Village savings and loans pick up the pieces after Cyclone disaster

Bridget Chikaonda is still picking up the pieces months after Tropical Cyclone Freddy knocked her off her stride and set her back by years in her efforts to improve her life.

Before the disaster struck, she had 15 chickens and two pigs. All chickens perished when a wall of her house collapsed on them. Similarly, the wall of the pigsty also collapsed, killing the sow. Her crops were washed away, and her toilet collapsed. For the crestfallen Chikaonda, it was a disaster beyond belief. The loss was a shared experience throughout the village.

Since the cyclone, however, Chikaonda and others have been held by the hand by the social support system in the village as they recover from the disaster.

She is a beneficiary of the Afikepo Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture Programme in her village, Sani, in the area of Traditional Authority Nanseta in Thyolo.

The programme, which is funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by the Government of Malawi, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), aims to address the problem of undernutrition, particularly in under-five children.

Thanks to her membership to the village savings and loan association (VSLA), which is an intervention under Afikepo, Chikaonda is slowly rebuilding her life.

She has rebuilt her house with a loan she obtained from the VSLA. She has planted some crops to replace those that were washed away to improve the consumption of diversified diets by her children, one of whom is only four years old. More than anything, she yearns to start rearing chickens again once she has finalised repaying the loan.

The piglet that survived the disaster stays close to her heart as she says it is key to her recovery and survival.

“If you rear pigs and follow all the husbandry practices, you make more money with which you can provide for your family as well as save some with the village bank,” Chikaonda says.

She is effusive in her praise of the village bank, which she says has been the difference between despair and the path to recovery: “Without the village bank, I wouldn't have rebuilt this house.”

Olive Mpambo, who chairs the VLSA, faced a similar fate after her chickens and a pig also perished in the disaster. She, too, has moved on. She has bought another pig to replace the one that died.

“My ambition now is to buy chickens and start raising them again once I have repaid the loan I obtained from the village bank,” Mpambo says.

The VSLA, Mpambo explains, has 19 members (all female), but following Cyclone Freddy, only three, including Chikaonda, obtained loans to rebuild their lives.

“At the time of the disaster, all members had outstanding loans, but some didn’t want to get more because they were afraid of defaulting. Only three people obtained loans to rebuild their houses. One rented a garden where she is growing vegetables,” Mpambo explains.

Even under such challenging circumstances, Chikaonda and Mpambo aim to provide for their families and ensure the nutritional well-being of their respective under-five children.

It is a point not lost on either Village Head Sani or Ellard Kuse, who is the chairperson of Nanseta village nutrition coordination committee.

The village chief acknowledges that the assistance his village has received from Afikepo, especially in the promotion of backyard gardens, will go a long way to improving the nutrition of his subjects, including children.

“All people in the village are encouraged to construct backyard gardens because they contribute towards proper nutrition of children,” the chief says.

Kuse agrees, noting that the promotion of dietary diversification runs at the heart of the Afikepo nutrition programme.

“We encourage people to have backyard gardens, raise small livestock such as chickens, rabbits, hare, pigeons, ducks and guinea fowls. We also urge them to join VSLAs to enable them recover in times of need,” says Kuse, who is also the master trainer for the area.

He foresees a long road to recovery for the communities, but feels the biggest challenge facing them in that process after the rains washed away their crops will be how they rehabilitate the fertility of the soil.

Kuse explains that keeping small animals such as chickens and rabbits performs a dual function of improving nutrition of the families as well as providing manure for farm use. Communities, he adds, are taken through the production of compost manure from plant waste and animal droppings.

“We are working with the communities to restore the fertility of the soil so that they can grow their crops. We are encouraging them to use manure to restore the fertility,” Kuse says.

With the Afikepo interventions, Chikaonda and other people affected by the cyclone are on a steady path to recovery of their livelihoods.