Rainstorm damage in Nsanje district Malawi, 17 February 2019. Photo: DoDMA Malawi
You can go here and see some helicopter footage of part of the flooded area:
#MalawiFloods2019: Current situation in the East Bank as seen from a helicopter. Help for the nearly half a million displaced people still required @MwNewsAgency pic.twitter.com/XZmdrJqOWv
— Malawi Government (@MalawiGovt) March 11, 2019
The Malawian government updated yesterday:
UPDATE ON #MalawiFloods2019:
As of Sunday, 10th March, 2019, a total of 30 deaths and 377 injuries have been recorded. A total of 93,730 households (approximately 468,650 people) have been affected and 6,341 households have been displaced @MwNewsAgency pic.twitter.com/snun9rX7NU— Malawi Government (@MalawiGovt) March 11, 2019
Now the really difficult part begins. Close to half a million people live in compromised housing, many with contaminated water and without adequate food. The population of Malawi is incredibly young: 46% of the population is under 15, so that half a million includes about 200,000 children.
It seems to me there are two credible avenues for donating to help.
The first is small scale efforts organized by established groups within Malawi. For instance, Road to Relief had a previously scheduled fundraiser to fund some small scale projects here in Malawi. They have now changed to providing relief kits to families in flooded areas. Some local schools have gotten behind this effort. The advantage of these efforts are that they are immediate and very efficient in terms of dollar for outcome. The disadvantage is that they are not scalable (they rely on local connections and volunteer labour, both of which have limits) or long term. To be clear though–they are super helpful in the immediate aftermath of this crisis.
The second are larger scale efforts. These are often funded by the international community and implemented by an organization on the ground. Vivian works for just such an organization: Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD). Over the next few days CARD will connect with a larger international relief agency called ACT Alliance. The ACT Alliance is a consortium of 150 faith-based organizations across the world who pool their resources for relief situations like this. CARD has boots on the ground who speak the language and are present in the flooded communities long term.
The past September both the Moderator (Rev. Daniel Cho) and the General Secretary (Rev. Ian Ross McDonald) of the Presbyterian Church in Canada visited CARD projects in Nsanje (the heart of the flooding). The PCC is a member of the ACT Alliance and has supported CARD’s efforts in the past. The delegation visited a solar irrigation project for small scale farmers. These men were the executive of a larger group of farmers:
These are the people who will have to give local leadership for months and years to come. They already are. CARD helps them lead better.
The old adage that if you give a person a fish they eat for a day but if you teach them to fish they eat forever, is true. In relief it is not either/or. It needs to be both/and. People need to eat now; people need long term efforts to rebuild and make a better life. Donating to either is great.
Here is the link to donate to CARD through the ACT Alliance supported by Presbyterian World Service & Development.
If you have questions, feel free to post them or message me.
Missional-aries 