Traditional Authority (T/A) Ngokwe of Machinga has applauded the Catholic Development Commission in Malawi (CADECOM) for providing monthly humanitarian support to 1, 260 survivors of Tropical Cyclone Freddy in his area.
From July to October 2023, the Commission, with financial support from Caritas Slovenia, has been implementing Cyclone Freddy humanitarian response project to alleviate pain on survivors who suffered damage to their houses, livestock killed and crops swept away.
Caritas Slovenia financed the project, which initially targeted 150 households, but ended up providing humanitarian assistance to 210 affected households, who comprised 76 male-headed and 134 female-headed families.
Following the Cyclone, houses were damaged displacing people the in the process and washing away crops, domestic water points, livestock, and causing human injury and loss of life and property thereby leaving the victims desperate.
Speaking in an interview on Friday, Ngokwe said the humanitarian project contributed significantly towards stabilizing the affected households as the families were devising long-term recovery mechanisms.
He said he was particularly happy that under the project, CADECOM provided 25 buckets (25kgs) of H2H Chlorine Mpiri Health Centre while Nsanama Health Centre got five buckets of 25 kilograme of chlorine in an effort aimed to avert cholera breakout in the area.
“They also rehabilitated one borehole each at Tukula, Mhatere and Jumo. This, plus the chlorine the beneficiaries received, helped a lot in preventing cholera, diarrhoea and other water borne diseases,” said the chief.
CADECOM Project Manager Richard Kusseni said for the past four months, the Commission has been providing the survivors with food and non-food items.
Kusseni said there was full participation of the beneficiaries and the relevant stakeholders including Ngokwe Health Centre, District Water Office, District Community Development, District Health Office and parish committees.
“In our intervention, we gave priority to heavily affected female-headed households, child-headed households, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. All names of the identified beneficiaries were systematically entered in an excel template with full household information which included household name, type and size. Verification of the households was done in coordination with local leaders to ascertain that only deserving households were registered,” he explained.
Among others, the survivors received maize, corn soy blend (Likuni Phala), beans, sugar, salt, cooking oil, packets of soya pieces, bottles chlorine/water guard and blankets.
