adminTHE 62-year-old Ackson Shoko removes the wet towel draped around his neck and wipes off the mixture of dust and sweat from his face formed due to the scorching heat and occasional blast of dry wind sweeping across Nekandama in Hwange District, Matabeleland North.
He is wearing a fading cap to protect himself from the sun and an old Manchester United replica jersey but his body language shows a man far removed from the riches, glory and blitz associated with the England based soccer team.
Mr Shoko from Simboma Village is conversing with his close friend Mr Isaac Moyo himself wearing another soccer black and white replica jersey with a Barcelona Football Club badge although it looks more like that of the team’s Spanish rival Real Madrid, or South Africa’s Orlando Pirates or rather Highlanders, closer to home.
The two are not braving the heat of the October sun in Hwange to show the support of the teams of the replica soccer jerseys they are wearing but to be part of a community gathered to receive food handouts from World Vision after the launch of the Lean Season Assistance programme funded by the World Food Programme and United States Agencies for International Development.
Such assistance, said Mr Shoko, is welcome, at a time when having a proper meal has become a luxury for many households in the district and Matabeleland North province as a whole.
“We eat porridge in the morning, spend the whole day drinking water and if it is a good day we again eat porridge for supper,” said Mr Shoko of Simboma Village summing up how most of the villagers in the district have adopted to a survival mode in the wake of poor harvests last year.
“On tough days we eat just once and that is that. It is either porridge or just a small portion of isitshwala. Even after receiving such aid, you cannot enjoy the luxury of spending much because you never know when the next handout will be available.”
His friend, Mr Moyo chips in, adding that it has been a very difficult year for people in the area.
“We hear that in other areas they harvested something but here there was none,” he said licking his dry lips.
“We did not harvest anything from the fields so it has been a struggle since last year.”
The villagers are depending on either buying food or receiving handouts from Government or non-governmental organisations.
The situation is even dire for young families who do not have fallback assets such as cattle to sell and buy food.
Twenty-year-old Remembrance Moyo from Matoba Village who has a two-year-old son said life has been a struggle worse after as she had to look after the baby on her own after her husband deserted early this year.
“My husband divorced me in March and he went to South Africa leaving me to look after the baby. He does not look after the baby. Unlike other people I don’t have cattle or goats to sell to buy food, I don’t have anything and I find it hard to look after my baby,” she said, a sack in hand anticipating to get a share of the food that was to be distributed by World Vision on Tuesday.
Hwange, is a template of what most districts in the southern parts of the country are going through following poor harvest last year. According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (Zim Vac), an estimated 1,5 million rural Zimbabweans are food insecure and the situation might get worse during the hunger peak period between now and the next summer crop harvest around March.
Most of the districts under stress are those in Matabeleland North, South, Masvingo and parts of Manicaland and Midlands.
Zim Vac is a consortium of Government, United Nations Agencies and other international organisations established in 2002 and each year carries a Rural Livelihoods Assessment to guide Government and other aid organisations on the needs of the rural population. The situation has resulted in the activation of food aid programmes both by Government and NGOs as they seek to provide food to the affected families.
Speaking during the launch of the Lean Season Assistance Programme in Hwange on Tuesday, Usaid mission director Ms Stephane Funk said her organisation was providing $22 million to the World Food Programme this year to meet immediate food security needs of mainly rural areas.
The figure, said Ms Funk, brings total humanitarian assistance support from United States to $27 million for the period between June 2015 to March 2016 after the organisation also provided a further $5 million to respond to food security shocks across 10 districts in Manicaland, Masvingo, Matabeleland North and South.
Under the Lean Season Assistance Programme, Usaid provides funding to the WFP which secures food which is then distributed to needy communities through other organisations such as World Vision and other NGOs. At the launch each family received six kilogrammes of sorghum, two kilogrammes of peas and 800 millilitres of cooking oil.
Selection of beneficiaries is done through coordination of the local leadership which identify the most vulnerable families.
“With this response, we are reaching over 300 000 people across the country, just when they need it most,” she said.
The help by Usaid will not only cover food assistance but in some cases cash in at least seven districts across the country.
She said the help was also meant to empower communities as the other programmes involved food for work programme.
“Community members are pulling together to identify how you can make your communities more food secure, whether by building a new dam, rehabilitating a dip tank, or establishing a community garden,” she said.
WFP deputy country director Mr Niels Balzer said this was a time when his organisation and other NGOs worked tirelessly to find means and ways of not only responding to the current drought, but to join efforts throughout the year to contribute to longer-lasting solutions in the face of a changing climate.
“This represents a shift from previous years when lean season assistance was seen as a stand-alone operation. It is now better integrated and understood as part of a set of interlinked humanitarian and development interventions,” he said.
Mr Balzer added that although the programme was first and foremost designed to fill an immediate food need or food gap, it was also protecting the development and resilience gains made over the years. The NGOs although seemingly doing a wonderful job, recognise the need to ensure that such programmes involve local leadership structures who know the correct situation on the ground.
Chief Nekatambe, under which most of the beneficiaries of the programme falls under, said it was a welcome development to save people but there was a need to put up measures to address the primary causes of food shortages to ensure communities do not become too reliant on the handouts.
“I want to thank the organisations that are giving us food but we need to also work on ensuring that we do not become all depend on the handouts but work for ourselves,” he said.
While the efforts of NGOs has become a permanent feature in times of drought, Government said it still remains committed to helping those communities in need of food aid. Hwange District acting district administrator Mr Tapera Mugorinya said Government was also distributing food in needy areas and no one was going to die of hunger.
“My appeal to the community is to make sure we share equally what is available. Those who benefited today must also ensure that they give the opportunity to others when you get help from Government,” he said.
Mr Mugorinya added that Government has stepped up efforts to move food across the district.
“We have also started distributing food in the district and we will cover all the areas.”
While the immediate focus is to cater for those in needy now, weather experts have predicted that Zimbabwe will experience El Nino phenomenon which may bring another bleak farming season. This could result in the need for NGOs and Government to continue helping rural communities beyond this year. WFP noted that at global level planning was already under way to ensure that measures are put in place to mitigate effects of the weather pattern.
“Yes at UN level something is already being looked at to prepare for the eventualities that may be brought about by El Nino,” said Mr Balzer.
But for Mr Shoko and Mr Nyoni and probably the majority of those in Hwange what is important now is that more food is availed to them so that they can survive the drought ravaging the district.
“We hope after today, these people will not disappear and leave us hungry. As you can see the food distributed here will not take us to the next harvesting season,” said Mr Nyoni.
Online Reporter