Rose Chibambo, Deputy Minister, Died at 87

Rose Lomathinda Chibambo was born September 8, 1928, and died January 12, 2016.

She was the Deputy Minister for Hospitals, Prisons and Social Welfare.

She was a prominent politician in the British Protectorate of Nyasaland in the years leading up to independence as the state of Malawi in 1964, and immediately after.

She organised Malawian women in their political fight against the British as a political force to be reckoned with alongside their menfolk in the push for independence.

Rose was imprisoned in 1959, while pregnant with her 5th child, along with other Malawians whom the Federal government felt were a threat to British rule.

Rose gave birth while imprisoned and was not released till a year later.

After Malawi succeed independence, she was the first woman minister in the new cabinet.

After her falling out with Dr. Hastings Banda she was forced into exile for thirty years, returning after the restoration of democracy.

Chibambo married Edwin Chibambo, formerly a teacher and now a civil servant, in 1947.

Her husband was the son of the Reverend Yesaya Chibambo, one of the first Africans in the dominion to be ordained as a Christian minister.

Rose’s husband was posted to the Zomba Public Works department, in 1948.

Mrs. Chibambo completed her secondary education at night school in Zomba in 1948 while pregnant with her first child.

Rose Chibambo had another child in 1951, and four further on later.

The President Bingu wa Mutharika met Rose Chibambo and honoured her, naming a street in Mzuzu City after her, in 2009

Rose appears on Malawi’s 200 Kwacha banknote, as of January 1, 2012.

Chibambo passed away at 87 yrs old.