DanChurchAid
Malawi
Water worries: Too much or too little
Source:
ACT International
DanChurchAid is a member of ACT International - a global alliance of churches and related agencies working to save lives and support communities in emergencies.
"The most worrying thing is that it is still raining heavily today [January 19]," said Sophie Makoloma, a project officer and assistant manager for relief for Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD), a member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International. CARD's response to ongoing drought conditions in some areas has been interrupted as it has mobilized to respond to flooding from heavy rains this month in the same areas.
"We are expecting more flooding. The situation may not change," added Makoloma, who was speaking by phone from CARD's office in Blantyre.
Nsanje, in the extreme southern part of the country, is one place that has been hit by both drought and flooding. After a dry year, the flood-prone district in the Lower Shire Valley has been hit by heavy rains, causing rivers to burst their banks, and in turn destroying houses, schools, roads and crops. While Nsanje was the worst-hit, neighboring districts in the upland of Thyolo and Mulanje were also affected.
- Days of torrential rains have swelled rivers in the Chikwawa district, also in the south, causing major flooding, forcing nearly 3,500 families from their homes, and washing away crops and livestock.
On January 12, CARD and Evangelical Lutheran Development Service (ELDS), another an ACT member, received ACT Rapid Response Funds to provide immediate relief to people affected by the flooding.
For Nsanje, CARD received US$24,340 to carry out a distribution of non-food items comprising tents, cooking utensils and water-purification tablets (to prevent water-borne diseases) to 1,200 households. CARD also plans to assist affected people in resettling when the waters have subsided.
For the Chikwawa district, ELDS received US$25,660 to provide tents, plastic sheeting, clothing, blankets, water-purification tablets, kitchen utensils and buckets to 1,300 households, including single-person-headed households, the elderly, the disabled and malnourished children under age 5.
Both CARD and ELDS had been working in these areas before the floods hit to alleviate the effects of the drought under ACT Appeal AFMW-51 - Famine Mitigation Follow-up. CARD will use the structures and staff it has in place for its drought response to carry out its one-time distribution in response to the flooding, but will revise its portion of the appeal to take into account the additional needs the flooding has created.
Signs of hunger starting to show
In a much less dramatic, but no less serious, way, the opposite extreme - severe lack of water and erratic rains - has for several years been causing another set of challenges for the people of northern Malawi. ACT members in the country have been responding to address hunger, one visible result of this slow-onset emergency.
"That one, that one and that one," Esther Lupafya, the coordinator of Ekwendeni Hospital's AIDS program, said as she pointed out the children who were eating for the first time that day. Out of the 110 children at the community-based child-care center in Mayifi, it was obvious that many of them were very hungry. These particular children ate with an astounding veracity, each licking their bowl clean of the maize (corn) and milk porridge it contained.
Late in November last year, the signs of the spring's poor harvest were already showing throughout Malawi. The children Lupafya was referring to were just a few of the millions who were hungry due to a complex mix of drought, HIV and AIDS, rising costs of inputs like fertilizer and seed, and poor governance and food policies.
According to the United Nations, five million of Malawi's 12 million residents are hungry. Hospitals have already begun to report higher rates of malnutrition and unusually large numbers of children beginning to sicken and die in rural areas.
The next harvest is not until April
ACT members have been working hard to provide critical food and seed to vulnerable families. They are doing what they can with whatever resources they can scrounge together. The meals provided at the child-care center in Mayifi were provided with the support of Ekwendeni Hospital, a hospital of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) Livingstonia Synod, a member of ACT.
Esther Lupafya was trying to stretch every dollar she had to support the child-care centers. Instead of buying likuni phala - a special, high-protein porridge made of maize and soyabean for malnourished children under five - they were feeding the children a corn and milk porridge, which is significantly cheaper, while still providing essential protein and vitamins and minerals. "The hunger has begun so early, and our resources are so limited," Lupafya explained. "We have to make sure we have enough to provide food for as many children as we can, for as long as we can."
St. Columba Presbyterian Church in Blantyre, one of the larger congregations of the CCAP Blantyre Synod, also a member of ACT, launched an appeal to its members on November 13, 2005, in response to the growing number of people in the city of Blantyre looking for food. The members were encouraged to give whatever they could afford - a few kwacha or a bag of maize - to help build a food bank for the most vulnerable.
The development department of CCAP Livingstonia Synod is working to distribute food, seed and fertilizer in Emfeni, Bolero, Nthalire and Njuyu. "People are really hungry," explained Sangster Nkhandwe, the department's director. "We are trying to have an impact on vulnerable families and help farmers plant this season to help stop this cycle of hunger."
In September 2005, ACT issued the famine-mitigation appeal to its members worldwide to enable its members in Malawi, including the CCAP Blantyre and Livingstonia Synods, to respond to the growing need, but the appeal has not been fully funded. Overall, all ACT members in the appeal have received 61 percent of the requested US$2.02 million.
Double disasters
Relief organizations like CARD are struggling to keep up with the needs that disaster upon disaster creates. CARD's Makoloma said her organization tries to assist people where it can, but the areas affected by the recent flooding are expected to grow beyond CARD's usual working area.
"It's either they're hit by the dry spell, or they're hit by the floods when it's raining," Makoloma said. "It is a critical time. Hunger is at its peak now, and then the floods hit."
Reporting from Mayifi by Karen Plater, the resource and communications coordinator for Presbyterian World Service & Development, a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International in Canada.
