Major Media Award Goes to TWR Malawi

During its annual conference, the National Religious Broadcasters organization presented its International Media Award to TWR Malawi. The event, which this year took place in the Dallas area, drew more than 5000 Christian media representatives from the United States and worldwide.

Victor Kaonga, TWR international director for East and Southern Africa, accepted the award on behalf of TWR Malawi.

“It’s a great honour for … the listeners to TWR Malawi, and for the staff and volunteers as well as the leadership, getting this recognition for the work, which is actually the product of many years,” Kaonga said later. He was director of TWR Malawi up to 2022.

TWR Malawi’s staff now is led by Janet Mtali, who was part of the 2024 Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

The ministry was awarded a broadcasting license and set up a production studio in 1986. Its Chewa-language programs were aired to Malawi via shortwave from TWR’s Manzini transmitting station in Swaziland (now Eswatini). But by 1995, Malawian believers were praying fervently that TWR Malawi would one day have an FM signal, Kaonga said.

TWR Malawi was one of the first nongovernmental media organizations in the country to obtain an FM broadcasting license, in 2000, originally with a single transmitter. Listener donations entirely paid for the 12th and 13th transmitters.

It now broadcasts at least 36 individual programs in as many as six languages.

“Seeing this ministry grow from one frequency to 13 transmitting frequencies … actually covering the entire country [of] 21 million people, it’s a breakthrough,” Kaonga said.

This was the second consecutive year a TWR partner received the International Media Award. In 2024, it went to RTM (Radio Trans Mundial) Brazil.