“Pack those things up,” Mphatso introduced herself to us. “Tonight you will stay in my guesthouse, and tomorrow night you will eat with my family.”
There is no real reason for tourists to visit Ekwendeni. That, and the fact that our Church at home has some ties with the town, is why we went there. We had arrived in town with one name, the friend of someone we had met a week earlier: Helen. The focus of the town is the large mission hospital founded by Dr. Livingstone’s Edinburgh-based entourage 100 years ago, so we started there. Having located the receptionist, we asked as vaguely as possible if he knew where Helen was. He thought about it, and asked a colleague. “We only have one Helen in Ekwendeni, and she is in the Girls’ School. This man will show you,” he said, indicating the porter. Three hours later, we had set up camp and were cooking hacked lumpogoat (an African speciality) outside Helen Scot’s house. It was there Mphatso had found us.
“The first thing you should know about me,” she said, as she poached us to her far superior accommodation, “is that I have 10 children by 9 fathers. Hah! People wander what sort of Christian I am!”
The wandering continued the next day, as she showed us around the LISAP (Livingstonia Synod Aids Programme) centre, of which she is the director. Having completed her masters in midwifery at Queen’s University, in Belfast, and visited both Northern Ireland and Scotland on several other occasions, she is eloquent in English to a point that puts us native speakers to shame! What follows are answers from an informal chat about the programme, written here from memory in the evening. I should say that Mphatso read this entire post, suggested some slight corrections, and is happy for it to be published here.
Can you give us some examples of the work the programme does?
“We run women’s empowerment training to set up local lending and investment groups, so that they can provide loans to start up a business. We try to ensure that the groups are about 70% women, as it is important to empower them so that they do not end up vulnerable, because if they have some money, they are not so likely just to have sex, and then maybe be left with the baby or end up HIV positive.
“We also run children’s education projects at primary school age, aimed at keeping young girls in education. Many girls in some areas are married at a very tender age, just because their parents need money.
“We run nutrition & feeding programmes for the people on ARVs [anti retrovirals - HIV stabilising drugs], as they cannot take the drugs if they have no food – the side effects of taking them on an empty stomach are too severe. I have come to the conclusion that these drugs are designed for people who have plenty of food! (laughing) We also sometimes provide fertiliser and seed to a group of HIV positive people to allow them to grow their own food, which will last longer than if I give them a handout.”
How do you measure the impact of the work you are doing?
“We have monitoring and evaluation officer and participatory monitoring teams in the community who asses each project we run. But also you can see the difference by being there. For example everyone who has a CD4 count at 350 or below [a measurement of HIV/AIDS progression] is entitled to free ARVs in Malawi, but they may be distributed from a point too far away to collect. I spoke to one woman who was not taking ARVs, and asked her why she did not take them. ‘Do I look able to walk 62km?’”
Who pays for the ARVs? What difference do they make?
“Global Fund pays for them. They make all the difference. I would say 99%. There used to be many bedridden people in every village, but now there are maybe only 2 or 3.
“We have some people who have lived healthy lives for 15 years. They will still die of AIDS, but can live productive lives for a long time before that.”
Have you run any projects which have been unsuccessful? How have you coped with them?
“Yes. We tried to run a project distributing mosquito nets but found that in the lakeside areas, they were being used as fishing nets instead. So that did not work. Maybe you could poison the nets so the fish cannot be eaten?(laughing) But they could still be sold!
“Also we were running girls empowerment to try and prevent the young girls getting married, but who do girls get married to? Boys. So that became the children’s education project.”
Do you plan a way of winding up the projects you are involved in?
“We try to plan an exit strategy for all our projects, but it takes resources that may not be there at the start. It involves setting up long-term independence for the people in the project, so maybe buying a few pigs or goats and distributing them, then when they multiply they can distribute them too, then they have some income and food without our help.”
Do you often get discouraged? What discourages you?
“Sometimes. It normally happens when I go into a village or community and I think, “I know exactly what I want to do here. I know how to do it, and what difference it would make. But I cannot do it because the resources are not there.” But always I remember the work I am doing, and the lives we are saving, and I thank the Lord.”
Is the inability to complete a project always due to funds?
“Yes, always. Because sometimes my staff must go for maybe a month, or maybe two, without being paid. My policy is to pay the lowest paid employee first, and the highest last – so I am always at the end! But this means I may be looking at a project and think I can do this, and save these people’s lives, or I can pay my staff.”
What is the annual budget of LISAP?
“It is about 160 million Kwachas [£640,000]. But every year we spend about 60 million more in deficit!”
How many staff does LISAP have? Where are they based?
“There are 44 staff. Most are based in the regional offices, not here. We have built this hall and kitchen here in the hope that we can host conferences and events to create an independent income, but most of our staff are not here.
“We have many more volunteers than staff. There are about 1,000 volunteers, throughout the whole north of Malawi, where there are 1.2 million people. About 200,000 have HIV/AIDS in that area.”
How has working in the poorer areas of Malawi affected you?
“It has opened my eyes to my own country. While I knew there were poor people, I had never met them in their own homes, only in hospital when they have tried their best to dress well. If you want to see Malawi, you should not visit me here, but you should come with me to see the villages. When I first started to work with LISAP I would go every day to the village with material to cover myself (sarong), and every day I would come back without it. But my staff told me I had to find a way to make myself strong, or I would have nothing left.”
How has living in Belfast changed your perspective on life in Malawi?
“I has encouraged me to see the higher standard of life. I now know that there is something better that can happen for Malawi. But I missed some things from here – I missed the community. Every Thursday we had an African Evening – one week we would eat food from Malawi, another from Kenya, another from Ghana. But I didn’t meet any other Malawians!”
This has been bugging us. Can you tell us about your 10 children?
(Laughing!) “You just come across them here and there, one without a mother, one without a father, one who’s parents can’t afford them. But I have never been pregnant or married!”
If you would be interested in supporting LISAP’s work, please get in contact and I will pass on Mphatso’s contact details.
NB – there are two Helen’s in town – Helen Scot works at the Girls’ School, Helen Quinn at the Lay Training Centre. We don’t know why the receptionist only knew one, but luckily it was the correct one!
