SPEECH AT THE FIRST TVM AWARDS

Your Excellency Sire

All protocols observed,
We are here to witness history. We are here to experience what it means to dream in color. What it means to tap into the heavenly resources of wisdom through creativity and well focused visionary minds. We are making history.

Your Excellency,

it has become an irrefutable truth of immense proportions which will remain as a heritage for all to retrieve .Indeed History will be able to speak about it at great length and where possible assign responsibilities more clearly to the future generation ,that there once lived a man who seriously thought that there was only one way in which we could address our economic challenges and that that one way would not be found in throwing mud at each other through petty arguments bent on cheap popularity but that the only way we can move forward as a nation is to bang our heads together and come out with HOME GROWN SOLUTIONS to address the challenges of our time and that man was Ngwazi Dr Bingu Wamutharika.

Your Excellency
Today is one such a day where our country will in a few minutes from now be recognizing men and women who have done just that.
Allow me to share with all who are in here and beyond that it was your vision to honor ordinary men and women who have done allot without knowing it and have improved the lives of others.

Perhaps I did not mention it to you Sir that after conceptualizing your idea of recognizing men and women who’ve done a lot without knowing it, I made an attempt to sell the idea to a few people where I was told point blank that whatever plan I had regarding this event was wishful thinking and that it couldn’t work particularly so in Malawi and while you encouraged me to soldier on, I was told by a media mogul that I was brazenly crazy and Your Excellency this, to some extent did put me off temporarily .

However, on reflection, I dismissed his hell bent sentiments towards frustrating me, though to some extent he probably would have been partially correct for craziness is a necessary ingredient for creativity and invention to forge ahead,for as you may be aware sir, through history, a man of humble achievements and yet in this very point the former leader of Burkina Faso namely Tomas Sankara once said that “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness.

in this case, it comes from nonconformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future, thus he went to say that“ It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today. I want to be one of those madmen. We must dare to invent the future."

In tonight’s show, we have a sample of men and women drawn from all regional corners of this country through a research process which saw us coming into contact with a mother and daughter forming a new understanding of each other, bonding as never before.

There are in tonight’s program stunning stories about the sacrifices made to keep a family together. They showed a community where buildings can be damaged and even destroyed while living our spirit indestructible. They too make us proud of the extraordinary resilience of ordinary Malawian people.

Government officers in a district yet to be recognized in a few minutes from now showed remarkable concern over those we consider to be the outcasts due to their mental illness when they together went to work to clean up the streets, shaved and bathed the mental patients , Long after the society considered them to be a nuance.

But tested again and again the resilience of the awardees has been a powerful proof of the character of our country. And lastly your excellence, my father Ben Everson Malopa is a Minister of the Seventh - Day Adventist Church.

Although he is a Pastor, I don’t recall all the sermons my father preached Sabbath after Sabbath, but I will never forget a phrase in one of his sermons that “we must be givers as well as getters” and learn the art of Putting something back, And by doing so make a difference. All awardees fit into this criteria, thus they gave their onself to better others while making a difference in the process

To the power of Television and the spirit of tomorrow,
I now present to you, Your Excellency, the people of Malawi and Africa
the 2009 tv Awards- OUR PEOPLE OUR PRIDE