The last moments of pure fun and love with the 8th cohort
* 8th cohort of the US university MBA students just completed their 3 week research project for their dissertations
* The research programme started in 2018 after former MBA student took part in Othakarhaka Girls Empowerment Camp
* The exchange visits followed between Othakarhaka founder Idah Mwango and University of Michigan’s faculty managers
Analysis by Duncan Mlanjira
Founded merely as a charity group in 2012, Mulanje-based Othakarhaka Passing on the Kindness Foundation has made many strides over the years — that include alleviating underprivileged people’s economic and education challenges — but for the past 6 years it has earned huge recognition by USA’s University of Michigan.
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Othakarhaka — Lhomwe for ‘passing on kindness’ — came to prominence in 2022 when it won the grand prize of K5.5 million of the Old Mutual Malawi’s best short video documentary in the #Sisonke competition, but by then University of Michigan had already cemented its academic partnership with the Foundation, whose founder is Idah Puliwa-Mwango.
The Foundation and its surrounding communities have just bade farewell to the 8th cohort of two teams of 12 MBA students from the University of Michigan-Ross School after their enriching 3-week stay in Mulanje for their research project.
“A heartfelt gratitude to them for choosing OTK as their research project,” reports Othakarhaka Passing on the Kindness Foundation on its official Facebook page. “Kudos to their hard work and passion towards our mission during their research.”
The hard work mentioned here, apart from the research project, includes the MBA students being involved in some of Othakarhaka’s projects such as engaging with the girl child, observing the Forestry Season by replacing trees, visiting the Foundation’s partner community schools, engaging with the rest of the surrounding community members and their traditional leaders — and of course some recreation by hiking the great Mulanje Mountain.
“This year’s team also enjoyed themselves on their final days of their stay when they visited Majete Game Reserve in Chikwawa,” says the founder, Idah Mwango. “It was an experience they confessed will be kept in their fond memories of their visit to Malawi.
“Even the communities here in Mulanje, they were very appreciative of their positive contributions to all our programmes we involved them in.”
Othakarhaka’s Facebook page is awash with pictures of the 8th cohort playing football with a girls’ team that Foundation sponsors; planting trees; trying out traditional dances in traditional regalia; delivering motivational speeches to young minds — amongst several others.
Idah explains that all this is part of their research project for their master of business administration (MBA) dissertation — a graduate degree that provides theoretical and practical training for business or investment management. An MBA is designed to help graduates gain a better understanding of general business management functions.
Idah says it all started when former University of Michigan’s MBA student, Gloria DeCoste attended Othakarhaka Girls Empowerment Camp in 2018 as a motivational facilitator, who was very inspired with what the Foundation was offering in reaching out surrounding underprivileged community members to enhance their academic and economic livelihoods.
“When she went back, she impressed upon University of Michigan’s professors to consider uplifting us, as by then we were a very small organization. We were then contacted by Prof. Andy Lawlor, who asked us to write a project project to help us grow and it passed for their MBA students to do their research projects for their dissertation here at Othakarhaka.
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“An exchange programme started in that I travelled to the US to discuss with the professors there and their MBA students and I traveled back to Malawi with them for the first cohort in 2018.
“The programme then included visits by the University of Michigan’s executive MBA holders for one week as well as sponsoring my husband, Ted to accompany me whenever I have to travel to the US twice for the orientation process.”
She adds that once a team is identified she has to travel to the US to meet the students and their faculty Deans between the period of February and March and also in August or September for the executive MBAs.
“The first team in 2018 observed some challenges we were facing and came up with a strategy of creating our Foundation’s logo and assisted in registering Othakarhaka as non-profit organisation in the US with the aim to raise funds to help our girls, who are now 500 in total.”
At community level — whose office complex is along the road to Phalombe at Chambe in the area of senior Chief Mabuka — its successes are just unprecedented. Idah discloses that they have made huge strides in helping the girl child; as well as boys, attain their academic dreams.
“At the moment we have three girls studying medicine, with one at Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Honours in Pharmacy; others in clinical medicine at Malamulo and we inspired one, who was married and had three children to go back to school and she is studying Honours in telecommunication & electronic engineering at Malawi University of Business & Applied Sciences.
“We also have some girls and boys at the University of Malawi and the list goes on as some, who had no chance at all of going to secondary school, are now eyeing for the university level.”
Othakarhaka also offers palliative health care to community members as its office complex has one wing dedicated into a fully-fledged health facility complete with a lab, a pharmacy, consultation and treatment rooms — which is being managed by Ida’s husband, a nurse by profession and in liaison with voluntary visits from specialist medical practitioners from Mulanje District Hospital.
Idah says they are registered with the Medical Council of Malawi and offers the palliative care, cancer screening, family planning and modest fee-paying general pain treatment: “The impact of palliative health care is so great as we have a clinical officer, a nurse and community health care volunteers.”
In 2022, Idah told Maravi Express that the partnership with Mulanje District Hospital was very strong in that it referred its cancer patients for home-based palliative treatments and while still being a referral, Othakarhaka offers the health care and referring complicated cases to the government hospital.
It also offers screening for cancer signs for prostate and breast cancer for its communities members as well as teaching them how to detect cancer signals.
Founder Idah Mwango
On World Health Day, Othakarhaka stood united in its commitment to create a healthier community in Malawi by supporting communities with essential health services such as teaching girls about menstrual hygiene; offering free medical examinations; providing free cervical cancer screenings to help women catch it early and giving palliative care for the elderly and those with advanced HIV/Aids, among others.
And while they encourage girls who went into forced marriages to go back to school, there are some that can’t manage but Othakarhaka trains them in tailoring & fashion design and given starter-packs of sewing machines once they graduate.
“We are still offering tailoring & fashion design skills and in fact, our next project with the University of Michigan targets to have our own cloth design brand having identified some markets in the US. We will be shipping consignments there as well as setting up an online market.”
On its Facebook page, Othakarhaka highlights the achievement of Promise Maononga, “an empowered single mother of two who graduated from OTK Tailoring School. After graduating, she and other single mothers were given a sewing machine and other startup materials to venture into tailoring business.
“Today, Promise is running a thriving tailoring shop in her village, turning vibrant African prints into stunning designs — a testament to the transformative power of empowering those in need.
In April this year, Othakarhaka handed over a climate change resilient house it constructed for 60-year-old Alena Malingamoyo, whose house was destroyed during the March 2023 Tropical Cyclone Freddy in Mangasanja Village, T/A NKanda in Mulanje.
Zodiak Online reported that the eight-member Malingamoyo family, which includes grandchildren, has for over a year been living in a small, dilapidated shelter, hence assisting them with the house.
Idah told the online that her organisation partnered with the International Development Institute to build the house under the ‘Brick of Hope’ project and this is the fourth house to be handed to a beneficiary.
Other highlights on its Facebook page include that celebrating and congratulating one of its education scholarship program graduate, Chikumbutso who attained from University of Malawi a Bachelor of Education (Physics) with credit.
Mable will be the first girl from scholarship program to become a police officer — expected to continue to ‘pass on the kindness’ through her commitment to protecting girls against gender-based violence.
“A day of Diniwe’s graduation, was also his mother’s memorable day as she witnessed her own son becoming the first University graduate in the family lineage. Her excitement reached the climax when Diniwe offered her his graduation gown, a cherished memory she will never forget.
“Meet Chisomo, our today’s shining girl. She got pregnant at the age of 14 while in primary school. Chisomo was later forced to get married by some members of her family. With support from her mother, Othakarhaka Foundation managed to rescue Chisomo and sent her back to school.
“Four years later today, Chisomo is in her final year of secondary school under a full OTK Girls Education bursary and her dream is to become a pharmacist. We are super happy and thankful to partners like ‘I Demand Access’ who help us champion girls like Chisomo’s right to education.”
Othakarhaka also introduced a digital learning program to students in rural schools within its catchment area called ‘BloomBox’ some few years back. The Foundation reports that Bloombox is a solar-powered lab with a community hotspot and is fully equipped with computers, loaded with a collection of different educational materials.
“We are so much excited to see how this initiative has improved students academic performance, collaborative learning, and promoted science, technology, engineering & mathematics (STEM) literacy in rural schools with no access to computers and electricity.”
Othakarhaka also kickstarted its 2023-2024 public schools tree planting season with Namindola and Namadidi primary schools in Mulanje, saying: “Our aim hasn’t changed — educating and inspiring our younger generation to understand the importance of planting trees and taking care of them until they reach a survival rate.
“Join us in planting more trees and saving our beautiful planet Earth as a mitigating factor to the devastating effects of climate change.
The unprecedented success of Othakarhaka was noticed in 2022 — after winning the grand prize of K5.5 million of the Old Mutual Malawi’s best short video documentary in the #Sisonke competition — by being honored with Award of Excellence presented by Young Achievers Development (YAD).
The Foundation won the award alongside 12 other awardees that included social media influencer, Pemphero Mphande and Courageous Mussa — founder of Courageous Kids Foundation — as well as Schizzo Thomson, Kondwani Kachamba Ngwira, Felie Malola, Tusaiwe Munkhondya, Kondwani Sibale, Vasco Hamid, Brenda Mhlanga.
The categories of the awards included Entrepreneurship, Arts, Umunthu, Humanitarian, Environment, Innovation among others, which was introduced by YAD’s founders to celebrate the effort and positive contributions that brings change to the society.
In the Old Mutual’s #Sisonke competition — a Zulu word for ‘we are in it together’ (‘tili limodzi’ in Chichewa) — it invited the public to submit simple videos that highlight how everyday heroes and heroines are making a positive impact in their communities in the fight against the pandemic.
The #Sisonke was a Pan-African campaign in four of the countries that Old Mutual international operates in — Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Orthakarhaka is a story of pure passion and dedication that started when Ida met Virginia-based Professor Marquita Hill, who offered her a scholarship to pursue her academic dreams after finishing her Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE).
In an exclusive interview with Idah in 2022, she explained she was engaged as an interpreter for Dr. Marquita Hill when she and her group visited her area for a youth support camp by Young Christian Association of Malawi and in their interaction, she shared with Hill of her dream to study ICT.
She narrated that they kept in touch when Hill went back to the US, who then went on to pay for her IT studies at the Polytechnic Continuing Centre and when she graduated, Idah assured Hill that she was going to repay her kindness — “not direct to her but to someone else” — thus her foundation’s identity, Othakarhaka — ‘passing on the kindness’.
From the first cohort of learners it has assisted, two went to Chancellor College; two to Mzuzu University; another to Kamuzu College of Nursing with several others enrolling at Comboni Technical College and in order for the learners never to be distracted, Othakarhaka engages mentors to guide and monitor their academic progress and they managed to set up a community library at their office complex.
Othakarhaka Charity Foundation is a registered nonprofit making organization under the Trustee Incorporation Act and affiliated to Council for Non-Governmental Organization of Malawi (CONGOMA) and it has thousands of active volunteers operating in more than 30 villages in the area of senior Chief Nkanda and some villages of Mabuka in Mulanje District.
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