< Alison Cameron Archives – Mamie Martin Fund

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MMF cyclists welcomed to the Livingstone Centre

Our cyclists were delighted to be welcomed to the David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre today. Both organisations paid tribute to David Livingstone and Mamie Martin, Scots who were important in the history of Malawi-Scotland relations. Douglas Hay, a Trustee of the David Livingstone Trust, welcomed the riders to Blantyre. Douglas said ‘it is a pleasure to welcome the Mamie Martin Fund to the birthplace of David Livingstone, thereby bringing together the stories of these Scots who contributed so much to Malawi. We are delighted that the legacy of their work so long ago is continuing to benefit Malawi through the education of its girls.’

The David Livingstone Birthplace site has been undergoing a major refurbishment project, which will be a vibrant new visitor destination that includes an exciting new exhibition, which will engage all ages, as well as a transformed shop and café.

The bike ride was launched by Alison Cameron, who was a nurse in Malawi and is a Patron of the Mamie Martin Fund. The ride is heading to Tarbet, Loch Lomond, where Mamie Martin grew up. Mamie left there in 1921 to go to Malawi with her husband Jack. Mamie saw the need to support the education of girls in Malawi and that work which she started is continued today by the Mamie Martin Fund. An extract from Mamie’s letters was read at Blantyre and another piece will be read at Tarbet. 

As well as those who are cycling the route, 42 people are doing the equivalent distance at home on the stay-at-home version which has been so popular. The stay-at-home riders are based in Scotland, Ireland and England – an international effort! You can encourage the riders on the fund-raising page.  

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New partnership in Malawi

Angie Wynn, Vice-Convener of the Mamie Martin Fund, signed a partnership agreement on Wednesday, 9th October with the Diocese of Karonga. The Diocese has two schools which meet our criteria for funding and we are able to support six girls at St Mary’s Karonga, a girls’ boarding school just south of Karonga in the far north of Malawi. These six girls are ‘Alison girls’ because their funding is part of the second Scottish Government endowment funding to honour the lifetime work of Colin and Alison Cameron in Malawi and Scotland.

The agreement was signed for the Diocese by Mr Remmie W. C.  Kamanga, the Diocesan Education Desk Officer. We are hugely appreciative that Remmie broke his holiday to meet us at St Mary’s for this historic signing.

Until last year we had only worked with the CCAP Synod of Livingstonia, with whom we have historic links and a real sense of shared purpose in continuing the work of Mamie Martin. Last year we broadened our remit, signing a Partnership Agreement with Mchengautuba Community Day Secondary School. Now that we have a similar agreement with the Diocese of Karonga, we can work with more sections of Malawian society to support a wider range of girls at secondary school level.

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A midwife’s night duty shift, Malawi, 1963

We are proud to have Alison Cameron as our Scottish Patron. So we were thrilled to see her 1963 snapshot of one night’s work published in the Society of Malawi Journal, Vol. 72, No. 1, 2019. We are grateful to the Journal for permission to share it with you on our website. In this article Alison describes the pressures and uncertainties of giving birth in Malawi. It was a dangerous business then and, even though maternal and infant mortality rates have fallen considerably, it is still a dangerous process for mother and baby.

Malawi infant mortality today is 39 per 1,000 live births (https://data.unicef.org/country/mwi/#), down from 64 in 2007. The SDG target for 2030 is to reduce it to 12 deaths per 1,000 live births globally. As a means of comparison, it is currently 4 deaths per 1,000 live births in the UK. Maternal health is also an area of grave concern in Malawi. Malawi’s most recent estimated maternal mortality ratio (MMR) is 439 per 100,000 live births (NSO Malawi & ICF, 2017); below the WHO (2015) estimate for the sub-Saharan African region of 546 ( in 2000, it was roughly 1120, so it has more than halved in 20 years).

Malawi’s proportion of institutional deliveries has increased sharply from 55% in 1992 to 90% in 2015-16 (NSO Malawi & ICF 2017). Malawi provides free maternity care, but quality of care appears suboptimal (Leslie et al, 2016; Ministry of Health Malawi & ICF International, 2014). Health centres offer basic emergency obstetric and new-born care; a limited number of referral hospitals offers more comprehensive services. Malawi’s health system is affected by severe lack of physical, financial and human resources (Chimwaza et al., 2014).

Alison  has been a supporter of the Mamie Martin Fund since it was founded. She and her husband, Colin, have worked for 60 years to build and maintain civil society and governmental links between Malawi and Scotland. The Scottish Government has honoured that work by creating an endowment fund in Alison’s name and asking us to administer it. This fund supports 45 girls through school and 4 at university over four years each.

Source: National Statistical Office – NSO/Malawi and ICF (2017). Malawi Demographic and Health Survey 2015-16. Available from: https://dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-fr319-dhs-final-reports.cfm. Accessed 31 January 2019. Zomba, Malawi, and Rockville, Maryland, USA: National Statistical Office and ICF.