Thondwe, Malawi …The lack of food tops the news headlines daily. Prices are skyrocketing, when, and if, it can be found. Efforts to get staple grain often ends in fruitless frustration. Women with small babies on their back stand in long lines at maize selling locations. They wait for hours, days and even in some cases a week or more. Hope fades. The watch for a truck bringing food is to no avail. It is a crisis and Malawi is in the middle of it.
Wilson Tembo, Manager for the Malawi Project’s Distribution Warehouse in his country, gives these observations during a recent trip to distribe food in needly areas in the central region of Malawi.
“On the way from Dedza I saw empty grain sacks laying on the ground. They were leading toward a small building in the trading center of Balaka. Some ladies were sitting on the ground nearby, and it was obvious they were seriously ill. Children were crying.
I stopped and talked with one of the women. She told me the old building I saw in front of me is a maize selling point by Agricultural Development and Marketing Cooperation (Admarc). She further said her, and hundreds other people, were waiting for the arrival of maize. “Some have left,” she said, “but the rest of us will wait until when the food arrives.”
Greater Problem in the Prisons
As serious as it is for ‘free’ people find food, the case is even worse for those in prison. The food supply is low, and people have little or no way to get food on their own.
Recently, I received a call from a top official of the prison. He sounded quite concerned, as though he was in pain. ‘Is there a possibility you can help us with food,” he questioned with a low voice? I was surprised, as this is a senior officer in the Malawi Prison service. He is the chaplain of the Prison service based at the headquarters in Zomba.
He was calling to ask if we could help the prison with food for three children who are in prison and there is no food. Moved by compassion, he was out searching for a possible source for food for these little innocent children.
According to the chaplain, ‘These children are in prison, not as a result of anything they have done, but because their mothers had been convicted. These are innocent children who do not even know why they are there.’
Without delay, when I arrived back at the warehouse we delivered the food they needed. We provided 20 Kilograms of Likuni phala for these children.
The food problem at the prison is compounded by government shortage of funds as donors withdrew. Adding to this, the prison is over-clowded. Now there are 2,400 inmates against the holding capacity of 720 at Zomba Maximum Prison alone. 36 of these are females. The prison require 35 bags of maize of 50 Kg and 9 bags 50kg bags of beans per day.
There are 13,000 inmates in the Malawi prison system. Of these an estimated 2,000 are sick, with many of them living with HIV/AIDS positive status.
It is bad and getting worse for everyone here, but it seems the worst is when innocent children are starving in silence and isolation.
Editors Note: The Malawi Project will shortly be delivering one of the Walk Behind Tractors to assist the prison to increase its food production.