Cyclone Freddy has caused a trail of destruction with thousands of families being displaced and hundreds injured or killed as it tore across Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi. Flooding and landslides have swept away roads and houses cutting power supplies and hampering the emergency response.
If you would like to help families that have been affected by the disaster, we have opened a relief fund where you can make an additional donation to Open Arms. Any funds raised will be used to give extra help to the families we work with in rural communities to help them recover and rebuild over the longer term.
The world Meteorologist Organisation predicts that tropical cyclone Freddy has broken the record for the longest lasting tropical cyclone on record. The energy of the storm is said to be the equivalent of an average full north Atlantic hurricane season.
Damage to Malawi covers 13 Districts across the Southern Region. Blantyre and Mangochi Districts have been particularly badly affected.
Before the cyclone Malawi was experiencing one of the worse cholera outbreaks in its recent history. The rainy season had exacerbated the outbreak and now many flooded communities are without clean water presenting a big risk for worsening outbreaks.
“We had been trying to build back from Cyclone Idai in 2019, and then the pandemic, now Freddy… We are in a perpetual cycle of trying to pull ourselves up and getting knocked back down.” - President Lazarus Chakwera
There are various organisations coordinating an emergency response to the disaster which is focused on medical care, issuing emergency food, water, blankets, temporary shelter and basic housing supplies. Our Outreach Officers in Malawi have started contacting the children and families that we support in remote communities and will continue to conduct their own impact assessment over the next month or two. This is a challenging job as many areas are still inaccessible and it is still raining.
The most important role for Open Arms at this time is to strengthen existing services to make sure we are there for our 300 re-integrated children and their families, some of whom will need urgent help. These families are some of Malawi’s poorest and many of them will be badly affected.
We learnt after Cyclone Idai in March 2019 that families desperately needed longer term support after cyclonic devastation, not just the initial emergency response. Over the next few weeks and months we will find out more about the families who have suffered harvest and housing damage, as well as loss of personal property. In 2019, communities needed ongoing support to recover and rebuild their lives and livelihood over the following year and so that’s where our effort will be focused this time and this is where you can have the biggest impact.
In coordination with our colleagues in Malawi we have opened a relief fund where you can make an additional donation to Open Arms specifically in support of families affected by this terrible disaster. This fund will give the community outreach operations from Blantyre and Mangochi access to extra help as they need it over the next twelve months empowering them to respond to the needs of communities on the ground immediately. The key focus will be providing additional community outreach visits and food to combat malnutrition as well as house repairs to provide security over the longer term. All of this is designed to help families get back on their feet.
Your donation will help children in Malawi grow up healthy with the love of a family
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