Introducing Lucy and Kenneth - our Member Awards 2019 member support team

18 July 2019

Volunteers Lucy McIntosh and Kenneth Undi have joined us as volunteers to support us in organising this year's Member Awards 2019.

Volunteers Lucy McIntosh and Kenneth Undi have joined our team to support us in organising this year's Member Awards 2019. Here, they introduce themselves in their own words.

Full details of the Member Awards 2019 and how to enter

Kenneth

I came to Scotland from Malawi in June 2019 after graduating from ABC University in Lilongwe in Biblical Studies.

I am from Lilongwe where I have worked with different ministries and charity organisations in helping with education of children, girl’s empowerment and youth development.

Some of the ministries I have worked with in Lilongwe include the Ministry of Hope, Live Love Malawi, Bright Vision to mention just a few.

The most important thing I have seen in working with ministries is that together we can do something to develop the living standards of people in Malawi and make sure that our projects are a success.

This can only be done when organisations and individuals respectively come together and plan how to improve their work in Malawi.

Therefore, my goal is to see different organisations, churches, schools, and individuals coming together and help each other to improve their projects in Malawi. I decided to volunteer with SMP to help in achieving this goal.

Lucy

I am volunteering at the Scotland Malawi Partnership for a couple of months, working alongside Kenneth. I have a background in human geography and social research and am particularly interested in international development and issues related to inequality.

Having spent a couple of months in Malawi at the start of 2019, I learned a lot about Malawi as a country and how the people and communities benefit from support provided by many organisations.

This developed my desire to become more involved in supporting the people, communities and environment of Malawi as well as people and organisations in Scotland working with or who are connected to Malawi.

Together we are working to encourage and support current members to update their online profiles on the SMP website.

There are several benefits to having an up-to-date profile including being able to enter the SMP’s Member Awards.

We aim to help support our 1200+ members to tell their stories and continue to highlight our bilateral relationship. It is not about competition but collaboration.

Encouraging our members to have an up-to-date profile and enter the Member Awards will help to represent their links with Malawi to a wider community, to build coordination effort in the bilateral relationship.

The details of all those who enter the Member Awards will be given to HRH The Princess Royal in a commemorative book.

In addition, the winners will be presented with their award by, and be photographed with, HRH The Princess Royal.

As part of the SMP Team we aim to make sure everyone benefits and the SMP will work to promote the work of all those who enter to be considered for a Member Award.

We are really excited to be part of this team and we hope that many of our members will benefit from this process by telling their stories, making new connections and building new collaborations.

Lucy Mc Intosh and Kenneth Undi volunteers for web