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Dave Namusanya

Ruth First Scholar (2014-15)

Dave Mankhokwe Namusanya is from Malawi. He graduated from the University of Malawi with a BA in Media for Development in 2012. At University he played leading roles in the College Writers’ Workshop, the Chancellor College Initiative against Corruption, the Chancellor College Child Emancipation Project and the Youth Association for Democracy in Malawi.

Dave has worked as Editor of Big Issue Malawi and as a teacher for YAFE (Young Africans for Empowerment). He has also been involved in a literacy programme run by Malawi PEN and has managed media relations for the Malawi Women Economic Forum.

Dave writes regularly for print and online media in Malawi and maintains a blog in which he comments on social and political issues:
dave mankhokwe namusanya…the works

At Durham, Dave took an MA in Community and Youth Work. The course included two work placements in local communities in Newcastle and County Durham. He was a member of St Chad’s College, which supports the Scholarship by providing subsidized accommodation for all Ruth First Scholars.

In June 2015, Dave, together with Pearson Nkhoma (2011-12 RF Scholar), gave the Ruth First Scholar Seminar at St Aidan’s College. He spoke on ’21st-Century activism: new and social media as a tool for political activism in Malawi’.

He returned to Malawi in September 2015 and worked as a volunteer for a youth organisation, Youth Achievers for Development, with responsibility for communications and fundraising. Between 2018 and 2020, he worked with the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust as a researcher leading a study on “the acceptability of minimal autopsy in children with the long goal of understanding what is causing children’s deaths in low-resource settings such as Malawi and, thereafter, develop necessary interventions”. At the same time, he was volunteering with youth organisations, was a member of the board of the Education Support Initiative, and wrote a column in one of Malawi’s leading newspapers, The Daily TimesMankhokwe’s Wall.

In 2020, Dave began a PhD at Abertay University in Dundee. His research focuses on experiences of the impact of climate change on water use in Malawian communities.

Updated Dec 2022 Mike Thompson
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