The musicians association of Malawi

The musicians association of Malawi was termed in the year 1994 and it officially registered itself in May 2002, with an aim of protecting the rights and welfare of musicians in their works.

At the time of its registration the association had about 900 paid up members and was organised into General assembly, Board of Trustees, Executive Board, Chapter and District Committees. And the Secretariat is comprised of The President, General Secretary and The Treasurer.
Currently MAM has almost 1400 paid up members with its secretariat located in Agma house in the city of Blantyre. In order for MAM to operate effectively the association put up committees which are called Chapters headed by Chairmen.
As an association MAM makes sure that there's a conducive environment that there's a fair music marketing by lobbying major music distributors on the prices at which they buy the music from the artists, and also asking them to open up more music outlets so that Malawians can have an easy access to our local music.

Professionalism is also at MAM's heart therefore it facilitates of real art in the industry by bringing together artists through workshops, training, seminars and meetings which are held at national and Chapter levels, in doing so this helps the preservation and promotion of our cultural heritage through local music.
As a mother body that looks after musicians MAM strives to develop the music industry through capacity building and effective networking for socio-economic development and preservation of Malawi's cultural heritage while ensuring that musical works are duly protected and properly paid up for, by making sure that there's a good working relationship between musicians and other partner organizations that deals with copyright related issues like the Copyright Society of Malawi.

AS an association MAM has also its own challenges that make its day to day operations difficult some of them being;

(і) Unskilled leadership
This affects the association in that members are put in positions through a common vote in doing so some members get voted into positions of which they have no knowledge about thereby disturbing the associations' development.

(іі) Gender disparity
As the world each and every day is talking about gender equality MAM is also affected by this factor in that out of paid up members only 5%of them are women. This is so because most of us as Malawians regard music as a career meant for males only which is a very negative perception so long as music is concerned.

(ііі) Lack of equipment and inadequate financial resources
The association fails to carry out its operations effectively due to the above mentioned factor die to the reason that most of the of the times it relies on donor funds which are sometimes withdrawn before completion of some of its projects and also negligence of members in paying up annual subscription fees also makes it difficult for the association to work efficiently.

As an association MAM's objective still remains to promote music as an important medium of education information, entertainment and being the voice of musicians.

Partners

  • Arterial network
  • Media, Sports and Entertainment Group (MSE)
  • Gens de la Caraïbe
  • Groupe 30 Afrique
  • Alliance Française VANUATU
  • PACIFIC ARTS ALLIANCE
  • FURTHER ARTS
  • Zimbabwe : Culture Fund Of Zimbabwe Trust
  • RDC : Groupe TACCEMS
  • Rwanda : Positive Production
  • Togo : Kadam Kadam
  • Niger : ONG Culture Art Humanité
  • Collectif 2004 Images
  • Africultures Burkina-Faso
  • Bénincultures / Editions Plurielles
  • Africiné
  • Afrilivres

With the support of