Growing up in rural Malawi: dilemmas of childhood (original) (raw)
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Child Care Health and Development
Background Child development in developing countries is often evaluated using assessment tools created for 'Western' settings. Recent work has demonstrated that, for certain developmental milestones, 'Western' tools may be inaccurate as they include items unfamiliar to children of different cultural settings. Methods We used qualitative methods to gather information about normal development in an African setting. Ten village and two professional focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted. We used purposive sampling methods to recruit groups of mothers, grandmothers and men in four areas of Southern Malawi for village FGDs. Separate FGDs were carried out with professionals working in areas relating to child development. A thematic content analysis established main patterns and themes and dissemination of results and continued feedback allowed for respondent validation and reflection of results. The information then gathered was used to create questions for a revise...
Master's Thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2014
Early Childhood Development (ECD) is a powerful paradigm which has become very popular in the last few years as part of development strategies around education for young children. As a potent discourse and construction of knowledge based on assumptions of the universality of the child, ECD makes claims to an authority-to-knowledge about how to ‘best’ raise children. However, like all discourses, ECD is caught in a field of asymmetrical power relations where ECD is seen as the superior knowledge on childcare and child raising. The African nation of Malawi has adopted this paradigm as part of their attempts to tackle the education crisis in the country. In this paper I explore the dynamics around the penetration of ECD, as a discourse and practice of knowledge, into a rural Malawian village. I show how ECD creates an exclusionary authority-to-knowledge that creates problematic power relations which cause tensions and conflict between the two diverging social imaginaries of ECD and the local community. These tensions and conflicts are explored in two sites of struggle, within which the diverging nature of the social imaginaries of ECD and the local community are illuminated. I explore how relations of love within the community are not the affectionate and intimate relations propagated by ECD, but are rather marked by performances and practices of respect. These performances and practices of respect trump an affectionate and intimate love because they are central to the maintaining of the boundaries of the moral order and ultimately the social contract of the community. I then show how fantasy and fairytales, which are also promoted by ECD, also come into conflict with the boundary making processes of the community, luring children to cross boundaries into the liminal world of witchcraft and magic. This paper shows how ECD is a discursive construction and practice of knowledge/power embedded in asymmetrical power relations which is brining into rural Malawi a different social imaginary to the one present, thereby ushering in the possibility of a shifting in the local social imaginary.
Developmental Idealism and Family Life in Malawi
2011
This paper examines the extent to which developmental idealism has been disseminated in Malawi. Developmental idealism is a set of beliefs and values about development and the relationships between development and family structures and behavior. Developmental idealism states that attributes of societies and families defined as developed are better than attributes defined as traditional, that modern societies help produce modern families, that modern families facilitate the achievement of modern societies, and that the future will bring family change in the direction of modernity. Previous research has demonstrated that developmental idealism is widespread in many places around the world, but provides little systematic data about its occurrence in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this paper we help to fill this gap by examining the extent to which developmental idealism has become widespread in two settings in Malawi, a SubSaharan African country. Malawi was relatively isolated from the circul...
Care for Child Development in rural Malawi: a model feasibility and pilot study
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2018
Evidence demonstrates that encouraging stimulation, early communication, and nutrition improves child development. Detailed feasibility studies in real-world situations in Africa are limited. We piloted Care for Child Development through six health surveillance assistants (HSAs) in group and individual sessions with 60 caregivers and children <2 years and assessed recruitment, frequency, timings, and quality of intervention. We collected baseline/endline anthropometric, child development (MDAT), maternal stress (SRQ), and family care indicators (FCIs) data and determined acceptability through 20 interviews with caregivers and HSAs. HSAs could only provide coverage on 14.2% of eligible children in their areas; 86% of group sessions and a mean of 3.6/12 individual sessions offered to mothers were completed. Pre-and post-assessment of children demonstrated significant changes in MDAT language and social Z-scores and FCIs. Caregivers perceived sessions as beneficial and HSAs good leaders but that they could be provided through other mechanisms. Integrated Care for Child Development programs for 0-2 years old are readily accepted in Malawi, but they are not feasible to conduct universally through HSAs due to limited coverage; other models need to be considered.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established by the United Nations (UN) in 2000 to coordinate and monitor global efforts to advance social development by 2015. Child poverty is a core concern reflected in the MDGs’ focus on children’s access to food, education, and health care. This focus on children is intertwined with the evolution of the idea of the global child, a discursive figure that reflects abstract ideas about children in a global society but often obscures the material contexts of children’s lived realities in diverse settings. Sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind other regions in reaching their MDG targets and Malawi has lagged behind the average progress in sub-Saharan Africa. Malawi’s exceptional difficulty in reaching MDG targets presents a valuable case study for examining the limitations of the MDGs at a finer grain of detail. This chapter demonstrates key discrepancies between global scale efforts to define and target child poverty through the MDGs and the contextual issues facing impoverished children in Malawi. The juxtaposition of Malawi’s top-down Growth and Development Strategy, which tends to address the generic needs of the abstracted global child in Malawi, with an intervention rooted in context-specific problems identified by guardians of vulnerable children highlights the need to address multiple practical and strategic needs simultaneously to bring about lasting progress. Crucially, this includes the intellectual task of deconstructing the global child discourse and building understanding of the inter-related issues that create and sustain high levels of poverty in Malawian households and communities.
Early childhood development: the role of community based childcare centres in Malawi
SpringerPlus, 2014
Background: Somatic changes including growth and development of the brain of a human being occur very early in life. Programmes that enhance early childhood development (ECD) therefore should be part of the national agenda. Cognizant of this fact, the Malawi Government together with development partners facilitated the establishment of community-based child care centres (CBCCs) which are owned and managed by community members. This study was aimed at understanding how CBCCs operated and their core functions.
Child-headed Households in Rural Zimbabwe: Perceptions of Shona Orphaned Children
2018
for accepting to be on my dissertation committee and their invaluable comments. I would also like to express my appreciation to everyone who has helped me with this work. This includes all those who taught me in the Dreeben School of Education at the University of the Incarnate Word, the Library Staff and all those who cheered me up and encouraged me during my academic journey. This work would not have been possible without my nephew Clifford Gomba who inspired me to write on orphaned children and for his sound suggestions, technical and moral support during my dissertation journey. I thank the Sisters of the Infant Jesus (SJI), my religious community for allowing me this precious time to study. My gratitude goes to Bishop Dr. Martin Munyanyi and my sister Angela Matavire, both in Zimbabwe for their telephone conversations, ideas, their valued friendship, and encouragement during the writing of this work. Mary Bockrath, from Dayton Ohio, Felistas Makusha and-Dominic Mhosva from Australia, distance did not hinder you from helping me realize this feat. Thank you family, relatives, and friends for believing in me and always reaching out with advice and suggestions during this dissertation journey. Thank you all. iv DEDICATION To the following deceased members of my family • My mother (Anna Maria Machina Gomba Matavire) • My father (Cosmas Gomba Matavire) • My sister (Tecla Cosmas Mhandire) • My aunt (Consilia Machina Gondo) v
Growing up in the era of AIDS: Childhood experiences in rural Zimbabwe
2014
This thesis was achievable only through the support of many inspiring people, who gave generously of their time and resources. The list of benefactors is extensive and, due to space limitations, I am not able to thank each person individually. However, I would like to acknowledge that I cherish all contributions made towards both my development as a scholar and completion of this thesis. I am primarily deeply grateful to Dr Isak Niehaus and Dr Susan Cook, my initial supervisors, who inspired the inception and development of this thesis. Special thanks are due to Dr Fraser McNeill who took over the supervision and for his encouragement of the task to completion. The work was funded, fostered, and supported by the Ford Foundation and the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, and the Centre for the Study of AIDS (CSA), at the University of Pretoria, whose faculty members and fellow students helped me greatly in clarifying and expanding my research. Special thanks are due to the CSA director, Mary Crewe, and her staff for providing a laptop, internet access and office space. Their monthly forums and the annual-Imagined Futures‖ conferences provided opportunities for interaction and exposure to internationally renowned research experts. The African Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship, under the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi is gratefully acknowledged for financial and social support, training, and for the provision of academic platforms to present, refine ideas, and develop writing skills. The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Africa University provided a conducive and supportive intellectual environment, and the opportunity for my thesis completion. My gratitude is acknowledged to Professor Michael Bourdillon, from the University of Zimbabwe, a patient and generous mentor who encouraged me to attend the Children`s Institute at the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), where I presented earlier drafts of my work, and for his guidance on the publication requirements of thesis submission procedures. I am indebted to Dr Tsitsi Masvawure who proof read my thesis, and to her husband Dr Jeremy Jones. A number of colleagues assisted me at various stages of thesis writing, and provided insightful critiques and reading material, namely,
There are about one million orphans in Malawi. The global response has been a mix of alarm and inaction, with well-intended efforts often stymied by misunderstandings about childhoods, family dynamics, and poverty in Malawi. This paper uses children’s geographies and interviews with 25 orphans in Malawi to bring forward the everyday lives and circumstances of orphans at the micro-scale, while addressing the impact of macro-scale processes such as the Millennium Development Goals and transnational charities. The results point to specific problems with contemporary understandings of orphanhood in southern Africa and underscore the need for reflection on the effectiveness of interventions targeted at orphans as a discrete group.