Responding to southern Africa's crisis

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Responding to southern Africa's crisis

Help Age, August 28, 2002

©John Cobb/HelpAge International

Irene Lusiasi, 79, works eight hours a day, six days a week on a coffee plantation in southern Malawi, and also tends her own small plot of land. She has eight orphaned grandchildren to care for and feed.

"I go to work because of poverty. At my age I'm not supposed to work but what can I do? I have only one bag of maize left, which will last till next month. Then what will I do? All my hopes are now in God, because no one else can help me".

She earns 653 Kwacha a month (less that £6.00), while a 50kg bag of maize costs 850 Kwacha.

Irene Lusiasi, 79, has eight orphaned
grandchildren to care for and feed

Her own plot yields fifteen 50kg bags of maize in a good year, but with last year's poor weather conditions and lack of fertiliser, the yield was only five bags.

HelpAge International and its local partners are working in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe to provide basic rations that are suitable to older people's nutritional needs. They are also supporting older people and their families in their efforts to recover from one of the most widespread food crises to hit sub-Saharan Africa.

Frail older people living alone are most at risk from malnutrition, if they are unable to purchase or gather food. But older people also play a critical role in family survival, and in many cases are the main carers for the sick and for children. Older people, especially older women, struggle to look after the sick and support dependants without assistance.

According to local conditions, HelpAge International is providing immediate relief in the form of food - dry rations and supplementary feeding - and support for agriculture so that people can produce their own food, including seeds, tools and fertilisers, irrigation maintenance, and pumping equipment. In Zimbabwe and Malawi it is also providing technical assistance to local partners.

In Malawi, HelpAge International is currently launching a programme with its local partner the Elderly People's Association of Malawi (EPA) in the three southern districts of Chikwawa, Chiradzulu and Thyolo, which are among the areas most severely affected by the food crisis.

With funding from Help the Aged (UK), EPA will work in co-ordination with other NGOs, focusing on support for vulnerable older people and their families. Support includes distributing food, refurbishing dilapidated houses of the poorest older people and support for vegetable production.

EPA is also supporting older people like Irene Lusiasi to grow vegetables to sell and to improve their diets. In a number of villages south of Blantyre, some 40 older people are involved in growing cabbages, rape, onions, cassava and egg plants. There is a committee of ten elders from local villages who are in charge of distributing the produce. "Our aim is to have a self-sustaining system to distribute some to the older people and sell the rest to buy seedlings, " says EPA's regional coordinator Regina Phalula.

In the neigbouring village of Lunda, Regina has also been overseeing a tree-planting project since 1999. Blue gums are almost ready to harvest. Their timber is widely used for firewood and in the construction industry. Profits will be reinvested in replanting and supporting older people in the community.

In Zimbabwe, member organisation HelpAge Zimbabwe (HAZ) is providing emergency support for older people and their families in a number of communities where they already have longer-term development programmes. HAZ is negotiating a general food distribution contract with the World Food Programme for Nkayi district in northern Matabeleland province, planned to cover 22,000 families. A further contract is being negotiated with EuronAid to distribute seeds, tools and fertilisers to 1,000 of the most vulnerable elder-headed households in the same area. Funds from the Disasters Emergency Committee Appeal will be used to implement similar activities in Makoni, Manicaland.

In Mozambique, HelpAge International's country programme in Tete province is gearing up to provide seeds and tools for around 9,000 beneficiaries in Tete, Gaza and Maputo provinces through various local partner NGOs.