"Home for Innocent Smoke today is one room that he shares with his wife and baby in Mponela, on the outskirts of the Malawian capital, Lilongwe. The small agricultural town lies about 36 miles from where he was born in 2005. With brick walls, a cement floor and a roof of corrugated iron, it is far more advanced than the straw-thatched hut where he grew up."
"He pays 15,000 Malawian kwacha (6.50) a month in rent for his home, which has no running water or electricity. In 2022, Innocent married Edess Gwalanya, 22, who grew up in a village two miles from where he was living with his parents. They met when Gwalanya was on her way to church; he asked her out, and they married less than a year later."
Ten newborn babies across Africa born in 2005 were tracked at five-year intervals up to 2015 to reflect potential lives across the continent. The millennium development goals were not met by 2015, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development established 17 goals addressing poverty, inequality and the climate crisis. With five years remaining, only 18% of those goals are on track. Many of the 2005 cohort proved untraceable, but three individuals were located in Malawi, Ghana and South Africa. One located individual, Innocent Smoke of Malawi, now 20, lives in a single rented room with his wife and infant without running water or electricity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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