A picture showing Chimbwimbwi river in a wrong course towards fields and villages.
Awareness on Chimbwimbwi river dyke construction to the government officials and
traditional leaders.
This awareness raising activity took place in the Nsangi district in the southern region of
Malawi and was led by the Tearfund partner, River of Life. The main purpose was to mobilise
government officials and traditional leaders toward getting involved in the dyke construction at
Chimbwimbwi River. This river has altered its main course over time and is resulting in the
displacement of several households from 7 local villages. It also causes gardens to be
washed away during the rainy season.
After assessing the situation the communities and River of Life identified dyke construction as
the option that would enable the river to be redirected which would prevent the river from
directing itself towards local villages and gardens.
The process of bringing the government officials together with the traditional leaders took
some time to organise. The first stage was to identify which stakeholders to invite. After
identifying these key players, a meeting was arranged to meet them separately to brief them
on the problem and the intended outcome. The main stakeholders identified were officials
from across different government departments such as Agriculture, Forestry, the Director of
Planning and Development from the district assembly and the Director of Engineering from
the Assembly, showing how widely cross-cutting this issues was. Other stakeholders
involved were church leaders in the impacted area, traditional leaders, teachers and civil
protection committees.
A stakeholders’ meeting was then arranged with all the relevant members. During the
meeting, the community action plan (CAP) concerning Chimbwimbwi river was read out to the
members and general discussions were held based on the recommendations by the
community members contained in the CAP. After a long discussion on the recommendations
and resources involved in constructing a dyke, the members made a commitment to assist in
mobilising the resources. The District assembly through the department of public works
pledged to provide a tractor that will be used to transport stones and other materials required
for the construction process. The forestry department pledged to provide the technical aspect
in planting the river-bank cover. Community members volunteered to provide free labour at
the site. River of Life being the initiator of the process covered all the costs of organising the
meeting. Despite these costs, River of Life felt that the process was worthwhile as it brought
together the commitment from the community to overcome the problem
Challenges faced
It was quite a challenge to get the commitment of certain members especially the
government. The main problem is that government officials prefer to be the initiators of such
processes rather than being led by others. The limited availability of funds also hindered the
process from being publicised so as to increase support from the public.
Sustainability
Through the involvement of government officials and the traditional and church leaders, there
is a great sense of ownership of the whole project. ROLEC is very much confident that the
project will be a success because of the resources being pulled together from various
quarters in the district. The advocacy activity itself also brought in a great sign of
transformation as regards relationship building. Traditional leaders, church leaders as well as
government officials are able to work together and they view each other as partners in
development.