UP to 6,500 families nursing chronically
ill people (including those with HIV-Aids) will be given relief food, thanks
to World Vision Malawi's participation in a new regional food pipeline
that seeks to provide a coordinated response to the current food shortage
and the HIV/Aids pandemic, which has exacerbated the crisis.
World Vision Malawi will be making the
intervention by drawing from the Consortium for Southern Africa Food Security
Emergency (C-Safe) new food pipeline. It was announced, on January 22 this
year in Johannesburg, South Africa, that the United States Government had
pledged to World Vision, CARE and Catholic Relief Services a US$114 million
emergency aid grant for a joint response to the severe food crisis in Southern
Africa. The announcement added that the grant was to provide emergency
and supplementary food distributions, agricultural support and development
training in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the three countries hardest hit
by the current crisis. Efforts have been afoot to translate the development
into action in Malawi, where the World Food Programme (WFP) has provided
the bulk of the emergency relief food so far, with World Vision participating
in food distribution in four southern Malawi districts. The World Vision
Malawi relief management engaged the World Vision Malawi Operations staff
in discussions that included how beneficiaries will be identified and served.
"Among other things, in our discussions, we decided that the food distribution to the chronically-ill people should target 6,500 families in Thyolo and Chikwawa districts," explained the World Vision Malawi Regional Operations Manager (South) Marion Chindongo. World Vision is already the lead agency distributing the WFP food in the two districts; Mwanza and Nsanje are the other districts in which the organisation enjoys the same status while running similar work.
She said more details would be given later about the full operations. But she added that in Malawi nine Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), including World Vision, are part of the C-SAFE interventions, which, in Malawi, will also initially see up to 50 kilometres of roads being constructed and repaired under a food for work programme, fish ponds being introduced in many parts of the country and many villagers being trained in various development roles.