Cyclone Freddy - Assessments Received and Plan Developed

A devastating tropical storm in Malawi

 It has now been almost two weeks since Cyclone Freddy made landfall over Malawi. This tropical storm caused severe flooding and localized mudslides and landslides. A trail of destruction was left behind: damaged or obliterated homes, bridges and roads. Meanwhile, the death toll in Malawi has risen to more than 500 people and many are still missing. The Malawian president declared 14 days of national mourning. Our thoughts go to the families who had to lose loved ones and the many homeless people.

In the places where we as Timotheos are working, fortunately, the cyclone has less impact than last year with Cyclone Ana.

 Plan of action in Malawi

Over the past few days, our team in Malawi conducted a damage assessment at all child care centres. Based on this, they developed a plan of action. We would like to take you through our considerations and approach with a few questions and answers.

1. What help will Timotheos provide?

We will focus on structural aid and on our most vulnerable beneficiaries: children and the elderly (agogos). There will be no large-scale emergency aid. We will continue to provide assistance to the children as we currently do (see question 2) and we will expand the aid given to the agogos (see question 3). Once the water recedes, we will assess the gardens and consider distributing seeds and/or cuttings.

Once again, we realize the great importance of our educational programs. We hope that we can use them to make the future generation more resilient so that they will be less dependent on occasional aid in the event of similar natural disasters.

2. How will we provide assistance to our children and staff?

After taking stock of the damage, we were able to conclude that our children, staff and centres in general were only slightly affected by the cyclone. Our children and staff continue to come to the child care centres daily. Here the children are given two meals a day and they also receive quality education in our schools.

3. How do we deal with the families/caregivers of our children?

We have nearly 900 families/caregivers who provide a "home" for the 1300+ children in our programs. About 25% of this group are agogos. These are the most vulnerable caretakers of our children. Currently the agogos come to our centres three times a week for a meal and meditation (called 'agogo feedings'). We will continue this program in the coming months and give them extra corn meal to take home. In the event that you desire to support these efforts you may label your donations, “agogo feedings”.

 Most of the families/caregivers of our children are middle-aged people. At this time it does not seem necessary to offer assistance to this group. For example, we see that those affected by the cyclone are registered locally with the church, village or a camp. Through these channels they are receiving help from the government and organizations distributing food.

 4. Why no large-scale emergency response?

We have learned lessons from the way we provided emergency relief last year (after Cyclone Ana). Providing emergency relief is complex - it is always a trade-off between making people dependent and making them resilient. It is also complex because when you own so little that you are busy surviving every day, it is very attractive to hitch a ride on emergency aid and make improper use of it. We find it incredibly difficult to deal with this in a good way. The raw reality is that you can help large groups of the population indefinitely and make them dependent on occasional aid even if there is no cyclone. However, we will (continue to) provide assistance to the children and agogos as needed.  

5. There are also people being sheltered in camps, what do we do there?

For the time being we are not providing aid in the tent camps. Currently help is being provided by the government and various organizations.

6. Are we also going to rebuild damaged/wiped out houses?

After Cyclone Ana we started an emergency relief program. The final phase of this is "reconstruction”. This work is not yet completed. We are still putting in foundations on which people can build their own houses. If in a few months this proves to be a successful method of work and there is a need for further help, we will consider starting a similar program again for families affected by Cyclone Freddy.

Please continue to remember the people of Malawi in your prayers.