{"id":7659,"date":"2012-03-10T07:51:44","date_gmt":"2012-03-10T07:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=7659"},"modified":"2012-03-10T07:51:44","modified_gmt":"2012-03-10T07:51:44","slug":"the-story-behind-malawi-vice-president-joyce-bandas-dedication-to-womens-empowerment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/03\/10\/the-story-behind-malawi-vice-president-joyce-bandas-dedication-to-womens-empowerment\/","title":{"rendered":"The story behind Malawi Vice President Joyce Banda\u2019s dedication to women\u2019s empowerment"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s often fascinating to hear from where an activist found their dedication to a cause.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve interviewed a young victim of molestation who openly shared her story in the hopes of letting abused children know that they are not alone. There was a bereaved mother who founded an experimental drug rehabilitation centre after her son overdosed while backpacking in Thailand. And I\u2019ve met plenty of convicted criminals who now work to prevent youth from making the same mistakes that they did.<\/p>\n

More recently, in Malawi, several women carrying the HIV\/AIDS virus bravely broke cultural taboos and let their names and stories be publicized in order to spread awareness of the disease.<\/p>\n

Another favourite inspirational story I\u2019ve enjoyed since arriving in southern Africa is that of Malawi\u2019s vice president, Joyce Banda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have worked in the area of economic empowerment and education all of my adult life,\u201d she told me during a recent interview at her office in Blantyre. \u201cFor me, it is about poverty eradication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up with a police officer for a father, Banda has spent most of her life in the city, she began her story. But for many years, her grandmother forced her to spend weekends in her family\u2019s village, lest that be where Banda\u2019s fate one-day take her.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I had a very good friend in my village whose name is Chrissie,\u201d Banda said. \u201cShe taught me everything about village life and she was brighter than me in school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both girls completed their primary studies, the vice president continued. \u201cAnd she was elected to go to Saint Mary\u2019s and I was elected to go to Providence. She went one term, but her parents couldn\u2019t raise the six pounds that we needed for her to go the second term, so she dropped out and went back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was when the girls were 16 years old, Banda recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went on, finished, and now I am vice president of this land,\u201d Banda said, matter-of-factly. \u201cShe is locked up in the village, in poverty. And it makes me angry when I see her. I say, \u2018Why am I here, and she is not?\u2019 For that reason, I decided that I was going to spend my life working to economically empower women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Banda, the country\u2019s first female to hold an office as high as vice president, has since gone on to help Chrissie start a bakery, she\u2019s establish schools and orphanages that focus on educating girls, and Banda continues to financially support hundreds of young women\u2019s educations.<\/p>\n

\u201cChrissie is very bright,\u201d Banda said. \u201cBut she lost out; I cannot support her education. But I can spend my life supporting people like her\u2026.So for me, again, it is the eradication of poverty, focused on education, health, and the economic empowerment of women.\u201d

\"\"<\/a>

Malawi Vice President Joyce Banda traces her lifetime commitment to the economic empowerment of women to a childhood spent in the village. <\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s often fascinating to hear from where an activist found their dedication to a cause. I\u2019ve interviewed a young victim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[168,1744,466,258,299,1745],"class_list":["post-7659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-blantyre","tag-economic-empowerment","tag-joyce-banda","tag-malawi","tag-women","tag-womens-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}