New Members Forum [I]

New and existing members were invited to share what they were hoping to gain from their SMP membership and which connections they would most like to make. We heard from

New Members:

Alastair Murray, an orthopaedic surgeon who last Summer worked in Mzuzu Central Hospital and the Lilongwe Institute of Orthopaedics and Neurosurgery (LION). Alastair was in Malawi with World Orthopaedic Concern UK which promotes orthopaedic education and care in low-middle income countries. Alastair noted that Malawi has just one Orthopaedic Surgeon for five and a half million people, and for context, that Scotland has one hundred and fifty.Alastair would like to continue his link with Malawi orthopaedic surgery and hopes to go back to do some further work at some point.

Dikani Salema, a Malawian student at the University of Strathclyde studying for a PhD in Forensic Science. His work centres around diagnosis, research and laboratory setup. Dikani wants to use his PhD knowledge to set up the first ever forensic lab in Malawi that will help fight against gender-based violence crimes and other homicide cases.

Gillian Gilchrist and her husband Alistair have a keen interest in children’s education and formed links with Kondanani Children’s Village where they spent a month last year. Gillian has since started to assist a family, most recently supporting the college education of one of their children.

Cath Chambers is involved through her church in Ross-shire supporting many initiatives helping people in her partner church in Ekwendeni, Malawi. Cath also supports Bananabox Trust (a SMP member who sends containers from Scotland to Malawi on a regular basis, supporting communities in the North of Malawi).

Catherine Chavula is a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde. A Malawian, she works on information access problems, technologies for Malawian languages, digital health solutions for women's issues, and beauty technologies. Catherine is interested in building research collaborations between Malawian and Scottish institutions.

Roger Bamkin is a retired IT specialist with a keen interest in bridging the digital gender gap, he does this by making information on women in public positions in Malawi more widely available through well-researched articles on Wikipedia.

Existing Members:

Prof Jeremy Bagg, Chair of the Board, Jeremy ‘s background is in academic dentistry. He was Head of the University of Glasgow Dental School from 2005-2021. Since 2017 he has been the Scottish Lead for the MalDent Project, a partnership between Kamuzu University of Health Sciences and the University of Glasgow, funded by Scottish Government.

Dr Barry Klaassen, member of the SMP Board, Barry has decades of experience working with Malawians in clinical settings, especially in the area of Emergency Medicine for which his team has received many awards and as an advisor to the British Red Cross.

Emma Wood, SMP Trustee, Emma is a retired lecturer and chair of the charity STEKAskills. STEKAskills (which won an SMP member award in 2019) is a small grassroots charity with a number of Malawians and members of the Malawian diaspora on the board. The charity focusses on building solidarity between communities in Scotland and Malawi.

Recorded Video

Missed the meeting? You can find the recording on this page.