(ZAMBIA) Severe drought is crippling much of the southern and western parts of Zambia leaving thousands of people hungry. According to the World Food Program, 24 out of Zambia’s 103 districts are so affected by drought that they require significant food relief this year. That equals about 840,000 people who require food assistance. In response to this need, World Renew is beginning a program to provide emergency food assistance to people in in Mwandi district.

“Mwandi district had a severe dry spell during the 2014-2015 agricultural season, and this has severely affected people who were already living in extreme poverty,” explained Ruairidh Waddell, World Renew’s Country Consultant for Zambia. “The maize crop was so poor that most families are eating only one meal a day and sometimes less. In most villages, any food reserves have been completely exhausted and households have even been selling off their assets, such as livestock, to cope. This makes them increasingly vulnerable.”

World Renew, through its partnership in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, is responding by providing nine-months of food and other assistance to 2,500 families (15,000 people) in eleven villages.

To carry out this response, World Renew is partnering with the United Church of Zambia (UCZ). The UCZ has been working in Mwandi for over 50 years focusing on health, nutrition, education and advocacy with the government. They also have a mission hospital, school and other social institutions to meet the needs of vulnerable members of the community.

“We have been blessed with a strong team in place and a strong partner to work with to implement this multi-faceted project in Zambia. Please pray that it will bless the people of Mwandi and lead to long-term improvements in their lives.”

They will be supported by World Renew staff as well as a team of World Renew International Relief Managers.

From July 2015 through May 2016, World Renew will provide these families with food baskets to meet half of their daily nutrition needs. The remaining nutrition needs will be met by the little food that people have been able to harvest and through other coping mechanisms such as fishing and the sale of milk and small livestock.

The supplemental food from World Renew will help keep people from selling off important household assets. This will be provided through a Food-for-Work program, whereby the community selects projects that they can work on that will provide the village with long-term benefits. This helps achieve both improved community assets as well as provide food in a dignifying way to members of Mwandi communities.

In addition to food-for-work, World Renew and its partners will provide the following:

  • A school feeding program
  • Improved seed distribution
  • School gardens
  • Borehole drilling and tank installation at eight schools

For the school feeding program, children in nine primary schools will be provided with nutritious breakfast porridge. This will help nourish them and keep them enrolled in school, as their parents no longer need to take them out due to the distances they have to walk to school (up to 10k) and the strain that this puts on children who are already undernourished due to a lack of food.

“Households normally reserve extra seed from the previous year in case of drought so that they will have enough to plant the following year” explains Jacqueline Koster, World Renew’s Disaster Response Manager for Eastern and Southern Africa. “But this year the late rain meant that most families used two years’ worth of seed because they had to replant once the rain came in mid-December, and their initial batch did not grow. This means that families do not have available seed to plant in the coming year. As a result, World Renew is also distributing seeds to families who have lost their crucial seed reserves.”

The school gardens will be built and cared for by the community as one of the food-for-work projects. The completed gardens will help provide food and income support for the school-feeding programs after this program ends in May 2016. These gardens will also be a learning tool for the students and their parents to help introduce drought-tolerant crops like cassava. The Parent-Teacher Associations in each school will also work towards expanding this to a fish pond, and possibly include a livestock component.

Due to poor rainfall, access to water is now a significant challenge for many. A number of community water sources have dried up and many people are walking up to 14 km a day to get water from a river. To address this crisis and enhance the school gardens, World Renew will drill eight boreholes at community schools. For schools that already have shallow wells, community members will strengthen the wells and add stairways as another food-for-work project.

In addition, the staff on the project will use the food distribution time as an opportunity to share additional nutrition, hygiene and food preparation messages to the crowds that gather. This will complement the food assistance being provided and educate people about mixing locally available foods to have balanced nutrition, hand-washing, food storage techniques, and hygienic food preparation.

Two International Relief Managers, Rients and Margaret Mazereeuw have arrived in Zambia and are providing oversight to this project. Bevan Hancock, an Australian volunteer is also lending his agricultural skills to the effort. In November, two more IRMs, George and Toni Fernhout will take over from Rients and Margaret.

“We have been blessed with a strong team in place and a strong partner to work with to implement this multi-faceted project in Zambia. Please pray that it will bless the people of Mwandi and lead to long-term improvements in their lives” says Jacqueline Koster.