Two oral history interviews with Dr. Olivia Scott Kamkwamba took place on March 4th, 2024 with Gabriella Simpson, and June 17th, 2024 with Peg Spitzer. The combined interviews lasted 67 minutes.
Did you observe the impacts of climate change in your community and when did you first notice this? Also, what do you think the future impacts of climate change might be? Finally, how does climate change relate to gender inequality?
Climate change has impacted us in many ways. I see the disconnect between North Carolina (where I grew up) and Malawi (where I now live) in terms of how our family consumes. We’re in the midst of the rainy season in Malawi, and the range of rain rates has been a challenge. When I started coming to Malawi in 2014, people warned me about how it was changing. Over the past ten years, I’ve seen a difference in the way a rainy season begins. How much rain we are getting? What other inputs are needed? Global yields for staple crops are eight times more than what a per-acre harvest is in Malawi. That has declined.
The consequences of climate change are so hard to distill, because poverty is such a vicious cycle. Capitalist systems receive less consumption in this context. Malawi’s number one export is tobacco, and global consumption has plummeted tremendously. We are experiencing the effects of economic instability year-round. The economy has less money coming in, and people are not diversifying crops due to years of tobacco being peddled as the key to farming success.
Women are still tasked with the majority of household work, such as collecting firewood and water. To not have a reliable rainy season means that on top of everything else, I must now arrange for water to be carried to my house. In a volatile context, you can hit any number of roadblocks (ranging from borehole backups to broken buckets or a range of social issues) in what seems like a simple process of transportation. In Kasungu, Malawi, the municipal water supply has been drying up throughout the town. I’ve been here for six weeks, and we haven’t seen any water flow. This is at the height of the rainy season. How do you cook with no water? How do you clean with no water? How do you get a child prepared with no water? These are questions that women are answering every day.
Please describe your work. How did you become involved in it?
I work with the Moving Windmills Project. We’re an ecosystem social profit organization that examines how to empower a generation of change-makers from Kasungu to the world. My husband, William, founded this organization in 2008, and we eventually started working together. When I was a Ph.D student, I completed my research with USAID. After graduation, we wanted to be hands-on and do our part in the community.
What was your educational background before you became involved in this work? Where did you grow up? Are you part of the community you serve?
Thank you for the question. I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. I graduated from West Charlotte High School, which is a historically black school. The high school was at risk of being shut down by the state because of years of failing test scores. However, the statistical picture was not an accurate portrayal of our community. I never believed my teachers didn’t want me to succeed. I witnessed pride, joy, and community at West Charlotte, which the state statistics could not capture.
I went to Dartmouth College as a Gates Millennium scholar. It was nice to have the freedom as a Gates scholar, knowing my education was paid for. I graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in African and African American Studies. Following this, I worked at Northern Stage theatre in White River Junction, VT in arts administration and production. I went on to graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I received my master’s in international education and leadership. With the support of the Gates scholarship and a mentor, I was able to apply for the Ph.D. program in international education/ cultural studies and Critical Literacies. Also, I started learning at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) while conducting my dissertation research. I began asking questions around international aid and how funds are distributed.
When my husband, William, and I went back to (and settled in) Malawi, we wanted to be involved in education. So, I am now a member of this community, but I am not from here.
Did you experience a sense of belonging when you attended Dartmouth College?
Yes. It was very different from the high school I attended. At West Charlotte High School, about 95 percent of the students were Black, and 4 percent were Hispanic. About 4 percent of the student population was Black at Dartmouth College. This college was in the woods of New Hampshire and culturally very different. Yet, I found there were endless opportunities for me. I was able to study and work abroad. I traveled to Brazil, Russia, and London. At Dartmouth the intellectual pursuit was validated and valuable.
Who were your mentors? Who helped you along the way? And what challenges did you encounter?
My grandmother, scholars, and friends are my mentors.
Did you experience any challenges in fostering mentoring relationships in higher educational settings?
Yes. During the Ph.D. process, I found there was no template for mentoring. People approached mentoring unevenly, and you could find inappropriate advisor-advisee relationships. It is also common for students who did not have support because they didn’t have a family who had done a Ph.D. before. I experienced a lack of funding in my doctoral program because my Gates scholarship had run out. Graduate assistantships were not guaranteed. Financial support was a very real barrier to finishing my research, and I was frustrated by the lack of support.
This is especially important to me because I am a doctoral student right now and facing similar challenges. Thank you for sharing with me.
I would like to know how those outside of your community, even those in the global North, could support your work?
We’re looking for researchers, teachers, and fellows to come right now. You can go to our website and see all the project areas that we work in, from literacy and translation to agriculture and water.
I have several follow-up questions for you. I read the transcript from Gabriella, and there were some things I wanted to know a little more about. First, I wondered if you were working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in your doctoral program?
Yes. I partnered with USAID as a master’s and doctoral student, researching in the offices and on several activities. I pursued a master’s degree in international education, where I learned about theory in the classroom. The curriculum looked down upon big development organizations. I didn’t necessarily disagree with this, but I thought it was important to go to USAID and see the operation for myself.
I found that the theories I learned in a classroom were validated when I worked for USAID. I learned how these theories are applied in practice to people’s lives, which relates to the work I do now at Moving Windmills.
Another question I had was whether your background in theater at Dartmouth help you in the work you did at USAID and, eventually, Moving Windmills?
I think so. Malawi is a place where you have strict social hierarchies. Cultural scripts are at play. It is important to understand what a script means and the security that it provides for folks.
Relating to the ways climate change affects Malawi, it sounds like the unreliable rainy season in Malawi means that women have less water to carry out their household duties, caring for children and cooking. How is it different for men? Are there strict gender differences?
There are strict gender differences. The decision to invest in your family farm often lies with those who carry the burden of the family, and usually, that’s women. We’re working with a lot of women. Statistically, about 70 percent of smallholder farmers are women. In Malawi, there are more than 90 percent of smallholder farmers in total.
Men had training in fields such as metalwork. If a contract comes in, there will be fluctuations at the household level. However, women dominate irrigation. It becomes gendered based on who is responsible for growing crops. Men usually grow and harvest maize corn to maintain a family, especially during the rainy season. A woman may procure some of the seeds, but a man will fertilize them, depending on whether it’s a single-family or partnered household.
I’m wondering too about the concept of “individual households” in the fishing villages. Can you tell me about that?
It is communal. You might have one individual who’s the son of a family who’s found a job in an urban area and is now supporting aunts, uncles, and cousins. You may see a married man supporting three or four different households. Another example would be Malawian male miners traveling to South Africa for work. They also send money back to their families.
I understand now that Moving Windmills is not only involved in generating electricity through wind power but also serves as a starting point for helping people deal with an unforgiving environment. Did Moving Windmills start out focusing on wind power and then move to other areas?
Yes. My husband, William, began an incredible journey at the age of 14 when he built a windmill from scrap parts. Since then, he’s built many windmills. We then found that, at scale, solar energy is the quickest way for folks to access energy with less maintenance. The wind and sun here are persistent. We have evening and night winds in Malawi. There’s still a ton of education around what solar can do. We’ve got Malawi’s first fleet of electric vehicles, and this is charged by solar energy. You can do more than charge a phone or power a radio with solar energy.
An illustration of a young William building a windmill in Malawi.
How did you become involved in the work in Malawi? When did you meet your husband? Has your involvement in Moving Windmills changed over the years since 2008? How has it worked out for you?
I met William in 2010. We went to school together. Moving Windmills was founded in 2008 and existed before I met him. In 2014, William had an initial idea to open a machine shop. In 2019, we just kind of sat down and said, “If we were going to build a machine shop, what would it look like?” We flushed out the vision together. We’re calling it the innovation center. We’re going to be teaching people, and they will need housing. William said, “There is no shortage of solutions. It’s just hard to deliver them in a timely manner.” I found that to be extremely true while working on my Ph.D.
We eventually moved to Malawi, and Moving Windmills scaled tremendously. William identified five communities where he wanted to build resource centers with water, solar electricity, computers, and motorcycles. In 2019, we also decided we would hire for equity. This meant searching across genders.
Did you find you needed to raise womens’ self-confidence? Was that part of your mission?
It is a big part of the work we do: We hired Rehema Robert as a guidance counselor to help people learn to trust their instincts. We also see this as part of the solution.
Did any of your international experiences (living, studying, and working in other countries) come into play when you were looking at how you were going to develop yourself in Malawi?
Yes, I traveled to those places during my undergraduate study. There is an international language of community development. In fact, around the world, women are blessed to have seen that the ideas that we’re bringing to Malawi are possible.
Solutions exist and, for William, that is his mission. When he built the windmill, it wasn’t impossible. He saw it in a book. Somebody already built one, but it hadn’t been in Malawi before. A lot of what we get to do with Moving Windmills rests in this same space. For example, people that say electric cars are impossible, and then we bring one in!
You mentioned that one of your biggest mentors was your grandmother. What was your grandmother like?
She was a middle-school science teacher and a caregiver. She took care of her family and her community. My grandmother married a judge and understood fairness and justice. However, she was a science teacher and knew how to persuade a room of unwilling minds to grasp seemingly difficult concepts. She’s originally from Bennettsville, SC but moved to Florence with my grandfather.
What kind of people, besides your grandmother, were your mentors; and who helped you along the way?
Many people were generous to us, and folks have opened their homes to us. There are many people who just mentored us and said, “Well, maybe consider this pathway or think about going in this direction.” [One of my colleagues,] Gemma May, is a part of my learning circle and team. She has been part of bringing that circle of wisdom to the table. She is helping us with Moving Windmills.
Would it be helpful to interview Gemma as well?
Yes. Gemma is a researcher who just finished writing her thesis. She has a strong intuition about women’s rights in Africa and worked in Tanzania and Kenya before joining us.
What do you think are the challenges and successes in engaging with local citizens and youth in the activities and work you do with Moving Windmills?
It is a challenge with elders because we are combatting generational fear. There are also legacies of colonialist systems that do not work for the communities where there is tension in how people want to access the economy and what they believe organizations can do for them. Inside a space where innovation is, you want to cultivate change and progress. At times, ideals around change and innovation can feel combative or at odds with the prevailing norms.
What is your vision when you close your eyes and think about what you would like to see more of?
I would say to give non-traditional candidates a chance. Find people who may not know how to give voice to the actions they make intuitively. For example, when I think of water conservation, I learn much more about what can be done with so little water when I observe than I stand to learn when I interrogate. The key is to cede power and give other people a chance to identify their gifts, nurture their strengths, and flourish in community. By creating a space where diverse voices can take root and find appropriate opportunities. That’s what we are doing.
Keywords/Concepts
Additional Resources
William Kamkwamba: How I harnessed the wind | TED Talk
Gender Equality Social Inclusion and Resilience in Malawi_BRACC July 2021.pdf (unwomen.org)