The Food Crisis

Zimbabwe is bracing itself for another year of food shortages, as predictions for the forthcoming main maize harvest and the coming winter wheat crop are bleak.

The country has had a series of poor harvests due to drought and erratic rainfalls and families in rural areas have harvested very little. According to the United Nations Food Programme (WFP) around 7 million people - more than half the population will rely on donated food in the coming months.

Nicholas Mukokota used to be a builder specialising in roofing houses, but he fell ill and could no longer work. Nicholas and his wife have both tested HIV positive and he has been on antiretroviral treatment (ART) since April 2008. His wife’s immunity is still fairly high and so she has not needed to have ART treatment as yet.

CAFOD visited Nicholas’s family in the Seke District, south of Harare in October last year. He lives with his wife Ndudzo Agnes, daughter Abigail (18 years) and his son Biswell (10 years). His wife explained that she was only able to feed the family on one bowl of Sadza, a pulverized maize porridge, a day.

At the time Nicholas was receiving emergency food supplies of; maize meal, beans, corn soya blend and cooking oil, financed by CAFOD and its partner Caritas Zimbabwe. He said: “It has helped my family immensely. It has kept us alive and productive.”

Nicholas in front of his fenced off vegetable garden

Nicholas and his family had run out of ways of coping. Receiving the food basket was a life line for them. It also meant that with more regular meals Nicholas’s cocktail of ART drugs would be more effective, as they only work well with patients who are able to eat regularly. The emergency food rations meant that Nicholas gained the physical strength to focus on becoming self-sufficient by growing his own vegetable crops so that he could feed his family and get a small income from the sale of the surplus vegetables.

CAFOD was able to support Nicholas to become self-sufficient through the small scale farming programme, where farmers share their expertise and skills on how best to use conservation farming methods to improve their vegetable crops. Nicholas learnt valuable skills from other lead farmers. He said:
“I cover my vegetables with mulch, so that the crops are kept cool and minimises evaporation of water from open soil, that way the moisture is retained for much longer and I only need to water the garden twice a week,” he said.

In May of this year CAFOD went back to see how Nicholas and his family are faring. The family no longer receive emergency food parcels, and when you enter their homestead you can see the benefits of the support they received.

The seeds and the fencing material Nicholas was given has resulted in a flourishing vegetable crops of sweet potatoes, green cabbage and other vegetables. Also with support from CAFOD he has had his well upgraded and a toilet built in the compound. Access to water and proper sanitation could not have come at a better time as the country continues to cope with cholera, described as Africa’s worst outbreak in 15 years. To date more than 4,000 people have died from the disease and there are a reported 98,000 cases of infection. “We always had diarrhoea, but since we got the new well and toilet, our health has improved,” said Nicholas.

Nicholas and his wife’s only income comes from the sale of vegetables from their garden. The market is a distance away and one bundle of vegetables fetches 1 US dollar. On average they sell 12 bundles a month. When Nicholas first started his vegetable garden project he was considered in his village to be amongst the poorest in the community, but with support from CAFOD he has been able to survive the harshest of times.

The Catholic Church in Zimbabwe in a pastoral letter in October last year said: “...we see clearly how people have been exposed to the ravages of hunger, disease, ignorance ... in both rural and urban areas. The situation has reached such desperate proportions that almost everyone is beginning to admit that we cannot go on like this...”

Abigail (Nicholas’s daughter) drawing water from the well, which has been repaired with support from CAFOD

Today, that situation still remains desperate for millions of Zimbabweans as they continue to face the challenge of feeding their families. CAFOD has been able to make a difference to Nicholas and his family, but there are many more vulnerable people that CAFOD urgently need to reach.

CAFOD is raising money in support of its partner Caritas Zimbabwe and its emergency food programme, which has fallen short of funds to complete its life-saving work, helping people like Nicholas and his family. In January 2009 Caritas Zimbabwe launched an emergency appeal for £5million currently only one third of the money has been raised reducing their ability to reach the most vulnerable in urgent need of food.

Please give to CAFOD’s Zimbabwe appeal. To make a donation, visit cafod.org.uk/zimbabweappeal; call 0500 858885; or write to CAFOD, FREEPOST PAM 1689, Romero Close, Stockwell Road, London SW9 9BR

The Health Crisis

From the outside the clinic looked like a deserted building with zigzag cracks decorating its exterior walls and its windows broken.

This rural clinic in Bulilima district is meant to serve over 12,000 people. There are two full time nurses and the doctor comes only twice a month. There is no waiting room. Patients wait outside under a tree for their turn regardless of the weather. They have to pay fees for their treatment which is now in US dollars and since this is a rural clinic it is close to impossible for people to get access to foreign currency.

Around five babies a month are delivered at the clinic and caesarean sections are not an option. If a woman is in need of a caesarean then she is referred to the nearest hospital which is 20 kilometres away. It is almost certain that the mother will die before she gets to the hospital because of the unavailability of transport or if she is lucky enough to find a vehicle to get her to hospital she would not be able to pay for the cost of the journey. So her only option is to walk.

The labour ward consists of a single bed with a worn blanket and a small pillow. The clinic can only deliver one baby at a time. There is no food to give the patients during their stay and so women who do come to the clinic give birth and walk back home afterwards.

The challenge for this clinic like so many others across the country is the lack of basic medicines, such as antibiotics. The dispensary at the back of the clinic has bare shelves; there is not even aspirin in sight.

The nurse was asked, what common illnesses did people come to her with? She listed the following; malaria, chest infections, sexually transmitted diseases and malnutrition amongst children under 5 years of age.

Clinics like this one are unable to treat basic flu symptoms and the lack of basic drugs has meant that they are challenged in coping with the cholera outbreak in the country, which has been described as Africa’s worst case in 15 years, claiming the lives of more than 4,000 people and leaving 98,000 others infected. With the winter approaching the cases of chest infections and other aliments are on the rise, without taking into account the high rate of HIV prevalence in the country as a contributing factor in opportunistic infections.

By providing these types of rural clinics with essential drugs CAFOD and its partner Caritas Zimbabwe would be able to reduce the amount of referrals to the main hospital and save lives and lessen the suffering of patients having to walk the 20 kilometres to the hospital, in pain before being seen to.

CAFOD and Caritas Zimbabwe, through the special appeal would like to support clinics with essential drugs to assist 5,000 patients a month. It is also vital to keep medical staff coming to work and money raised from the special appeal will support nurses and doctors and other health staff by providing them with food parcels.

Please give to CAFOD’s Zimbabwe appeal. To make a donation, visit cafod.org.uk/zimbabweappeal; call 0500 858885; or write to CAFOD, FREEPOST PAM 1689, Romero Close, Stockwell Road, London SW9 9BR

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