The Federation’s mission is to improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity. It is the world’s largest humanitarian organization and its millions of volunteers are active in over 185 countries.
In Brief
Period covered by this update: 3 February 2007 to 26 April 2007.
History of this Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF)-funded operation:
- CHF 88,704 allocated from the Federation’s DREF on 2 February 2007 to respond to needs in this operation and to replenish disaster preparedness stocks distributed to the affected population.
- This operation was expected to be implemented for three months; a DREF Bulletin Final Report will be made available three months after the end of the operation.
This operation is aligned with the International Federation's Global Agenda, which sets out four broad goals to meet the Federation's mission to "improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity".
Global Agenda Goals:
- Reduce the numbers of deaths, injuries and impact from disasters.
- Reduce the number of deaths, illnesses and impact from diseases and public health emergencies.
- Increase local community, civil society and Red Cross Red Crescent capacity to address the most urgent situations of vulnerability.
- Reduce intolerance, discrimination and social exclusion and promote respect for diversity and human dignity.
Background and current situation
In early 2007, Malawi experienced heavy rains which caused flooding in Chikwaka, Nsanje and Mangochi districts of Shire region. The floods caused extensive damage in the three districts:
- Chikwaka District experienced heavy rains as of 1 January 2007. Two deaths were reported and a total of 20,061 households were affected. 7,666 hectares of various crops (maize, sorghum, millet, cotton and rice) were destroyed, 917 houses collapsed and a significant number of chickens and goats was swept away.
- In Nsanje District, one death was reported and 1,351 households were affected. 475 houses collapsed and 1,804 hectares of crops were damaged.
- In Mangochi District, flooding was experienced on 13 February 2007. A total of 503 houses were destroyed, 2,143 families displaced, 50 hectares of maize and 32 hectares of rice destroyed and livestock (goats, cows, sheep and chicken) were swept away. Two bridges were washed away, rendering the district inaccessible. Most latrines in the flood affected areas collapsed and pose a health hazard due to a potential outbreak of waterborne diseases such as cholera. Prior to the floods, Malawi had experienced a cholera outbreak which started in August 2006 and recorded 142 cases, with two deaths. The areas flooded in the beginning of 2007 reported nine cholera cases between 5 and 11 February 2007. Furthermore, Mangochi District is prone to malaria and there are still fears of an outbreak since floodwaters in stagnant pools have presented ready breeding spots for mosquitoes.
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
NI charity helps Malawi's poorest
One of Africa's poorest countries, with an average per capita income of about £80 a year, Malawi needs outside help to tackle HIV/Aids.
Northern Ireland's only independent development agency, War on Want NI (WOWNI), is doing what it can to help rebuild lives ravaged by the infection.
Near the southern city of Zomba, about 400 children are registered at the Songani orphan care centre.
They live at home with their carers, often elderly grandparents who have themselves few resources, but they come to the centre for food, clothes, and training.
WOWNI, along with Coleraine Borough Council and the public service union Nipsa, are funding this centre, which Kennedy Mpoya runs.
"We teach the children skills like tailoring or carpentry, so they'll have some chance to stand on their own feet as they grow up," he says.
WOWNI has an income of about £1m a year. It funds 15 Aids-related projects in Malawi, and chooses small scale partner projects which it can nourish through training as well as finance - the objective to make the projects eventually self-supporting.
Education forms another important part of WOWNI's work in raising awareness of HIV/Aids.
Mchenga is a remote northern mining village. The mines attract a transient community of workers and truckers.
Women who have already lost their men to Aids sell themselves to raise money for their families, completing the cycle of infection.
As part of a primary health scheme, WOWNI funds an outreach group which uses drama and music to bring home the message of avoiding HIV/Aids.
People are encouraged to take an HIV test, and reassured that even if they do carry the infection, it doesn't mean a death sentence.
One of the outreach workers, Irene Mhango, has been living with Aids for six years.
She has started a small grocery store with the help of WOWNI.
It provides her and half a dozen others, all PLWAs - people living with Aids - with a basic livelihood, and has also helped change local attitudes to the disease.
"This is what we do best," says WOWNI's director Linda McClelland, "giving the most disadvantaged groups a leg up, lifting them out of their poverty, and giving them a little power over their own lives."
Noel Thompson's reports will be screened on BBC Newsline on BBC1 on Wednesday and Friday at 1830 BST.
Northern Ireland's only independent development agency, War on Want NI (WOWNI), is doing what it can to help rebuild lives ravaged by the infection.
Near the southern city of Zomba, about 400 children are registered at the Songani orphan care centre.
They live at home with their carers, often elderly grandparents who have themselves few resources, but they come to the centre for food, clothes, and training.
WOWNI, along with Coleraine Borough Council and the public service union Nipsa, are funding this centre, which Kennedy Mpoya runs.
"We teach the children skills like tailoring or carpentry, so they'll have some chance to stand on their own feet as they grow up," he says.
WOWNI has an income of about £1m a year. It funds 15 Aids-related projects in Malawi, and chooses small scale partner projects which it can nourish through training as well as finance - the objective to make the projects eventually self-supporting.
Education forms another important part of WOWNI's work in raising awareness of HIV/Aids.
Mchenga is a remote northern mining village. The mines attract a transient community of workers and truckers.
Women who have already lost their men to Aids sell themselves to raise money for their families, completing the cycle of infection.
As part of a primary health scheme, WOWNI funds an outreach group which uses drama and music to bring home the message of avoiding HIV/Aids.
People are encouraged to take an HIV test, and reassured that even if they do carry the infection, it doesn't mean a death sentence.
One of the outreach workers, Irene Mhango, has been living with Aids for six years.
She has started a small grocery store with the help of WOWNI.
It provides her and half a dozen others, all PLWAs - people living with Aids - with a basic livelihood, and has also helped change local attitudes to the disease.
"This is what we do best," says WOWNI's director Linda McClelland, "giving the most disadvantaged groups a leg up, lifting them out of their poverty, and giving them a little power over their own lives."
Noel Thompson's reports will be screened on BBC Newsline on BBC1 on Wednesday and Friday at 1830 BST.
Malawi's wow factor
Madonna's adoption of an orphan from Malawi has put that Southern African country in the world's headlines. But the HIV/AIDS crisis there has created a million orphans, and Malawi has not got the resources to care for them.
On BBC 1's Newsline tonight Noel Thompson shows how Northern Ireland's independent development agency, War on Want NI, is spending money raised here to help people living and dying with HIV/Aids
Kathonie is barely 20 years old, and her life has been torn apart by the HIV/Aids epidemic which is rampaging through Malawi.
"We were six children, but my mother died from Aids, and then my father, " she says. "We were sent to stay with my stepfather and his wife, but they both died from Aids too, so we had no one to look after us. My brothers and sisters have been split up, and that's how I ended up in this orphanage."
Malawi is fighting a losing battle against HIV/Aids. Recent estimates say there are one and a half million people infected, and already a million children left without their parents. The disease has reduced life expectancy in Malawi by a decade in the last five years.
The infection is played out against a background of serious economic problems - average income is just £80 a year and there is little money available to fight the disease, or to care for the children left behind. HIV/Aids, says Maxwell Mphwina, WOWNI's Malawi operations manager, is devastating a generation. Children are being left to grandparents who have no resources themselves, and find themselves in desperate conditions.
War on Want NI is spending most of its limited development budget for Malawi on fighting the effects of HIV/Aids.
In the village of Mkundi, close to the shores of the lake which comprises half of Malawi's territory, Kathonie is one of about 50 children and young people at the orphan centre built with support from WOWNI. The children don't live here, but they come every day for substantial meals.
New buildings provide the shelter where the children can eat, play and learn skills like tailoring and carpentry, which will allow them to make a living as they get older.
None of this, says the founder of Mkundi Orphan Care, Lizzie Banda, would have been possible without War on Want NI.
"I started off in an open shack with no facilitie," she explains. " Now we have these buildings with sewing machines and wood-working tools, we can train the children, and also sell some of the things they make to raise money to make us self-sufficient and provide care for more children. The lives of these children are on the up!"
War on Want doesn't hand out money to anyone who asks for it. It works with 15 carefully chosen partners in Malawi, on Aids-related projects which it nurtures through training, education and financial support until they can stand on their own feet. Around half of WOWNI's one million pound income is earned through its chain of shops around Northern Ireland. It receives a quarter of a million from Irish Aid, the development arm of the Irish Foreign Affairs Ministry, the rest comes from donations. The director, Linda McClelland, rejects the suggestion that its budget is so small as to be negligible.
"Not at all. We are a small agency but there is a real niche for people like us. We work closely on the ground with people who would be too small for bigger agencies like Oxfam or Concern. We train them, build their ability and their confidence, and they in turn reach out to help other people."
That's what happened to Irene Mhango, in the town of Livingstonia, high on Malawi's northern plateau. She is HIV positive and is a member of theWOWNI-funded outreach group which takes the HIV/Aids message to a still fearful community. We went with her to the Mchenga coal mine, where the cycle of infection is remorseless. People die from HIV/Aids, poverty forces their women into prostitution with the transient population of miners and truckers, and the disease spreads further. In an effort to break that cycle WOWNI helps fund the Livingstonia area primary health care programme which teaches people about the dangers of infection and how to avoid it. Irene has been on effective anti-retroviral drugs for some years now. Her message to the several hundred people gathered for an Aids awareness session is that diagnosis does not mean your life is over. Indeed the quicker you're tested, the greater the chances of surviving the infection. Leading by example, Irene persuaded WOWNI to fund her with a few hundred pounds to start a shop with a number of other HIV/Aids sufferers. Now the Tiwengo grocery store is a going concern, its sign proudly proclaiming "Proprietors, PLWAs, People Living With Aids."
Irene's enterprise is changing attitudes to HIV/Aids, reducing the stigma and discrimination and making it easier for people to talk about the disease which has touched every town and village in the country.
HIV/Aids poses a huge challenge to Malawi. The government cannot fight it without help from other countries. In a small scale but effective fashion, War on Want Northern Ireland is making its contribution to halting the disease which is changing the face of Africa.
The first of Noel Thompson's two reports from Malawi is on Newsline tonight on BBC 1 Northern Ireland at 6.30pm. The second will be shown later this week
On BBC 1's Newsline tonight Noel Thompson shows how Northern Ireland's independent development agency, War on Want NI, is spending money raised here to help people living and dying with HIV/Aids
Kathonie is barely 20 years old, and her life has been torn apart by the HIV/Aids epidemic which is rampaging through Malawi.
"We were six children, but my mother died from Aids, and then my father, " she says. "We were sent to stay with my stepfather and his wife, but they both died from Aids too, so we had no one to look after us. My brothers and sisters have been split up, and that's how I ended up in this orphanage."
Malawi is fighting a losing battle against HIV/Aids. Recent estimates say there are one and a half million people infected, and already a million children left without their parents. The disease has reduced life expectancy in Malawi by a decade in the last five years.
The infection is played out against a background of serious economic problems - average income is just £80 a year and there is little money available to fight the disease, or to care for the children left behind. HIV/Aids, says Maxwell Mphwina, WOWNI's Malawi operations manager, is devastating a generation. Children are being left to grandparents who have no resources themselves, and find themselves in desperate conditions.
War on Want NI is spending most of its limited development budget for Malawi on fighting the effects of HIV/Aids.
In the village of Mkundi, close to the shores of the lake which comprises half of Malawi's territory, Kathonie is one of about 50 children and young people at the orphan centre built with support from WOWNI. The children don't live here, but they come every day for substantial meals.
New buildings provide the shelter where the children can eat, play and learn skills like tailoring and carpentry, which will allow them to make a living as they get older.
None of this, says the founder of Mkundi Orphan Care, Lizzie Banda, would have been possible without War on Want NI.
"I started off in an open shack with no facilitie," she explains. " Now we have these buildings with sewing machines and wood-working tools, we can train the children, and also sell some of the things they make to raise money to make us self-sufficient and provide care for more children. The lives of these children are on the up!"
War on Want doesn't hand out money to anyone who asks for it. It works with 15 carefully chosen partners in Malawi, on Aids-related projects which it nurtures through training, education and financial support until they can stand on their own feet. Around half of WOWNI's one million pound income is earned through its chain of shops around Northern Ireland. It receives a quarter of a million from Irish Aid, the development arm of the Irish Foreign Affairs Ministry, the rest comes from donations. The director, Linda McClelland, rejects the suggestion that its budget is so small as to be negligible.
"Not at all. We are a small agency but there is a real niche for people like us. We work closely on the ground with people who would be too small for bigger agencies like Oxfam or Concern. We train them, build their ability and their confidence, and they in turn reach out to help other people."
That's what happened to Irene Mhango, in the town of Livingstonia, high on Malawi's northern plateau. She is HIV positive and is a member of theWOWNI-funded outreach group which takes the HIV/Aids message to a still fearful community. We went with her to the Mchenga coal mine, where the cycle of infection is remorseless. People die from HIV/Aids, poverty forces their women into prostitution with the transient population of miners and truckers, and the disease spreads further. In an effort to break that cycle WOWNI helps fund the Livingstonia area primary health care programme which teaches people about the dangers of infection and how to avoid it. Irene has been on effective anti-retroviral drugs for some years now. Her message to the several hundred people gathered for an Aids awareness session is that diagnosis does not mean your life is over. Indeed the quicker you're tested, the greater the chances of surviving the infection. Leading by example, Irene persuaded WOWNI to fund her with a few hundred pounds to start a shop with a number of other HIV/Aids sufferers. Now the Tiwengo grocery store is a going concern, its sign proudly proclaiming "Proprietors, PLWAs, People Living With Aids."
Irene's enterprise is changing attitudes to HIV/Aids, reducing the stigma and discrimination and making it easier for people to talk about the disease which has touched every town and village in the country.
HIV/Aids poses a huge challenge to Malawi. The government cannot fight it without help from other countries. In a small scale but effective fashion, War on Want Northern Ireland is making its contribution to halting the disease which is changing the face of Africa.
The first of Noel Thompson's two reports from Malawi is on Newsline tonight on BBC 1 Northern Ireland at 6.30pm. The second will be shown later this week
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