After an initial three-month, emergency food distribution in response to Cyclone Freddy’s widespread destruction in Malawi, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has committed to providing food assistance for an additional eight months.
The local Brethren in Christ (BIC) churches are providing the assistance to 500 households, approximately 2,500 people, in the Mulanje District. This response is supported through MCC’s account at Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Mennonite World Conference.
The Mulanje District was hit particularly hard by Cyclone Freddy. The four-day storm brought devastating rain, floods and mudslides in March, killing more than 1,400 people and displacing nearly 500,000. Infrastructure like roads, healthcare facilities, farms and schools were heavily damaged, severely affecting the livelihoods of those who were able to remain and making it hard for relief to be delivered.
All of the people MCC is supporting lost their homes to the deluge, with more than half seeing their crops or livestock entirely wiped out, leaving nothing to harvest and nothing to provide any income for the next year. MCC Zambia and Malawi Representative Eldon Wagler says the collaboration between MCC, local BIC churches and staff of Malawi BIC’s relief and development arm, Compassion and Development Services (CODES), has had a significant benefit to the people of the Mulanje district.
« Il est souvent très difficile de se rendre dans une région récemment sinistrée, mais une semaine après l’arrivée du cyclone Freddy, le personnel du MCC et le service CODES des églises BIC étaient à Mulanje, » explique Eldon Wagler. « Leur connaissance intime de la région et de la population, conjuguée à leur expérience des situations d’urgence, ont permis que les secours financés par le MCC parviennent aux sinistrés le plus rapidement possible ».
Le nouveau projet financera huit mois d’aide alimentaire, puis le projet sera réévalué en fonction de l’évolution des besoins dans la région. En plus des distributions alimentaires en cours, le MCC envoie 3000 courtepointes faites main, 1 000 trousses de secours et 1 760 trousses scolaires aux personnes sinistrées par l’ouragan.
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