The media and three of the country’s local non-governmental organizations have pledged to work together in efforts that aim at changing lives of people in the country.
The pledge has been made in Blantyre during an engagement the organizations – namely the Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD), Find Your Feet (FYF) and Malawi Red Cross Society (MRCS) – jointly had with media executives.
The engagement comes as since 2022, the United States Government through USAID and its Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, have been working with Kaizen (a Tetra-Tech Company) Partnerships Incubator programme to build the capacity of these local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to increase their impact in Malawi’s emergency and development sectors.
Through the Partnerships Incubator three local NGOs (CARD, FYF and MRCS) received support in Business Development, Compliance, Monitoring and Evaluation, and Marketing and Communications to further their work in livelihoods, health, agriculture, education, and emergency preparedness.
However, despite the remarkable positive impact these projects have had on the lives of people in the country, it was noted during the engagement that little or nothing was known about such crucial life-changing humanitarian projects.
Speaking in an interview with MIJ Online, Melton Luhanga, who is the CARD’s Executive Director, said it is high time their stakeholders knew the positive impact their various projects are having on the ground.
“We have realized that we have transformed a lot of lives through the various humanitarian projects we have been implementing across the country.
However, these life-changing stories have not been told to the public and to our partners that have been supporting us in all these projects.
“Therefore, with this media engagement, we believe that our various stakeholders will get to know the much-needed details about these life-changing stories through the media,” said Luhanga.
Concurring with Luhanga, was Melina Mtonga, the Executive Director for FYP, who expressed hope that the information gaps that were noted during the media engagement will be closed through the partnerships her organization is ready to enter into with the media.
On his part, Leonard Maganga, the MRCS’ Head of Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting, noted that the media partnerships will go a long way to ensuring that their activities are well publicized, a development that will contribute towards his organization’s resource mobilization efforts.
Speaking on behalf of the Media Executives, Dr. Levi Phelani, the Executive Director for MIJ, welcomed the partnership with the three organizations, terming it as a right direction towards alleviating various socio-economic challenges Malawians are facing.
“This is a very welcome development. There is a lot that these organizations are doing on the ground. We, as the media, are very much ready to work with them in publicizing the positive impact their projects are having on Malawians,” said Dr Phelani.