Four of Malawi's remote districts will
soon have access to up to 100 fish ponds, teeming with fish, to help the
nutritional status and the income-generating capacity of poor farmers.
This is the agenda the World Vision
Malawi relief team was fine-tuning this week, as it planned to move its
Food For Work component into motion. Food For Work is part of the Consortium
for Southern Africa Food Security Emergency (C-Safe) Programme, running
with a major aid grant from the United States Government and representing
an unprecedented collaboration among several Non-Governmental Organisations
(NGOs), including World Vision, in providing a coordinated response to
the lingering food shortage in southern Africa and the related complexities
of the existing HIV/Aids pandemic.
World Vision Malawi Assistant Commodities Officer McPherson Ndawala explained that the relief team spent most of May this year sensitising the people of the need to construct the fish ponds and constructing roads in their districts, in exchange for relief rations of 75 kilogrammes (kg) of maize and 10 kg beans per person each month. The programme, covering the four southern Malawi districts of Nsanje, Chikwawa, Thyolo and Mwanza, is expected to target 4,500 households and will commence in earnest this June.