Partners In Health and World Vision Malawi equip Chikwawa Cyclone Ana survivors with relocation packages
Partners In Health (PIH) has partnered with Word Vision Malawi (WVM) in the distribution of financial and material packages to survivors of Cyclone Ana in Chikwawa district.
The packages are aimed at assisting the survivors to resettle after the disaster.
PIH distributed roofing plastic sheets, sugar, soya pieces, salt, maize bag to 1, 830 households while WVM provided K18, 000 each to 35, 299 households.
Partners in Health Chief Operations Officer, Basimenye Nhlema, said the social food packages are worth K33 million, but entirely they have spent K81 million during the two months of their stay in the district in providing medical support to the flood victims.
“We were part of the emergency response team that was being run by Department of Disaster Management (DODMA) through our participation in this we came to the knowledge that Chikwawa was the heavily affected district by Cyclone Ana to the extent that some parts of the district were completely cut off from the Chikwawa District Hospital.
“PIH has supported the ninety-six camps where the flood victims were seeking relief in Chikwawa with medical supplies and services through a team of medical personnel including medical doctors, pharmacist, monitoring and evaluation officers, clinicians, health promoters and nurses who were going around various camps offering the needed medical and psychological care. As we were doing that we came to realise that food was a big problem and it is the very reason we have being going around offering food supplies,” Nhlema.
Representative of the co-partner in the distribution, World Vision’s Chikwawa District Program Coordinator, Mark Allan, said they have disbursed cash because it is flexible hence the survivors will have an opportunity to stand back on their feet and start providing for themselves.
“We did a market research and found out that food is available on the market and we are telling them that they should go back to their homes and start rebuilding. It is a once-off distribution but this is not all that we have done not alone what we are going to do for them.
“We have received one hundred thousand United States Dollars (K81 million) from World Vision US and Taiwani respectively which we are using to buy farm inputs to be distributed amongst households living in areas where residual moisture is available and plants can be sustained.
“WV with help from our cooperating partners is also reaching out to 35, 299 households of all the 12 T/A’s in the district through what we are calling Cyclone Ana Once of Catch District funded by World Food Program,” Allan.
Beneficiary of the donation, in his late sixties, Peter Steshe said the donation has been rendered at the right time as he completely had no idea of where and how he would have accessed seeds to plant in this field hence he will use the money he’s been given to purchase maize seeds.
“They have given me what I needed at the right time, I was in need of food and maize seeds and I could think but was never getting answers as to where I won’t get them,” Steshe.
Confiding with Peshe, a woman in her late sixties from Fodya village, Naliyeti Kambanje and another youthful woman from Katemera village who were staying at Mavuwa camp, Matines Notesi who all benefited from the donation showed gratitude saying the roofing plastic sheets have energized them to go and rebuild their houses.
They were also thankful for the money and the food supplies which they received saying it is a direct answer to their problems and now they will be able to sustain their homes.
Chikwawa District Commissioner, Ali Phiri, said time for camp management is over now we are going to be meeting people in their areas of relocation to hold programs of rebuilding resilience because the effects of what the victims of Cyclone Ana and Gombe faced are long lasting.
“We only have three thousand people in Sekeni and Kanseche camps as most of them have already gone back to their original homes. Those remaining are refusing to go back because their villages were hugely devastated. Kanseche camp has survivors from nine villages which were completely flattened. We called on the government of Malawi to provide these people with land for relocation,” Phiri.
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