Across more than 20 years in social work, education governance, humanitarian response, safeguarding, administration, and entrepreneurship, Catherine Constance Chisuse has remained guided by one conviction: circumstances may shape a beginning, but they do not have to dictate an ending. Featuring on the cover of Exeleon Magazine’s Women in Education to Watch in Africa edition, Catherine represents a form of leadership rooted in dignity, participation, and opening doors for others.
The title of Catherine Constance Chisuse’s forthcoming book is Never Been a Beggar. It is a direct and personal statement from someone who has created her life through hard work, education, faith, and a refusal to let difficult circumstances define her.
Although Catherine’s career has moved across several fields and countries, each chapter has been connected by the same purpose. She wants people, particularly women, children, and young people, to have the opportunities and support needed to shape their own futures.
“Where you start in life does not have to determine where you finish,” Catherine says.
Listening Before Leading
Catherine began her career in community development with organizations including World Vision Malawi and Save the Children. Working directly with communities taught her that worthwhile solutions begin with listening.
Before designing a program, leaders must understand how people live, what they value, what they have already tried, and what continues to stand in their way.
Her next professional chapter took her into banking sector. As a Bank Teller with NBS Bank, Catherine developed skills in financial management, accountability, customer service, and organizational discipline.
Community work had shown her how poverty and inequality affect everyday life. Banking helped her understand the institutional and financial systems that influence the choices available to people. Together, these experiences shaped how she would later approach programs, organizations, and business.
Education as a Pathway Out of Poverty
Education became an increasingly important part of Catherine’s career when she coordinated the Keeping Girls in School Project for CCAP Blantyre Synod across Ntcheu and Chikwawa.
The work placed her close to the barriers that prevent girls from remaining in education, including poverty, social expectations, vulnerability, and inadequate support systems.
She subsequently became Programs Manager at GOAL Global Malawi, managing teams and multi-donor initiatives involving USAID, UNFPA, UNICEF, and ElectricAid. Catherine also served as Chairperson of Civil Society Organizations in Machinga District and contributed to the development of district’s five-year development plan.
Another defining chapter came through her work with DAI Global on the USAID and FCDO-funded Local Government Accountability and Performance project.
As Regional Education Governance Officer, Catherine led school inspections across 16 of Malawi’s least-performing districts and helped pilot the country’s first Teacher Performance Appraisal System.
The experience reinforced her belief that educational progress depends upon more than committed teachers and students. It requires accountability, capable institutions, effective systems, and leaders willing to act on evidence.
“Quality education can expand children’s future choices and provide a pathway out of poverty and inequality.”
Understanding Poverty Differently
Catherine’s commitment to addressing poverty comes from a personal understanding of what it means to create a life through perseverance and self-reliance.
“Poverty is not simply the absence of money,” she explains. “It is often about limited access to opportunity, education, information, dignity, and systems that enable people to participate meaningfully in society.”
This perspective has guided her work in education, governance, safeguarding, gender equality, and social inclusion.
Through organizations including WUSC Malawi, WUSC Ghana, and CEWAG, Catherine contributed to programs supporting vulnerable communities across different national and institutional settings.
Among her significant assignments was supporting facilitation of a USD485,436 Linkage of Farmer Based Organizations to Microfinance Financial Service Providers through the creation of Village Savings and Loans Networks – a 2-year TRADE Programme by Wealthnet Finance Public Limited Company. Another one was a €3.5 million European Investment Bank-funded project addressing gender, sexual exploitation and abuse, and child protection along Malawi’s M1 road corridor.
With UNDP, she also supported national consultations involving all 28 district councils for the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework.
Creating Solutions with Communities
Catherine’s work across Malawi, Ghana, Uganda, and Nigeria has shown her that development programs cannot simply be transferred from one location to another.
“There is no one-size-fits-all solution to development,” she says.
Communities may experience similar problems, but their priorities, cultures, resources, and institutions differ. Technical expertise is valuable, but it cannot replace the lived experience of the people directly affected.
Catherine therefore prefers to ask what communities consider important, what has failed previously, and how local people and institutions can work together toward a realistic response.
Consultation, in her view, must go beyond inviting people to meetings after important decisions have already been made. People must feel safe enough to speak, and their experiences must influence the final program.
“The most sustainable development solutions are co-created, locally informed, and owned by the people they are intended to serve.”
Women as Economic Leaders
Women’s economic empowerment is another important part of Catherine’s work.
She has seen how limited access to finance, markets, networks, information, and commercial opportunities can restrict women’s independence. Training alone cannot resolve these barriers. Women-owned businesses also need access to contracts, capital, customers, and growth opportunities.
“We should move beyond viewing women simply as beneficiaries of economic programs,” Catherine says. “Women should be positioned as entrepreneurs, employers, investors, decision-makers, and leaders.”
Her own entrepreneurial journey through Wabwino Investments has given her firsthand experience of these challenges.
The general supplies business focuses particularly on food, beverages, and agricultural products sourced from Malawi. Through supply opportunities, export-readiness preparation, and conformity-assessment training by ImpactHer, Catherine has seen the potential for Malawian businesses to expand beyond local markets when the right systems and opportunities are available.
Entrepreneurship, for Catherine, is not separate from her development work. It is another route toward dignity, participation, and self-sufficiency.
Taking Local Experience to a Wider Stage
Catherine’s commitment to learning is reflected in her qualifications in Community Development and Banking and Finance, as well as an MBA in Advanced AI and the Future of Automation.
In 2026, she represented Malawi at the Global African Women’s Sustainability Conference 2.0 in Abuja, Nigeria organized by ImpactHer in partnership with African Union. The gathering brought together professionals from 50 African countries and the diaspora.
Presenting on the theme “From Local to Global” gave Catherine the opportunity to bring lessons rooted in Malawian communities into a wider African conversation about women, sustainability, enterprise, and development.
The experience affirmed that local knowledge can influence far beyond the community in which it originated when it is examined, shared, and connected with wider networks.
Opening the Next Door
Catherine’s next chapter is focused on protecting children’s rights, creating more opportunities for women and young people.
She has registered Children, Youth and Women Inclusion, known as CHIYOWOI, an organization addressing issues affecting marginalized communities and climate change. Through the initiative, she intends to apply her experience in safeguarding, inclusion, education, program development, and community participation.
She also plans to continue developing Wabwino Investments while contributing to programs and institutions that strengthen education, entrepreneurship, economic independence, and leadership.
Catherine does not describe development as a straight road. Circumstances change, approaches sometimes fail, and meaningful progress takes time. Leadership therefore requires patience, humility, resilience, and the willingness to adjust.
Her desired legacy is not a list of positions or projects. It is the number of people who found an opportunity because she helped create one.
“I want to be remembered as someone who opened doors, empowered others to walk through them, and helped people discover that they too have the capacity to create change.” So far, I have assisted countless needy Students in Secondary schools and universities.
That has been the recurring work throughout Catherine Constance Chisuse’s journey: listening before acting, turning experience into service, and ensuring that where a person begins never becomes the limit of where they are allowed to go.
