Page 55 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

Sylvia Kambalametore - Physiotherapist 43

organisation with outreach into communities to offer physiotherapy and
rehabilitation to victims of polio in rural areas. I was appointed a member of the
board of trustees of MAP.
Later, with assistance from the Round Table, a charitable organisation, I
participated, as an adviser, in the designing, construction and equipping of the first
ever Physiotherapy department in Malawi. That was in 1980.
On realising that cerebral palsy was another major cause of disability in children,
civil society enabled the Malawi Cheshire Homes to be established. At the Malawi
Cheshire Homes, I served as a chairperson of the management committee for
Cheshire Homes Operations.
I was also instrumental in establishing a collaborative working
relationship between the Malawi Council for the Handicapped (MACOHA) and
various charities. For example, once polio patients had made a reasonable
functional recovery after physiotherapy, MACOHA took over to provide
educational and vocational rehabilitation services.
Between 1995 and 2000, I was the Head of physiotherapy services in
Malawi. As if to prepare me for these latter responsibilities, I had gone to the UK
in 1987 for an Honours degree in Health Science Studies and in 1998 for a Masters
in Disability Studies.
In 2007, I was elected the Africa Region representative on the World
Confederation for Physical Therapy (The World Professional Body). That
appointment was to provide me with a wonderful opportunity for networking and
would prove invaluable when I became Head of Malawi School of Physiotherapy
at the then College of Medicine (now Kamuzu University of Health Sciences); an
7
appointment that was made in 2009. Once again, I found myself in the role of a
pioneer in the physiotherapy sector. But this was a dream come true! Here was
that first Malawian physiotherapist working in Malawi being given a chance to
start a school that has, to date, trained more than 300 home grown graduates!
I can, with pride, recommend physiotherapy as a career to any young
girls and boys in Malawi. And I am not just speaking as the first chairperson of
the Physiotherapy Association of Malawi of which I was a co-founder in 1994.
As a member of the society, I have also been privileged to have served
as a member of the Electoral Commission soon after the first multi-party elections.
At the age of seventy-three, I am still working at my private
physiotherapy clinic in Lilongwe.

7 See Malawian physiotherapist visits UCT:
https://www.news.uct.ac.za/article/-2010-03-12-malawian-physiotherapist-
visits-uct