*A personal account of Austin Madinga
I first met Fr Joseph Kimu in 1999 when he was setting up Radio Maria Malawi in Mangochi. I was a support engineer at MalawiNet and learning website design in my spare time. Radio Maria is a religious station that relies solely on donations. I got the idea of developing a website to help them in their fundraising and publicity efforts.
Later that year, when I felt confident enough about my newly acquired design skills, I shot off an email to Fr Kimu, offering to design a website for the station. That email led to lunch and soon after a website. There were two popular features on the early edition website, the guestbook and the audio recordings.
The 30-minute audios – Ulaliki, Bible Mchitumbuka and Bible Mchiyao – were uploaded a couple of times a month primarily for Malawians living in the diaspora. Because of the limited amount of web hosting space, one technician at the station, Conwell Naweya and I worked to compress the file sizes.
The guestbook was a great source of motivation. Malawians as far away as Norway and Australia were demanding new audio programmes time and again. Because of the limited space, we frequently faced the challenge of removing popular audio to make way for new content.
By 2005 we were experiencing lots of spam in the guestbook. We had to make the difficult decision to close it down. Soon afterwards, I designed a new website (and possibly new hosting too) that was able to hold up to 30 audios (ulaliki and Tiphunzitsane Kupemphera) programmes. Radio Maria Malawi at the time was hosting choir festivals so the pictures of these events were also uploaded to an image gallery. This generated a lot of interest as per the email below
The pressure to deliver was on!
In January 2007, Conwell and I experimented with uploading video. He recorded a mass and edited it down to 30 minutes. We went on to upload a few other videos and they were quite popular. Now Malawians in the diaspora could watch Chichewa mass.
By September 2009, I was ready to ditch the static HTML website and use a content management system. In came a dynamic WordPress website. This new platform allowed me to train a few volunteers on how to make content updates.
Within the next couple of years, the World Family of Radio Maria developed a custom content management system that all stations around the world were required to migrate to. The migration process wasn’t the easiest of tasks as we had to communicate by email with mostly Italian-speaking techies. But it worked. Along with the new platform came live streaming. Now Radio Maria was a true Christian Voice in your Home wherever you were around the world!
From this point on my task was primarily providing support. We had unusually frequent issues with our local domain administrator but it eventually improved over the years.
In the early days of the website, Fr Kimu gifted me with two laptops (at different times) to help with the website design efforts. It greatly aided my work but also allowed me to learn more design applications and IT skills, many of which I still use today.
Other Radio Maria Malawi work
In 2015, together with another volunteer Mary Mtimbusya, we explored the possibility of producing a newsletter. Ideas were discussed but they didn’t materialise into anything. Eventually, Radio Maria and the volunteer team at the station started producing a monthly newsletter which is in circulation to date.
Through the recommendations of Fr Kimu in 2010, I worked on a website for Luntha TV and years later, another one for Mangochi Diocese. Soon after the director of Luntha TV, Fr Andrew Kaufa asked me to help with the Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM) with their online communication efforts when he was managing the communications department there. That opened doors to providing communications training for communication coordinators for all the dioceses in Malawi. To date, I still work with Luntha TV and ECM.
Working with Fr Joseph Kimu
Working with Fr Kimu teaches you to work on your feet and to be challenged.
In 2007 I visited Namugongo Shrine in Kampala while visiting Uganda. I shared this with him and he quickly suggested that I go and talk about my experiences on Radio Maria. I told him I couldn’t do it saying I had no voice for the radio. A rather feeble excuse but the only one I could come up with.
“Try! You will be surprised to see that your talking skills are far much better than you believe them to be” he said.
I dilly-dallied and managed to dodge the bullet 🙂
A few years ago I got a call from the local Prelate to help with audio teachings that he records and sends to Radio Maria. Gosh, my experience with audio had gotten rusty but Fr Kimu, who gave him my number, believed I could help. Somehow we got the files to work.
Since the radio launched, Fr Kimu has expected the technical team to work diligently. Late payment of services or non-responsiveness to issues will surely get you in trouble. Recently, while working on a website for the St. John Integral Education Centre in Mangochi, he instructed me to make a 3-year upfront payment for the domain and hosting. For him, one headache out of the way. Unlike some of us, constantly dealing with the anxiety of monthly, quarterly and annual service renewal reminders!
I designed the Radio Maria wrapper in 2011. It was a new design from a previous version and has been used since then. In February 2023, Fr Kimu asked me to start working on the 25th Anniversary edition cloth and it was finished that same month. Talk about efficiency!
The joy of volunteering
In 2014, I was copied in an email. Fr Kimu was responding to someone who had volunteered to help Radio Maria with their computer system maintenance and IT-related issues. An excerpt.
Until this email, I hadn’t sat and thought about how long I had been associated with Radio Maria. And even today, 1999 seems like just a few years ago.
Recently I have not been a very active Radio Maria Malawi volunteer. I have however actively and happily volunteered on the communication teams of the Archdiocese of Lilongwe, the Diocese of Dedza, the Episcopal Conference of Malawi and Luntha TV. In one way or another, I got into all these teams through recommendations from Radio Maria.
I have made friends with wonderful people – the clergy and lay volunteers alike – in different Dioceses. I have learned many things and useful skills I would never have learned in the commercial world alone.
There is much joy in volunteering! Happy 25th Anniversary Radio Maria Malawi!
