Rose Chibambo
| Rose Lomathinda Chibambo | |
|---|---|
| Deputy Minister for Hospitals, Prisons and Social Welfare | |
|
In office 1963 – 7 September 1964 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 8 September 1928 |
| Died | 12 January 2016 (aged 87) Blantyre, Malawi |
| Nationality | Malawi |
| Occupation | Activist |
Rose Lomathinda Chibambo (8 September 1928 – 12 January 2016) was a prominent politician in the British Protectorate of Nyasaland in the years leading up to independence as the state of Malawi in 1964, and immediately after.
Rose Chibambo organised Malawian women in their political fight against the British as a political force to be reckoned with alongside their menfolk in the push for independence. She was arrested on 23 March 1959, two days after giving birth to a girl, and taken to Zomba prison. Her fellow freedom fighters, including Hastings Banda were arrested earlier, on the morning of 3 March when governor Robert Armitage declared a state of emergency. After Malawi gained independence in 1964, Rose Chibambo was the first woman minister in the new cabinet. When she fell out with Dr. Hastings Banda she was forced into exile for thirty years, returning after the restoration of democracy
Rose Lomathinda Chibambo (Ziba maiden name)was born in Kafukule, Mzimba District on 8 September 1928 when Nyasaland was still a protectorate under British colonial rule. In 1947, she married Edwin Chibambo, formerly a teacher and now a civil servant. Her husband was the son of the Reverend Yesaya Chibambo, one of the first Africans in the protectorate to be ordained as a Christian minister. In 1948 her husband was posted to the Zomba Public Works department. She completed her secondary education at night school in Zomba in 1948 while pregnant with her first child. She had another child in 1951, and four more later. The youngest was born in 1961.
In 1952, Rose became aware of Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) politics during the controversy over the colonial government's plan to make Nyasaland part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which the NAC saw as a betrayal of the agreement by the government to put the interests of Africans first. She decided that women should be more involved in the struggle, and began to organise her friends in Zomba, mostly the wives of civil servants. Some issues were specific to women, such as the fact that in some stores women could only do their shopping through a wicket, and that elderly women were not examined in private in the hospitals, but in rooms filled with women of all ages.
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