Zimachitika uses an entertaining medium to raise the awareness of rural Malawians about various development issues. In and around the fictional village of Mbonekera, the soap opera's characters animate common barriers to social change and provide positive role models for overcoming them. "The messages are made accessible through the use of local language styles and the wit of familiar personalities trusted by listeners to tell the truth about rural life." Each show includes a proverb title and often a song to interweave Malawian cultural heritage with new ideas in rural living.

Launched in December 1997 as a UNICEF-sponsored show, the programme contains entertaining stories about family health, particularly the "barriers to maternal-child health". These barriers include women's lack of empowerment, traditional beliefs that conflict with scientific views of disease "cause and effect", and the attitudes of health service providers toward village clients.

At the end of the UNICEF sponsorship, the show was sponsored by the Democracy and Human Rights Fund to integrate themes related to the "barriers to women's participation in the political process" into the already developed village setting and story characters. This funding continued through July 1999.

The next set of programmes was sponsored by the European Commission Food Security Programme and research is currently being carried out for story development of episodes linking food security with improved agriculture, social forestry, nutrition, gender, family health and HIV/AIDS. These shows have been on air since 1999; the project is scheduled to end in November 2006.

Women, Children, Youth, Politics, Economic Development, Family planning, Gender, Nutrition, Health, Education, Agriculture.

Story characters were created after months of village research to identify personalities and local conflicts that would be culturally authentic, entertaining and realistic.

Zimachitika won the award for Best Radio Drama in 1998 from the Entertainer of Entertainers Awards in Malawi. The show has also won The Commonwealth award for action on HIV/AIDS.