Raising stroke awareness and funds in Malawi

02 Jul 2022 Stroke awareness

SSO (Malawi) delivers a win win approach to raise stroke awareness and funds in partnership with corporations.

SSO (Malawi) was established in 2021 with the mission to partner with the government in the reduction of stroke burden through prevention, treatment, and long-term care. Its objectives include: to represent views of persons living with stroke, and their families on improved stroke care; organize services and support in the community using trained volunteers with links to professionals; provide evidence that will influence policy and service provision.

A population-based cross-sectional study in rural Malawi (2016–2017) found poor stroke knowledge, with nearly three quarters of respondents not knowing any correct risk factors [1]. With stroke the sixth leading cause of death and a significant cause of disability in Malawi, increasing stroke knowledge and risk factors is a priority.

During May Stroke Awareness Month 2022, SSO (Malawi) lined up an ambitious stroke awareness programme. In order to deliver this programme the SSO built relationships with different corporations focusing on those corporations they knew were interested in health initiatives. The SSO adopted a win-win approach; offering awareness activities to target the young workforce of these corporations while also securing funding from the corporations.

SSO (Malawi) engaged Telecommunication Malawi Limited (TNM) and NBS Bank. They supported SSO (Malawi) with financial support of K2million kwacha each. This enabled translation of stroke awareness materials into local language Chichewa; printing of educational and information materials, banners and fliers; and development and dissemination of stroke awareness jingles for both radio and TV.

Moto money (a UK based company operating in Malawi) donated BP machines worth approximately 500 pounds to assist with the SSO's know your blood pressure campaigns during May Stroke Awareness month.

The co-founders of SSO (Malawi) Dr. George Chimatiro and Dr Emmie Malewezi, along with people affected by stroke - Kondwani Pakhosi and Cassim Alide, delivered the stroke awareness sessions at the corporations.

SSO (Malawi) is clear that the win-win approach enabled buy in from the corporations, and the involvement of working age stroke survivors resonated with the employees. The win for the corporations was the benefit to their employees of managing stroke risk factors, particularly their younger age workforce. This meant that the offer of information and materials from the SSO was appealing to the corporations. SSO (Malawi) were also flexible and adapted to the requests of the corporations, for example tailoring the sessions to different organisational levels – managerial and employees, which ensured the leadership remained on board. Of course the win for SSO (Malawi) is that they were able to deliver awareness raising activities to a target population while also raising funds to support their other activities in the community.

To find out more about how SSO (Malawi) built relationships with the corporations and delivered community awareness raising activities read the case study on Stroke Connector

[1] Mvula, H., Chisambo, C., Nyirenda, V., Geis, S., Glynn, J.R., Crampin, A.C., Nyirenda, M., Smeeth, L., Walker, R. & Price, A.J. 2019, "Community-Level Knowledge and Perceptions of Stroke in Rural Malawi: A Cross-Sectional, Population-Based Survey", Stroke (1970), vol. 50, no. 7, pp. 1846-1849.

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