2022
ZODIAK HIV IN UNDER FIVE SPECIAL REPORT
Country/area: Malawi
Organisation: ZODIAK BROADCASTING STATION
Organisation size: Big
Publication date: 12/11/2021
Credit: Story by Innocent Kumchedwa, edited by Daniel Mababa, led by Joab Frank Chakhaza
Biography:
Innocent Kumchedwa is an experienced journalist from Malawi. He holds a bachelors degree in Humanities majoring in Philosophy and Classics from the University of Malawi. He currently works as a news editor for Zodiak Broadcasting Station. His works have earned him over 10 local and international media awards
Project description:
In this special report Innocent Kumchedwa tells the plight of children born with HIV in Malawi who do not have access to nutritious foods and they are mostly mounorished. He also tells how difficuilt it is for these children to take their retoraviral drugs, as they usually have no appetite.
Impact reached:
After this story was published an organisation approached our radio station and started supporting 50 children with HIV from the Chigwilizano area where the story highlighted. This organisation put the children on a four months program to recieve peanut butter as well as enroll their mothers for free on a special program on how they can produce the peanut butter on their own. Apart from this, the organisation will also donate three machines for peanut butter processing for free. See the link https://www.facebook.com/zbsnews/posts/4779853198727272
Techniques/technologies used:
Mainly I used interviews, by going to the area and conduct interviews with the mothers of the affected children. I also used observation, by seeing the situation the children were going through and their health status. I also used desk research, went on the internet to search on some figures for example, how should a normal 3 year old baby weigh, to compare with the weight of the children in my story. So this helped me make an analysis.
What was the hardest part of this project?
The hardest part was to go to a remote part of the city, to find the sources and get them to tell their story.
What can others learn from this project?
telling a story with passion always brings out good work and also, using the bottom up approach in story telling always brings impact. As you can see this story first focused on the poor mothers with children born with HIV then to the experts and those in authority as such it created a balance and able to tell the story better.
