Catherine Chipembere

Catherine Mary Ajizinga Chipembere (b 1935) is a Malawian gender activist and politician. She was elected as the first female member of the Malawian parliament. She was the wife of Malawian nationalist Henry Masauko Chipembere and is the mother of the jazz artist Masauko Chipembere Jr. She was exiled to the US from Malawi together with her husband, and later returned to Malawi and was the first woman elected to Malawi Parliament. She worked with AIDS orphans and ran twelve pre-schools, serving more than 1,000 AIDS orphans. She also runs a women's knitting cooperative in Mangochi.

Early life Chipembere was born in Domasi in 1935 in Malawi. Her father was a teacher. She met her future husband when they both attended Blantyre Secondary School during a time when education was not considered a priority for Malawian girls. She won a scholarship to study domestic science at Bath Domestic Science College in England. WIN Malawi operates in rural Mangochi and has built and sponsored twelve primary schools that educate, feed and care for over a thousand orphans. Most of the children are between two and six years old.

She has seven children, including jazz musician Masauko Chipembere Jr.