Charity Fyness Salima
Building on her twenty years’ experience as a nurse, Charity Fyness Salima founded the Achikondi Women and Community Friendly Health Services, popularly known as Achikondi, a community health care centre which focuses on reducing maternal deaths in Malawi by providing quality and accessible health care, in one of the underprivileged areas of Lilongwe City in the Traditional Authority Tsabango. From its inception in Achikondi has safely delivered over 10,000 healthy babies for underprivileged moms. The Centre is also addressing the scourge of Cervical Cancer by offering early Cervical Cancer Screening to poor women and girls. Currently, Achikondi has six permanent staff and five volunteers.
In recognition of her contribution to reducing maternal deaths in Malawi, Charity Salima was awarded with the 2019 Commonwealth Points of Light, and was named Malawi’s Florence Nightingale. In the same year she was also awarded with the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation Innovators Award for her outstanding contribution in improving the lives of women. In 2020, she received the outstanding Nurse’s award from the President of Malawi.
In addition to running the health care centre, she is also an active member in her community and sits on the Board for Mlodza Water Users Association. Board Member of the Malawi Health Equity Network (MEHN), and also a Board Member of the Mlodza Water Users Association.
Charity Salima has a Certificate in Nursing and Midwifery (1979 work in 1981) and a Certificate Psychiatric Nursing (1988-1990) from the Zomba School of Nursing, in Malawi.