In the catchment area of The Eva Demaya Centre a food shortage was unavoidable after last year’s crop failures in some regions. Malnutrition gives high risks on diseases and infections to occur, especially for elderly and sick people and for children. It is a large challenge to break this negative loop.
From December 2018 the Eva Demaya Centre targeted hunger prone areas like the Nkhamanga Valley, some areas that are in boundary with Vwaza game reserve and Nyika National park. In these areas communities are mostly affected by elephants that destroy crops during and after harvesting season.
In addition to this the vulnerable households were targeted most in need due to drought.
Eva Demaya Centre works closely with local structures like Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Village Development Committees (VDCs) to select the targeted groups and the beneficiary, vulnerable households, including single parent or child headed households.
The exercise supported about 40 CBO’s and VDC’s, translating to almost 4600 people who received maize relief. Each CBO/VDC received 10 bags of maize. One bag of maize was shared among 3 people.
Maize relief distribution exercise was done in two phases in hunger months of January to March 2019. Project coordination was done by the Social Welfare Officer of the Eva Demaya Centre, Mr. Ephraim Kanyimbo.
The logistics to purchase and distribute the Maize , was a major operation. Firstly, staff members went to different communities with large(r) quantities of maize readily available to purchase some of their maize.
The Centre’s cars and motorcycles played a major role in transporting staff members to their meetings in both the providing and asking villages and also for transporting purchased maize to the stores at the Centre.
Due to poor roads, these cars and motor cycle have to undergo maintenance frequently, to keep them in good condition for continuous delivery of services in a safe way for drivers and passengers.
The actual distribution of maize from the stores of the Centre to the different CBO’s and VDC’s was done by lorries. The lorries were hired from a local transporter, and this distribution went well.
The Eva Demaya Centre sincerely thanks the Eva Demaya Foundation in the Netherlands for funding this important part of activity at the Centre. The assistance has gone a long way serving numerous lives of vulnerable people, particularly children who would have been malnourished and it has helped people to actively participate in developmental activities.