Edyth Kambalame

Edyth Kambalame (born c. 1986) is a Malawian journalist. She has been the Deputy Editor of The Nation newspaper since 2020. She has leadership roles at the Malawi Media Women's Association and the Malawi Editors Forum. She won the WAN-IFRA Women in News Editorial Leadership Award for Southern Africa.

Kambalame was born in about 1986.^[1] She was part of the first year intake for a new journalism course at the University of Malawi. In her second year she spent a few weeks at The Nation newspaper and she was chosen to be an intern there in her third year. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.^[2] Kambalame had worked at Capital Radio Malawi, but her first job was as a general journalist for The Nation. She later took an interest in women's lives and gender related issues. She argues that women journalists need to be advocates as modern journalism requires it.^[3]

She became the UNFPA Reproductive Health Champion Award (for Print Media) in 2012.^[3]

Kambalame gained a Chevening scholarship in 2016 to study for a master's degree^[4] in gender and media in the following year at the University of Sussex.^[5]

In 2020 she was the interim President of the Malawi Media Women's Association and the Deputy Editor of The Nation newspaper.^[3] She was also the chairperson of the Association of Media Women in Malawi, which organised a protest attended by hundreds of people, in Blantyre, against rape and sexual abuse. It was one of three protests in cities in Malawi.^[6] The maximum penalty for rape in Malawi was fourteen years but Kambalame called for the penalty to be life imprisonment.^[7]

She was the Vice President of Malawi Editors Forum in 2021^[8] when she was awarded the WAN-IFRA Women in News Editorial Leadership Award for Southern Africa.^[2] The forum has partnered with the government to provide a training course for journalists who wanted to report on proceedings at the parliament.^[8]

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