![New chair Stewart Glastone (L)]()
Malawi Association Midlands, (MAM) a grouping of benevolent Diaspora Malawians in Nottingham and surrounding areas in the East Midlands of England has overhauled the old executive committee and ushered in new office bearers.
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![New chair Stewart Glastone (L)]()
New chair Stewart Glastone (L)[/caption]
The MAM new executive committee was ushered in during a General Assembly which was held on Saturday at the Hyson Green Youth Club, Forest Fields in Nottingham.
Stewart Gladstone was voted in as the new chairperson of the association while Wonderson Chideya was elected as MAM’s vice chair.
Gladstone has taken over the association’s top seat from now Manchester-based lawyer Dr. Boniface Chimpango who did not contest as he has since relocated away from the midlands .
Balewa Mwalwanda was elected as the association’s General Secretary with Garnet Kamwendo polled in as Vice Secretary General and Kelvin Ndema was chosen to be the association’s treasurer.
During the General Assembly which was attended by Malawi Association UK chairperson, Martin Guga, members of Nyasa Daughters of Nottingham, and Daughters of Nyasa Coventry, Elton Phiri was entrusted with the responsibility to look after entertainment affairs as director of entertainment.
However, the new executive committee will have to fill other positions at an extraordinary meeting and that is the offices of Publicity Coordinator, Youth Coordinator and Director of Welfare respectively.
'Stronger together'
The newly appointed chairperson, Stewart Gladstone told
Nyasa Times in an interview that his mission alongside the new office bearers is to ensure unity among Malawians in Nottingham and surrounding area adding that it is important that Malawians live in harmony and together as a one people from the Warm Heart of Africa.
“We hope to bring the Malawian families and individuals in Nottingham and our catchment areas together for believe that unity among Malawians can help in building a stronger Malawian society. We are one people and together we can be stronger,” said Gladstone.
He added: “We are far away from home and as Malawians we must belong together regardless of where we come from in Malawi because first and foremost we are but Malawians. We must laugh, celebrate, enjoy and or cry together. Other than that, as a Malawian community away from home we need to come together to promote our country and our culture.”
“We must sell our country to our friends and workmates from other country that our country is beautiful and we need to be united to be able to that. Only us (Malawians) and nobody else can promote the image of our beautiful country for we are all ambassadors for our country and I therefore ask all Malawians in Nottingham to join us so that together we can support each other,” said Gladstone.
'Sense of belonging'
In a separate interview MAUK Chairperson Martin Guga assured that Malawi Association UK as an umbrella body for all Malawian associations, groups and charitable organisation in the UK, will do everything possible to support the new executive as has always been the case.
Said Guga: “I would like assure the new executive committee that Malawi Association UK will always be at their disposal giving any support and guidance. Our working relationship between us as a mother body, MAUK and MAM has always been cordial and pleasantly affable and we hope with the new office bearers our correlation will continue to grow.”
Guga implored Malawians in the UK to join Malawi Associations in their areas saying it is important for Malawians to live cohesive and solidly interconnected saying joining associations gives a sense of belonging helps so much in both times of joy and sadness especially in the Diaspora.
“We are far away from home and away from our families but as Malawians, we are all related because we are all children of mother Malawi. It helps to join these association so together we can teach our children born here in UK our Malawian way of life as well as let our ourselves and our children make friends with other Malawians and together learn and teach or remind each other of our traditional and cultural values,” said the Leicester based Guga.
