The Rev. H. Matiya Nkhoma, right, shakes hands with Howard Batie, left, Tuesday afternoon during a Rotary luncheon at O'Blarney's Irish Pub in downtown Centralia. Nkhoma's wife, Mariya, stands behind them. Batie was on former Centralia College President Hank Kirk's original committee that lent assistance to completing a century-long dream of bringing a Christian university to a remote plateau in the African country of Malawi. The University of Livingstonia turns 10 years old this summer.
Education is key to developing a country. That’s something Rev. H. Matiya Nkhoma knows all too well.
The 67-year-old educational leader is visiting Lewis County from Malawi, a southeast African nation that is one of the world’s least developed, to celebrate a 15-year relationship with Twin Cities humanitarians and the milestone 10-year anniversary of a growing university.
The tale of the college Nkhoma leads, the University of Livingstonia, started more than a decade ago when a group of Twin Cities Presbyterians, led by former Centralia College President Hank Kirk and his wife, Jenny, visited the remote African nation.
The Kirks and Nkhoma, along with his wife, Mariya, came together to bring the century-old dream of the country’s early missionaries to build a college on the picturesque plateau overlooking Lake Malawi to life.
“Together with these people here, we scattered the seed in the soil,” Nkhoma said. “Now, we’re producing crop.”
The university, which began in 2003 with less than 50 students, will celebrate its 10th anniversary in August, with a commencement for about 125 graduates.
“It’s no more a baby, it’s a toddler,” Nkhoma said, smiling, during an interview with The Chronicle on Tuesday before a talk to the Centralia Rotary Club.
Most of the university’s students — now numbering about 525 — go on to become teachers and stay in the country, Nkhoma said. Others become ministers, nurses, medical technicians or bankers.
“The need for university education is very high,” Nkhoma, a father of eight, said.
Malawi has only two public universities, in which less than half of the 6,000 annual qualified high school graduates get into, he said.
Over the last decade, the Rotarians of the Twin Cities, Centralia and Chehalis, along with Centralia College, have all participated in various projects with the University of Livingstonia, which recently received full accreditation.
“It’s the life, the living conditions of the people around the university that are benefiting,” Nkhoma said.
Rotary has helped 15,000 people around Livingstonia have access to clean water. Previously, women and children had to walk miles each day carrying heavy loads of water, which they often found polluted from animals.
“Livingstonia is remote and difficult to reach,” Nkhoma told the Centralia Rotarians Tuesday. “Life isn’t easy there.”
Now, thanks to the clean water project, the overall health of the community is improving, he said.
The university has also provided jobs to support its work and an opportunity for locals to sell food to the college. Nkhoma said through the university’s presence the government will now pay more attention to roads and infrastructure.
In addition to benefiting the Malawi people, the friendships made have made an impact on the Americans involved. Centralia resident Vicki Nupen, a board member for the Chehalis-based foundation that supports the university, visited Malawi in 1998.
“It opened my eyes to a third-world country,” the retired financial consultant said.
When Nupen fell ill with long-term cancer, she had people halfway across the world praying for her as she underwent a bone marrow transplant.
“It’s overwhelming,” she said. “In fact, just talking about it, I get all welled up with tears.”
Nupen said through her work with the foundation, she has learned that the biggest problem with developed countries helping third-world nations is that often supplies are dropped in and just left. That’s why educating students at the university so they can go on to teach others to improve life in Malawi is so important, she said.
Jenny Kirk, the former Livingstonia director of university relations, who still runs the foundation, said the college has a holistic approach, which not only educates students but also provides health services, food, clothing and community development.
“We’re interested in helping people uplift themselves,” Kirk said. “Together, we’re making a difference, one step at a time.”
