and Jehovah’s Witnesses, which was outlawed by President Banda and made legal again in 1995.

The second most prominent religion in Malawi is Islam, with 15-20 per cent of the population being Muslims.

Indigenous beliefs and religions make up about 5 per cent of the population.

David Livingstone first introduced Christianity to Malawi at the end of 1800 during the British colonialism. The religion spread quickly across the country, and until 2001, Bible study was an essential subject in Malawian secondary schools.  However, Christianity in Malawi doesn’t follow strict Western practice, as many Malawians practice Christianity alongside traditional African rituals.

This quickly became evident as the church service got underway.

“Satanism and witchcraft is everywhere,” warned the priest. “Witchcraft is in our country, communities, schools and families.  Even if you don’t believe, it’s there.  Jesus even had to face Satan. “ He then proceeded to explain the three stages of evil- 333, 666 and 999,

“The only way to combat evil is through the word of God,” he explained.

Although Malawi is deeply religious, you don’t have to go far to hear criticism of the country’s God-fearing ways.

One person I met blamed religion for making Malawians lazy, “because they believe God would solve their problems and the people will not help themselves.”

And many human rights organizations blame strong religious influence for Malawi’s strong anti-gay stance.

The United Nation recently produced its first brochure highlighting its position on sexual orientation and gender identity human rights, in response some African countries, including Malawi, led by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) are fighting to define human rights regarding religion to exclude homosexuality.

However, the Zambian priest presiding over this church service preached about acceptance between Christians and non-believers. This church was also the “House of Everyone” regardless of their race or nationality, he announced as he glanced at me, one of the only “mzungu” – or white person – in the congregation.

Between hymns and much to the delight of the worshippers, the priest told jokes, referring to “the constipation and gas of religion”.

When the service ended, I left the church not converted, but with a smile on my face – and feeling a little more Malawian.

 About the 2011 summer/fall jhr bloggers

Malawi’s economic crunch hits the media hard

Employees of The Daily Times and other BP&P papers have been laid off as Malawi faces economic difficulties. Photo by Travis Lupick.

By Travis Lupick

“Dear brethren,” Leonard Chikadya, managing director of Blantyre Printing and Publishing, began the conclusion of a speech to staff on Aug. 30.

 “With a lot of pain in my heart, I have swallowed my pride and, reluctantly, decided that I am going to reduce our head count. I am going to reduce the number of colleagues that we have by 44.”

 Speaking for the leadership of the largest publishing house in Malawi, Chikadya’s words soon reverberated throughout the media environment of the entire country.

 And they were not the only ones.

On the same day, the state-run Malawi Broadcasting Corporation announced that a significant round of layoffs would hit its ranks too. The following morning, just 418 remained of the 700 employees who comprised MBC the day before. 

In a packed cafeteria at BP&P’s head office in Blantyre, Chikadya showed remorse for the situation. 

“I have called this meeting because this problem affects all of us,” he said to some 150 of the company’s 260 staff. “We were all witness to what happened on the 20 of July…but what happened on the 20 of July was just a symptom of the problems we are facing.”

The date Chikadya referenced was initially reserved for peaceful demonstrations aimed at government inaction on foreign reserve shortages and fuel scarcity. But the people’s anger boiled over and by nightfall, riots met with police brutality left 19 dead and scores more injured. 

And so, yesterday, BP&P’s editors, reporters, salespeople, and everybody else that a publishing house requires to function, were told that financial hardships matched by the government’s mismanagement of the economy had reached their doorstep.

“We are all aware of the acute shortage of forex,” Chikadya explained, referring to the country’s dwindling foreign currency reserves. Requests for loans from Malawi’s cash-strapped banks had been denied and negotiations with BP&P’s paper supplier had hit a wall. If action was not taken, Chikadya continued, BP&P would no longer have the capacity to pay for the broadsheet on which it prints Malawi’s news.

Throughout the rest of the day, envelopes circulated as reporters manned their desks until the last of their stories were filed. Even those who knew they were on their way out remained loyal.

“Don’t show it to me,” one was heard as a letter was dropped on his desk. “I will file my article and be gone by the end of the day.”

The morning of Aug. 31, those who remained spoke with nervous optimism. “We live to fight another day,” one BP&P reporter said.

I’m sure the mood over in the newsroom at MBC was similar.

Malawi’s economy is struggling badly. On Aug. 31, two of the country’s biggest media houses felt the weight of these hard times. And 326 of their employees carried it home.

 About the 2011 summer/fall jhr bloggers