Melinda Gates travelled to Malawi with the CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation foundation, Sue Desmond-Hellmann and visited several communities, where her focus was on the empowerment of women.
She met women farmers, community midwives, and toured health centres where she expressed happiness at Malawi’s Safe Motherhood Initiative, amongst other things.
Melinda Gates, who is married to Bill Gates, one of the world’s richest men, later posted photos on her Instagram account of her experience joining in on some of the chores like fetching water and washing dishes which rural Malawian women go through on a daily basis.
“During my stay with the Gawanini family in Malawi, I joined the women collecting drinking water. I carried 20 liters and it was tough,” she said. She pointed out that “Chrissy (middle) is carrying about 40 liters. Many women do this every day.”
On washing the dishes manually, she said “women spend much of the day cooking and then cleaning up. It’s a reminder that it’s a lot more time consuming to do dishes when you can’t just turn on a faucet.”