NEWS & EVENTS

The Executive Director of FACT speaking at the opening of the Stop TB Partnership Board meeting in Indonesia alongside the Minister of Health of South Africa, Minister of Health of Brazil and the Director-General in the Ministry of Health of Indonesia

On 10^th March 2020, FACT, together with Mrs Trizza Hara from AHF (Aids Health Foundation) held a meeting with the parliamentary committee on HIV/AIDS and Nutrition. The secondary purpose of this meeting was to promote awareness on what FACT is, their mission, vision and interventions on TB in Malawi. The primary purpose was to articulate the challenges faced by FACT in implementing TB interventions and also the general challenges faced by organizations in Malawi when implementing TB interventions. The main challenge was inadequate funding by government on TB programs in the country. Therefore, the meeting was aimed at influencing members of the committee to table a bill in parliament that would increase the national budget on TB.

It is worth noting that that the response from the parliamentary committee through the

Chairman was encouraging as he pledged to support us by lobbying government to increase financing on TB.

This TB community sensitization meeting conducted in Mangochi with Financial Support from KNCV Tuberculosis foundation, Challenger TB and USAID.

The communities affected by TB in Malawi are not well organized. They are neither adequately consulted in Global Fund processes nor part of the oversight committee of the Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM). This is mainly due to the fact that communities themselves lack information and knowledge on the Global Fund model of work.
Facilitators of Community Transformation (FACT) in collaboration with ARASA (The technical leads of the TA) with the financial support from the Global Fund Community Rights and Gender Department (CRG) organized a workshop for communities affected by TB across the country to orient them and deliberate on the Global Fund grant architecture and discuss the role of the TB affected communities in the response to TB in Malawi. The workshop took place at PLATINUM Hotel in Lilongwe from 28th to 31st June 2018.
The workshop was attended by various organizations across the country. The workshop also attended by other key stakeholders such as MANASO, SAT, ECM and National TB Control Program. The workshop drew 60 organizations across the country. The Executive directors, program managers and X-TB patients attended the workshop.

FACT and National TB Program held a formal meeting which took place at NTP office on 22nd March 2018. The meeting was attended by NTP Program Manager Dr. James Mpunga, Deputy Program Manager Mr Dambe, FACT Executive Director Thokozile Nkhoma Phiri and Program manager Enock Manda. The purpose of this meeting was to formalize the relationship with the National TB Program to ensure harmonization and collaboration of our interventions with the National response. During this meeting FACT and NTP discussed areas of collaboration and how best we can build the rapport as far as TB program is concerned.