It is rather a new phase for me in many respects. Beginning today, I have been asked to be the Acting National Director for Trans World Radio Malawi. I have taken this responsibility after an 8-year stretch by my boss Rev Patrick Semphere.
Thank you to many of you that have sent me your congratulations and best wishes. It is humbling and scaring. I am generally a producer at heart and now I understand that I have to adjust my workload and turn more towards leading the people in the organization. Thankfully being who I am, I will still be able to somehow handle the microphone.
While I have been part of the senior management of the station since 2003, this position is completely new to me and really scaring. Some people have already shifted from calling me Victor to Mr Kaonga! Surprising! I am the same Victor.
I have been advised to change my wardrobe. My sisters have made strong recommendations on this arguing that now I am carrying more the organization’s image. Many others have echoed this. I have assured them that I will try to dress as expected on duty and as the situations demand. Otherwise they should not expect too much. I need to be allowed to be myself.
There are only three main areas that I want to focus on and with God’s help see more progress. These have to with staff morale, increasing listener’s reliability on TWR and raise more financial resources. You may wish to know that TWR Malawi has equally been affected by the global financial meltdown and while things are picking up elsewhere, we are still suffering the trickle down effects in Lilongwe.
While I know that this blog is personal (and indeed whatever I say here does not reflect the views of Trans World Radio Malawi), allow me to tell you that Trans World Radio broadcast for 24 hours in English, Chichewa, Chitumbuka and Chiyao covering almost the entire geographical Malawi on nine separate FM frequencies. This is not an easy network and team to lead and manage. This station is one of the about 16 FM private radio stations in the country.
Hey, thanks for reading this post and getting a little bit of the framework of my new role. I will appreciate your encouragement and advice. TWR Malawi is not online yet but with more bandwidth developing now, I trust at that some later, this should be possible.
God bless you.
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