There are still many camps sheltering thousands, where people cannot return home because they have lost everything. This is especially true of Nsanje and communities around Mulanje.
We dropped clothes, pots and pans, bedding and pillows to partners in both areas. And another food drop in Nsanje with a drop in Phalombe this coming weekend.
In Nsanje, we are working through the Church of Disciples and Pastor Rodgers. Mulanje Cycle Club has partnered with us to help distribute to camps beyond Phalombe, where the need is enormous.
We met an Amayi in Nsanje who had lost everything she owned. She has a one-month-old baby called Patrick and lives in temporary structures at the Church of Disciples.
The provision of clothes and some food make a huge difference. No one has brought any clothes, pans or bedding to this camp, and their only distributions have been some maize, mosquito nets and underwear.
The FR team was alerted to a heart-breaking need in nearly inaccessible villages around the back of Mulanje mountain.
68-year-old Mary Chimwala has been sleeping on rocks near where her house was before the cyclone. She has lost her husband and all the relatives she depended on.
The community has identified 168 people in her area as missing. Now, time has confirmed them dead. Many of these were children.
Phalombe has received donations of clothes and bedding from us.
We have enquired with the World Food Programme (WFP) about when delivery of food can be made to this inaccessible village.
In the interim, the drop of 13 maize bags (from local well-wishers) after the cyclone is running out, so we have bridged the gap between food running out and provision arriving from the WFP.
So thank you for all your donations and things you've left at Fisherman's in the past year.
They are gratefully received, and the camp committees have asked to express their gratitude.
The Madzi Team continue to make assessments and repairs where needed, to water points affected by the cyclone in Nsanje and Bangula. The main problems the team are finding are aprons washed away, like in the photo on the left and submerged or semi-submerged pumps, like the buried pump on the right.
Repairs like these are going to take more time as complete rehabilitation is required, with water quality testing and decontamination, a return to the pump on several occasions with be essential to re-test, and if needed to repeat decontamination. In this case as well as the water pump, the whole school has been half buried in river sand.
For our Cyclone Freddy work, you have raised more than GBP£20,000.
Thank you so much; please do hold us in your prayers as we continue to meet the needs around us.
Wik, Sue and the FR Team.
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