On The Ground in Malawi: Joseph Mponda

An Artist and an Educator

Working on the ground in conservation projects always requires some talents and flexibility. The more varied the abilities in one person, the better.

Joseph Mponda, the Project Manager for WWF Finland in Chembe, is an artist, an educator, an organizer - and a gentle man who always finds a way to get along with people.

Drawing and designing
Joseph is part artist - part environmentalist. This has enabled him to make contributions to the project – such as instructing children to draw fish and other wildlife. He has also displayed both his and his students drawings of the Lake Malawi cichlids at the Afrikka 2002 exhibition held in Helsinki. In addition, Joseph has designed a new kind of stove to make fuel briquettes burn as energy-efficiently as possible.

At the same time, Joseph has the organizing ability of a former businessman and the cultural knowledge of a born Malawian – both of which are very useful when working as the link between the project and local people.

Wanted: the schoolboy from the past
Joseph was born in Chirombo, a village situated in the Mangochi Region and adjacent to Lake Malawi National Park. He went to primary school in the nearby town of Monkey Bay. In eighth grade he started drawing, and continued while at secondary school in Blantyre. After that however, Joseph did not pursue his talent.

As a 17-year-old schoolboy, Joseph also became acquainted with Dr. Ken McKaye, who was carrying out research on the cichlid fishes of Lake Malawi. Joseph learned to dive and made drawings of various fish species for him. After finishing school, he stopped drawing and went on to become a businessman.

They sought a young artist, they found a married businessman
Years later in the USA, when Ken and his colleague Alison Wiklund were both working at the University of Maryland, Alison began planning a future workshop on drawing and papermaking in Chembe village, funded by WWF US and the MacArthur Foundation.

One of the goals was to engage a Malawian teacher who could maintain continuity with the students. Alison recalled seeing some skillful drawings of cichlid fish by a Malawian schoolboy that Ken had in his office and she began some detective work to trace the artist’s whereabouts. Finally Alison and Ken did catch up with Joseph – who was now an established businessman in the city of Blantyre and married, with six children.

However, despite his new situation, Joseph was attracted to the idea of teaching at the workshop in Chembe. The initiative was a success, as were the various activities sprouting from it. Soon Joseph had moved his family from Blantyre to Monkey Bay and he became employed by the WWF Finland project.

The art of diplomacy
Along with his duties as Project Manager, Joseph took up his old hobby again and began experimenting with ink drawings. Indeed, this has become the most enjoyable aspect of his work, although other duties that he also enjoys have cut in to his time for drawing.

Is there anything in his work he dislikes, then? “Of course there is. I have to communicate with people with different characters, which means that sometimes I have to talk to people who are rude.”

But Joseph has his way of getting along. “I believe that there is a God, and that you have to be nice to people”, he says with his gentle voice. No wonder Joseph is known as a man with lots of friends.

Joseph spends his weekdays in Chembe, where the WWF Finland project office is located. Every Friday he leaves for the nearby town in Monkey Bay, where his family lives, to spend the weekend with them. Joseph and his wife have one daughter and five sons, including twin brothers. The two eldest children are now in a private secondary school in the city of Blantyre, building up their opportunities so that they will, in turn, be able to create a life and career suited for their personalities...