Without the intervention of the World Food Programme (WFP) and World Vision Malawi, Esnat Kambalame’s case could have been a whole lot worse.
But she is only one of the lucky few. And the relief is only temporary.
It is a very hot afternoon and Esnat Kambalame’s five-year old child sleeps on a reed-made mat on the veranda of her grass-thatched home in Golowa Village, Traditional Authority Nthache in Mwanza.
There are noticeable blister wounds on the body of the child.
“The wounds keep disappearing and reappearing,” says Kambalame.
This has been the situation in the past three months.
And the child has poor appetite, says the mother.
She took the child to Mwanza District Hospital where they administered cream application on the wounds.
And health workers there told her that the sores on the child’s body were a sign of multiple vitamin deficiencies.
Her two-year-old son also developed similar health conditions.
Kambalame admits that she does not know much about child health and nutritious meals.
“As long as we are not sick, there is no need to go to the hospital. Health workers told me it’s a must to exclusively breastfeed and follow immunisations, which I did,” she says.
Kambalame is one of the 2.8 million people facing food shortage in the country. That is, while she has to look for food, she also has to mind nutrition needs for her three children.
She has a one-acre piece of land where she grows maize. Last season, she harvested eight bags of 50kgs each which took her family only as far as October.
Since then, she has been doing piece work, sometimes in Mozambique and she uses the earnings to buy maize.
It’s a struggle for her.
Her first born son is in standard three at Mpandazi Primary School, some 300 metres away from her home. He is lucky as he receives soya cereal porridge at the school before he knocks off.
A lactating mother and a widow, Kambalame is one of the few beneficiaries of a joint food aid courtesy of World Food Programme (WFP) and World Vision Malawi since January 2016.
This programme also aims at ensuring that the nutrition of pregnant mothers and under-five children is not affected by the hunger situation in the country.
On the 15th of every month since January, Kambalame receives a 50kg bag of maize, six kilogrammes of pigeon peas, two litres of cooking oil and six kilogramme of soya flour.
This is helping to keep the soul and the body of her family together and somehow meeting some of the nutrition needs.
But she admits she shares the food she receives with her other members of her family.
She confesses this is against village food committees’ advice. She says after sharing with her relations, she has very little left.
But the 30-year-old Kambalame says she cannot let her relations sleep on an empty stomach when she has food in her house.
She says while using the food she receives carefully, she also supplements it through piece work.
The 2010 Malawi Demographic Healthy Survey (MDHS) mentioned Mwanza as one of the districts with high malnutrition status at 56 per cent.
The July 2015 Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (Mvac) report projected that out of the 16 million Malawians, 17 percent would face hunger from October 2015 to March 2016.
Mwanza is cited as one of the 25 districts worst hit by the hunger in 10 years.
In October 2015, World Vision Malawi and WFP began providing food aid to the district to help reduce malnutrition which has arisen due to acute hunger, especially to under-five children and pregnant women.
Chairperson for Mpondazi food relief committee, Luka Bato of Kasapha village, Traditional Authority Nthache in the district, says the area is facing severe food insecurity which is raising nutrition concerns.
“Of course the food aid is helping but there are many people in need that have not been reached,” he says.
A WFP Malawi situation report of January 2016, published on its website on February 11, 2016 says the latest report from admission monitoring of seven districts shows that over 700 patients with moderate accurate malnutrition were admitted in the first week of February.
It notes, that there is a 66 percent increase compared to mid-January statistics.
“At this time of unprecedented global need and specifically in Malawi, despite the resource challenges, our commitment to the humanitarian imperative to save lives and livelihoods and to protect food and nutrition security remains stronger than ever,” said WFP’s Country Director, Coco Ushiyama at the launch of the programme in Chikwawa in October 2015.
Across the country, many of those affected by food shortage are benefiting from such food interventions. But the packages being handed out are being stretched as the beneficiaries share with their relations.
Ushiyama disclosed that findings revealed that almost half of households are voluntarily sharing assistance with neighbouring families.
“This is worrisome as it limits the amount of days that targeted households will actually have food available, ultimately affecting eventual food security outcomes,” said Ushiyama.
Head of Nutrition in the Ministry of Health, Janet Guta, says household food insecurity is one of the contributing factors to malnutrition which leads to stunting which she says is a bog challenge in Malawi.
“The ministry in collaboration with development partners is conducting nutrition screening in districts that were affected by floods. We are receiving high figures of moderate malnutrition from these areas. Food insecurity could have been one of the leading factors,” she says.
Malawi just like many other Southern African countries is feeling the pinch of El Nino related drought.
According to the Department of Meteorological Services and Climate Change, El Nino is the unusual warming of waters over the Eastern Central Equatorial Pacific Ocean which affects rainfall pattern over the world including Southern Africa and Malawi.
World Vision Malawi‘s Design Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator for humanitarian
emergency affairs, Sobhuza Sibande, says the organisation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with WFP to provide adequate food and cash up the end of the response.
Sibande also says among other challenges, the organisation has observed that the targeted population is smaller than the actual number of people in need in almost every district.
“This gives a challenge in the sense that some traditional leaders ask the current beneficiaries to share their rations with other households which are equally affected by hunger. As such the food they remain with does not take them a month (as our standard) before it runs out,” he says.
The current food and cash distributions will continue up to the end of this month, according to the current filed level agreement between WFP and World Vision Malawi.
But as Malawi suffers yet another drought, the ending of the programme could only throw the likes of Kambalame into the deep end. And they are in millions.
About undernutrition
in Malawi
* Child under-nutrition is affecting Malawi’s development. Its effects are also impacting the lives of 60 percent of adults
* About 10.7 percent of those who would now be aged between 15 and 64 died as children because of undernourishment.
* Between 2008 and 2012, almost 82,000 child deaths in Malawi – were estimated to be directly associated with undernutrition
* Almost half of all children under five in Malawi were affected by stunting in 2012, and almost 350,715 children were underweight
* 59.9 percent of working-age Malawians had suffered from growth retardation before reaching the age of five
* Malawi lost an estimated $66.7m in 2012 alone because of the reduced productivity of those who were stunted as children.
Source: ‘The cost of hunger in Africa: the social and economic impact of child undernutrition in Malawi’, a report by UN World Food Programme (WFP), the African Union Commission and Malawi Government
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