The Malawi Defence Force (MDF) this week promoted several of its soldiers and among those recognised is Chanju Mwale, the first Malawian woman to serve as the highest ranking female army officer at the position of Major.<\/p>\n
She has now been decorated to serve the top rank of Lieutenant Colonel.<\/p>\n
Mwale, a former Kamuzu Academy student, joined (MDF) in 2004 soon after graduating as a lawyer from Chancellor College.<\/p>\n
As a specialist uniformed member, being a lawyer, her entry rank was Captain and her contributions soon earned her the rank of Major, also the first female to serve such high rank in the history of MDF.<\/p>\n
Then from 2010-2011, she was deployed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) under Mission de l\u2019Organisation des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en RD Congo( Monusco) a United Nations peace keeping mission for the Democratic Republic of Congo, as a peacekeeper and was assigned to the Conduct and Discipline Unit of the United Nations.<\/p>\n
Her task with Monusco in DRC was to help in training military contingents in the Area of Operation on the Code of Conduct of the UN against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.<\/p>\n
In 2014, she was awarded the United Nations Nippon Fellowship, a very prestigious and competitive award which is offered to 10 people each year from the world over which focuses on The Law of The Sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy research paper focused on rights of landlocked countries to access the sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt [the fellowship] is nine months programme which attaches the awardees to the United Nations Headquarters for three months then to a university for the academic part of it for six months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was attached to the University of Edinburgh. The fellowship is internationally recognised and grooms the participants for policy level appointments depending on the area of research that they focused on.\u201d<\/p>\n
She described her work as challenging but very enjoyable as it offers her a wide array of interaction with members of other defence forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy role as a lawyer is diverse but includes offering legal advice to the command element, training recruits and cadets as well as deploying contingents on aspects of military law and international humanitarian law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She encouraged Malawian girls and young ladies to remain focused and determined and follow through their goals just like she has done.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything worth having is worth the struggles and uphill battles. There have been times that I have faced frustrations and disillusionment but I love my job and I am proud to be a service woman; the first woman to hold the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the history of MDF,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Malawi Defence Force (MDF) this week promoted several of its soldiers and among those recognised is Chanju Mwale, the first Malawian woman to serve as the highest ranking female army officer at the position of Major. She has now been decorated to serve the top rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Mwale, a former Kamuzu Academy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24671,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24672,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24668\/revisions\/24672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}