“It’s not fair! Those hurdles are way too high!”, says former Olympic and Commonwealth athlete Catherine Chiwakwa Chunda, as the athletics events kick off in Glasgow.
Catherine represented her home nation of Malawi in the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and the Commonwealth Games and now calls Scotland home. The former long-distance runner says action is needed to fix the unfair debts faced by one in three Commonwealth nations.
She’s now working with SCIAF, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, and they set up a hurdles race to highlight the issue.
She said: “Commonwealth countries like my homeland of Malawi face the constant hurdle of debt and it’s getting worse every year. They need to pay debts back at a much higher rate, meaning there’s little left to spend on things like health and education.
“For those representing rich countries like Scotland and England, the hurdles were tiny. No problem to overcome.
“The hurdles represent unjust debt. And it’s not hard to imagine what happened: higher hurdles for many of SCIAF’s partner countries made it impossible to run a fair race.
“Removing obstacles for countries like Malawi and Zambia so they can use the money they have to get more children into school, access to healthcare and ensure families get support to have food on the table, is vital.”
