Cyclone Slows Community Race against Malnutrition
Food insecurity bites families in Cyclone Freddy affected areas
For Chikondi Likwenga, cleanliness is a must—it safeguards the benefits of giving children nutritious food.
"I want my children to grow up in a sanitary environment to prevent diarrhoea and other diseases that fuel malnutrition," she explains.
Every morning, the 40-year-old mother of six sweeps her homestead and cleans kitchen utensils before cooking breakfast for her two school-going children.
However, she took weeks to clear the rubble when Cyclone Freddy ripped her home and 107 others in Mukwala Village in Malawi's southwestern district of Phalombe.
"Rebuilding has to start sooner or later, but my limbs freeze in the air when I look at the damage caused to the house my late husband and I built after selling pigeon peas. I don't know where to begin, as I cannot afford to build back better singlehandedly, and I cannot even afford food, having lost all my promising crops during the disaster," she laments.
A month on, battered bricks from her shattered house, kitchen, and latrine were scattered like broken china in the homestead where the longest-lasting cyclone killed four goats.
Cyclone Freddy affected more than 2.2 million people in Malawi, displacing about 600 000 people temporarily sheltered in over 700 overcrowded camps in disaster zones.
Chikondi fled to Mwananzanga primary school. Each morning, she takes a 20-minute walk home to clean up and feed the surviving goats born of four she-goats and a he-goat she received from the Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) project.
The German Government funds the project through KfW, the Development Bank of Germany. Consequently, in partnership with the Government of Malawi, UNICEF Malawi distributed 1 850 goats to 370 households in Phalombe. The initiative set into motion a community-based relay race to end malnutrition by improving the uptake of animal protein.
Chikondi says she was delighted when she received the five goats on an agreement to pass the first five kids on to her nephew Thokozire Phiri.
"The goats were a trusted source of milk for children's health and manure for my barren half-acre maize field where I harvested 17 bags, up from six or seven previously."
However, disaster struck just months after Likwenga gifted Thokozire five goats as promised.
She recounts: "After honouring the agreement, I felt relieved and saw my children growing healthy and going to school without fail as the remaining goats multiplied, producing more milk and manure.
"I planned to sell some goats and start a small business to raise secondary school fees for my children, who are currently in Standard Two and Four. Sadly, I remain with just one goat after their shelter crushed two, and another pair was crushed by a falling wall when I transferred them to my house."
Equally unlucky was Thokozire, who only had seven chickens when her wish to own goats came true.
She narrates: "I couldn't afford a goat, so I was happy to get five. At last, my child could eat porridge enriched with milk. However, one died in the rain, leaving me with four even before passing on the first five."
The rainstorm that killed Thokozire's goat in the cold also shattered her house.
Weather scientists estimate that in six days, Cyclone Freddy dumped more rain on Malawi's Southern Region than the entire country gets in six months.
SUN project manager Vennie Arcado says the disaster has dimmed Mkwala's allure as "a shining example of community participation in the fight against malnutrition" that leaves nearly one in three Malawian children stunted.
He explains: "Mkwala was a model village, but all the impressive work that attracted the German Ambassador, Deputy Minister of Health, and other communities to come and learn from them has crumbled.
"As hunger bites harder, these people face the hard choice between buying food or rebuilding their homes, kitchens, latrines, and other vital structures. Many won't yield enough food to take them to the next harvest, so they have to buy food instead of rebuilding sanitation facilities."
In most fields, the devastated maize fields were dotted with a diversity of crops for diversified diets. These included groundnuts, beans, and vegetables such as nkhwani (pumpkin leaves) and okra.
A repeat of Chikondi's bumper harvest was washed away when flash floods unleashed by Cyclone Freddy buried the manure-rich field in silt.
"When the cyclone struck, my maize was almost ready for harvesting, and the peas were dry. This loss will deepen hunger, malnutrition, and poverty as most households here run out of food in the rainy season from October and April."
About 3.8 million people in Malawi—about 20% of the country's population—needed food aid during the raging lean season, according to the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee.
Amid trickles of emergency food supplies for the displaced population, children at Mwananzanga camp were seen roasting dry maize cobs for lunch.
"Since the house collapsed, it breaks my heart that children now live in a deprived camp where overcrowding, food scarcity, and poor sanitation increase the risk of preventable infections that fuel malnutrition," she states.
Fearing for her children, Likwenga sold four chickens to buy poles and plastic sheeting for repairing the latrine and bathroom, thanks to encouragement from community-based care group promoter Verina Mathewe.
The volunteer goes village to village, encouraging households with children below five, breastfeeding babies, pregnant women, and lactating mothers to insist on diversified diets from six food groups.
The promoter gives nutrition tips to 19 volunteers who visit clusters comprising 10 people each.
She says Cyclone Freddy has rolled back community efforts to diversify their diets and increase access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene in the area.
Verina explains: "Everywhere I go, the loss is enormous, food scarcity is biting, and a single latrine now serves up to five households.
"The loss of homes, crops, water sources, and sanitation facilities may increase malnutrition rates reduced to just one or two by community-based initiatives under the SUN project. The major tragedy is that this occurred at the peak of the lean season."
