MALAWI: Machinga Residents Applaud CADECOM for Cyclone Freddy Response
Women drawing water from one of the rehabilitated boreholes by CADECOM
By Thokozani Chapola
The People from Traditional Authority Ngokwe in Machinga district in Malawi, have applauded the Catholic Development Commission in Malawi (CADECOM) Mangochi diocese for the Cyclone Freddy Response it has carried out in the area from July to October 2023.
Ngokwe is one of the hardest hit areas by Cyclone Freddy and CADECOM with financial assistance from Slovenia Aid through Caritas Slovenia, has been providing food and non-food items to 210 households whose houses collapsed due to the impact of the cyclone.
The items that CADECOM has been distributing to the villagers are bags of maize, cooking oil, blankets, corn soya blend, sugar, salt, soya pieces, beans, and chlorine. In addition to this, the organization also procured 10 family tents that were used by the displaced families.
Speaking in an interview with Radio Maria Malawi, one of the beneficiaries Emma Ganizani who has a family of 10 members thanked CADECOM for the assistance but was quick to ask for a resumption of the response citing that since CADECOM stopped assisting them, they are back into problems of hunger.
“The support has been helping us a lot. Our problems were now numbered but now it seems we are back to the same hunger problems. Had this continued, we would be at peace as we have been in the past months,” said Ganizani.
Echoing the sentiments, Alister Witness Maluwa cited that during the time that she has been getting assistance from CADECOM, she has been preparing his farm in readiness for the next farming season.
“I knew that once this project phases out, I will not have the energy to prepare my farm since I will not be having enough food to eat, so I had to prepare the land whilst I have the energy and now my farm is ready for planting. What I can say is a word of thanks to CADECOM,” she said.
In his remarks, Group Village Headman Ng’andu on behalf of Senior Chief Ngokwe, commended CADECOM for the timely assistance saying that his subjects were in real trouble due to the impact of Cyclone Freddy.
The chief said, “They have done a commendable job by assisting people who were affected by the cyclone in my area. Most of my subjects were affected since their houses collapsed and the road that connects this area to the tarmac was swept away so it was really hard for people to access basic needs for their survival so CADECOM’s assistance was just timely.”
According to the CADECOM – Mangochi diocese Monitoring and Evaluation Officer Tapiwa Gama, the organization reached out to the victims after being concerned with the situation in the area. She also indicated that apart from the food assistance that was offered to the victims, the organization also helped in the capacity building of three water committees, rehabilitation of three boreholes and other necessities for good sanitation.
“The situation was not good so we thought of helping them to at least come out of this problem. We also observed that sanitation was a problem so we rehabilitated 3 boreholes at Tukula, Jomo and Mhatere, and trained committee members. We also helped them with Chlorine and we believe this will help the affected communities to have access to clean and safe water which will help in preventing other diseases,” Gama explained.
On the project extension issue, Gama highlighted that this will depend on the donors.
CADECOM has used approximately 37 million Malawian Kwacha (32,000$) to implement this project which has helped 1,260 people from 16 villages of Ngokwe, Khungwa, Kasukutu, Nyamayawo, Suleya, Namtuma, Paheria, malunda, Mpakapaka, Kawe, Ng’andu, Matewere, Matchina, Mapanje, Mpunga and Bakali.
Tropical Cyclone Freddy hit Malawi in March this year and claimed the lives of 679 people, over 537 others are still missing and thousands of houses collapsed rendering 650,000 people homeless.
