Mar
12
2018

Commonwealth Big Lunch

In the run up to London hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in April there will be hundreds of Big Lunches taking place across the Commonwealth. This SMP lunch will help launch this special CHOGM campaign, and will also form part of the Scotland Malawi Partnership's own 'BuyMalawian' campaign and help bring to a close another successful Fair Trade Fortnight.

The Scotland Malawi Partnership hosted a Big Commonwealth Lunch on Monday 12th March (Commonwealth Day) at the Edinburgh City Chambers.

In the run up to London hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in April there will be hundreds of Big Lunches taking place across the Commonwealth.

This SMP lunch helped to launch this special CHOGM campaign, and also formed part of the Scotland Malawi Partnership’s own #BuyMalawian2018 campaign whilst bringing to a close another successful Fair Trade Fortnight.

Check out the highlights from our lunch below:


The lunch celebrated the Commonwealth and specifically the longstanding friendship between Scotland and Malawi.

We were delighted to welcome civic and political leaders, including the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, R.H. Frank Ross, Scotland's Minister of International Development and Europe, Dr Alasdair Allan and others, champions of the Scotland-Malawi friendship, and friends from the Malawian diaspora community. We were also delighted to hear from Mr Bernard B. Kaunda, the Chief Executive of Mzuzu Coffee.

Some of the highlights of the day came in musical form, with fantastic live performances from Zathu Band, perhaps the most popular youth group in Malawi, along with Danny Kalima and Davie Luhanga.

Check out a live performance by Zathu from the lunch >>

Watch the UK Government's video from the lunch >>

There was also a sister lunch taking place at precisely the same time in Malawi, hosted by the Malawi High Commissioner, and attended by HRH the Duke of Gloucester, the Government of Malawi's Education Minister and 200 young Malawians. Our sister network, the Malawi Scotland Partnership, sent live images from the Lilongwe lunch which were projected in Edinburgh, bringing together two lunches 5000 miles apart!

Watch the UK Government's video on 'Scotland, Malawi and the Commonwealth' below!

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