VP Ansah distributes aid, calls for self-reliance among disabled Malawians

Vice-President Jane Ansah has delivered a rallying call to people with disabilities across Malawi, urging them to embrace self-reliance rather than depend indefinitely on aid and handouts.

The Second Citizen made the appeal at Phalombe Teachers Training College, where she personally distributed relief items to people with disabilities and elderly residents through her charity, the Dr Jane Ansah Foundation.

While reassuring the crowd that government and her foundation would continue to support vulnerable communities, Ansah was firm in stressing that self-help initiatives remained essential to ensuring support could be sustained in the long run, rather than communities becoming permanently reliant on donations.

The visit comes as Ansah – a former Malawi Electoral Commission chairperson turned Vice-President – has increasingly used her office to champion causes around vulnerable groups, even as she has faced her own well-documented struggles within government, having recently spoken publicly about being sidelined by officials within the administration.

Her foundation has become a familiar presence at grassroots relief events since her appointment as running mate to President Peter Mutharika, often stepping in to distribute food, clothing and other essentials to disabled and elderly Malawians in hard-to-reach districts such as Phalombe.

Speaking on behalf of people with disabilities at the event, representative MacDonald Makapu used the opportunity to press government on a long-standing grievance, calling for the removal of collateral requirements on loans – a barrier campaigners say locks disabled Malawians out of the financial system and prevents them from starting or growing small businesses.