By Mapwiya Muulupale
“Most people in this generation are giving up easily, and, unsurprisingly, suicide and mental health issues are going up…There is no place on the Earth where everything is rosy… Keep hope and faith; God has not abandoned His creation. He certainly did not abandon Malawi,” Pres. Lazarus Chakwera at Katawa Assemblies of God Church on 28th November 2022 .
University of Malawi students commenced their second semester on 6th February 2023. The week just ending was their mid-semester break.
Not so widely reported is that from 6th February to date:
- two male students have committed suicide; two female students attempted to commit suicide, but they were saved at the nick of time; and two students have been arrested, one for stealing laptops and phones and the second for attempting to steal maize from his landlord in Chikanda Ghetto, the abode of many a student.
These sad facts, courtesy of my niece, a second-year student at the University, piqued my curiosity, and I set out to learn more.
In a nutshell, the despair, caused mainly by excruciating poverty among many students living in Chikanda Ghetto, will lose us sons and daughters, and nephews and nieces, if unchecked.
I gathered that parents and /or guardians of many needy students, themselves struggling to put food on the table from the beginning to the end of the month, hardly provide for their wards.
For the lucky ones who “qualified” and were given annual upkeep allowances, the allowance, even when used frugally, lasts two months at most. It is used to buy food, cooking utensils and rentals.
The minimum rent for boys’ hostels is MK25,000, and for girls’ hostels, MK30,000 monthly. This makes the so-called upkeep allowance the government provides a drop in the ocean.
Aggravating straits already dire, many ultra-needy students fail to access the upkeep allowance because the system militates against the genuinely needy by failing to weed out bogus applicants who get the stipend.
The runaway economy, which has raised the cost of living without a corresponding increase in the students’ upkeep allowance, has exacerbated poverty among students. Hence the desperate measures by students.
The result is what we are witnessing: suicides and attempted suicides on the rise and increasing incidences of petty theft by students at the end of their wits.
How many of us look forward to receiving a phone call that your son or daughter has taken his or her own life?
The supreme irony is that those presiding over the harsh conditions that the current University of Malawi generation is undergoing to get an education benefitted from the excellent system Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda put in place.
In their time, they were demanding “better food” after consuming a whole chambo enough to feed a family of five, eating a meal of chips served with omelettes or quarter chicken + salad and washed down with a humongous cup of tea, with milk!
Had it been that late Dr Kamuzu Banda was as indifferent as they are to the plight of University students, where and who would these people be today?
Would we even know them at all today?
Let me share a lived experience my niece regaled me. A few weeks ago, well-known Social media influencer Pemphero Mphande ran a competition on his Facebook page.
The competition required people to comment on a status he had posted on his page. The comment that would get the most “likes” would win the competition and get the prize. The prize was a phone.
Guess what? Needy students at the University of Malawi mobilized themselves and had one of them post a comment. The comment was: “Let Love Lead”. Next, they campaigned, and almost all the students liked the comment, and lo and behold, they got the phone.
Now, what can hundreds of students do with one phone?
The answer: they simply allowed love to lead. How?
They auctioned the phone and used the funds to buy soya pieces packets, cooking oil, soap and other needs to share amongst the neediest students at the University.
For me, this is a teachable moment in a country where everyone from the president to the lowest public servant only look after number one.
Our young ones are our only hope. They have their hearts in the right places, and contrary to President Chakwera’s assertion that this generation is full of quitters, this generation is what Malawi needed yesterday.
The generation governing today is the problem! I am tempted to call this governing generation “sons of snakes,” but I will pass. Next article, next week they will get their just desserts.
Look here, it is not for nothing that our ancestors admonished us from declaring that “there is no dew” when we sit comfortably on top of an elephant’s back.
To hit the nail on the head, it is not true that many people in this generation give up easily. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact is that Malawi is suffering a man-made economic injustice crisis whose root causes are the ineptness and selfishness of the current leadership, which is failing to manage the economy to benefit all Malawians.
Although this discourse focuses on the plight of University Students, they aren’t the only sufferers. All Malawians that are politically unconnected are suffering. Worse, they have no reason to hope the government will rescue them.
It is a national shame that we do not only forsake our University and other students but have the cheek to insult them as quitters when all evidence shows and proves otherwise.
Lest we forget, President Lazarus Chakwera is the Chancellor of the University of Malawi. Let’s remember that President Chakwera and Vice President Saulos Chilima are the University of Malawi alumni.
Hence, instead of pontificating insensitively and accusing “most people in this generation” of “giving up [easily]”, they should retrace their steps, go to Chanco to confer with the Students Union President to hear the suffering of the students and understand why despair is driving some to suicide and petty theft and see how the State can intervene.
The private sector and high-net-worth Malawians can also come in. They could adopt one or more needy students and help them with basic needs to complete their education.
To be clear, despite what Malawians went through under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) regime, there are some excellent reasons why some people think former president Peter Mutharika is still relevant when he is obviously way past his “best use by date”.
One reason is that Malawians are worse off today than they were during his time regarding the cost of living. Malawians have noted how those they demonstrated for in 2019 have now lost touch with reality and ordinary folk.
Mark ye my words ye sons of vipers, unless something gives, President Chakwera will wake up one day in 2025 to discover that vis-à-vis his Katawa Assemblies of God Church harangue, he was right in one aspect: that Malawians indeed do “give up easily” on inept leaders!
Verily I say unto you, God has not abandoned His creation. He certainly has not abandoned Malawi’s poor.
Tick, tock, tick…
