Sungani Zakwathu Cultural Heritage Association is a registered Cultural Non Governmental Organisation registered with the Malawi Government under the Trustees Incorporation Act. It was registered in 2014.
Amongst our objectives, we aim to compliment government in implementing different national and international instruments like policies, conventions and treaties on cultural sector. Some of these instruments are the Malawi National Cultural Policy,the 2005 UNESCO Convention for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.
Soon after our registration in 2014,we joined the other stakeholders in lobbying for the enactment of the Malawi National Cultural Policy which was taking a lot of time for government to put into law .In 2018,Sungani Zakwathu Cultural Heritage Association was also very instrumental in the establishment of the Malawi Cultural Heritage Association which is a grouping of all the ten(10)cultural heritage associations representing all main ethnic groups in the country namely Karonga-Chitipa Cultural Heritage, Tumbuka Heritage, Mdawuku Wa A Tonga,Mzimba Heritage Association, Chewa Heritage Foundation, Mchinji Ngoni Heritage, Maseko Ngoni Heritage, Chiwanja Cha A Yao, Mulhako Wa Alhomwe and Mgumano Wa Asena na Amang’anja.
We brought these cultural heritage associations together as one way of promoting cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and knowledge sharing amongst peoples of all these groups through forums like national cultural festivals which we organized in 2018 inaugural year where we enabled all associations to bring their cultural performances, traditional foods, indigenous mode of dressing, etc so that each ethnic group would be able to appreciate and understand how and why the other indigenous groups identify themselves with particular cultural beliefs, values and norms.
