Reps Circular

Dear ALMA Reps and Friends,

Thank you to every one who has responded to the Niassa flood Appeal online or through church collections. ALMA London sent £5000 ahead of this Appeal so we could support Niassa’s teams who are delivering help in Zambezia and Mecanhelas. Please pray for the teams who are working in very treacherous conditions to liaise, procure, transport and deliver family packs of: maize flour and sacks for storing the open flour, seed kits, water purification kits and mosquito nets. Several ALMA London churches are linked to Niassan churches affected by flooding:

• Milange linked with St Nicholas Shepperton
• Mecanhelas linked with St Augustine’s Whitton
• Cuamba linked with St Pancras

27 January: News Update

(From the London Diocese website)

Bishop Mark Van Koevering, London’s partner Bishop in Niassa, (Northern Mozambican Diocese), thanks the Diocese of London for the £5,000 ALMA has sent in faith to help with flood relief work.

“We send you greetings from a very wet and windy Mozambique. On behalf of the entire Diocesan team and the many people who will benefit from our mutual effort, I want to thank you for your prayers and support as we tackle the challenge of yet another time of flooding in central and northern Mozambique.

Mario is leading a team to respond in Zambezia Province where we aim to work with communities in Mocuba, Milange and Morrumbala Districts. Archdeacon Mateus will go to Mecanhelas District in Niassa, as we have heard that over 1,000 homes have been destroyed, as well as five Anglican Churches. The storms have put nearly 11 million people into darkness and we have had no electricity for several weeks, which is likely to continue for at least another two weeks. Communication and travel is very difficult as you can imagine and many water-borne diseases, as well as malaria, are on the rise.”

In Milange the situation is very serious: 25,085 people suffered in the floods, with 5,017 families directly affected; 4,396 houses were completely destroyed and 621 partly destroyed; 698 latrines were ruined. Also, 12 schools and 28 classrooms were lost with roofing sheets being felled. Roads have also suffered major damage.

There are also floods in Mecanhelas and in Cuamba. Reporting on these locations, Rebecca Vander Meulen says:

“In Mecanhelas, we are focusing on disaster response in ten communities, which do not have existing committees; and we have never done emergency-related work there before. Padre Lucas has met regularly with the government administration all through the last week.

Yesterday, our team in Mecanhelas met with the Chefe do Post to present formally this week’s plan, and also met with the Chief of Police Operations. The administrative post is helping with transport. Today, Micael began to spread information by visiting six of the ten communities. (Micael’s 300 km trip from Lichinga to Cuamba on Friday took almost ten hours due to poor road conditions.)”

Response from Niassan Diocesan Teams

In an update from Mecanhelas, Rebecca Vander Meulen explains how the Diocesan Teams assist with Disaster Response work:

Today (26 January) our team formed emergency committees in five communities:

Nampande, Chissaua, Lumpua, Nicoto, e Malaia.  There were many, many people interested in becoming part of the committee. (In other parts of the country, where we’ve previously mobilized disaster preparedness and response, we’ve had committees ready beforehand. Mecanhelas is a new region for this type of work.) These committees will not be able to get extensive training now, as the disaster has already happened. We will work with them after this emergency subsides to increase their capacity.

Our team was accompanied by representatives of the District Government.

They were surprised and impressed by this methodology of forming local community committees, and said they had never done anything like it but would replicate it in other communities where disaster response will be conducted (communities where we will not work.)  The government was also impressed that though we are coming in the name of the Anglican church, the committees were not composed primarily of Anglicans.

We encouraged each committee to have the following people:

1. Minimum of at least seven people in each community
2. Should include at least a youth
3. Should have two or three women
4. Should include both community leaders and religious leaders
5. All members should be residents of the same community
6. All members should declare available in all this period so as to assist in all the process
7. All members should be respected by their community

And on 27 January Rebecca added:

Committees were formed today in the remaining five target communities in Mecanhelas Nsaca, Chingale, Tamaleia, Manguiro, and Mwanamwiri-Mwatiwa).

Tomorrow the maize purchasing will be done. (Maize, a staple food in Mecanhelas, will be distributed to the most vulnerable families.) The maize will be purchased directly from small farmers, instead of from the large maize vendors, in order to avoid the "middleman"and ensure that profits stay in the communities.

We are grateful for your support!

28 January: Relief Net summary of the situation

The need is huge.Relief Net (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) summarised the situation:

• Since the red alert declared on 12 January, the heavy rains and floods have affected 157,172 people (32,711 families) in the country – vast majority of this in Zambezia province;
• The death toll since the declaration of Red Alert is 120 which 96 were recorded in Zambézia
• Despite logistical difficulties and initial delays, distribution of relief supplies is underway in all accommodation centres.
• The restoration of electric power is expected by 30 January 2015 in the affected areas in the North and Centre region
• In Zambézia, 456 plots of a targeted 2500 have been assigned and occupied by the affected families in various districts
• Central Government mission led by Prime-Minister visited flood affected areas in Zambézia province on 23-24 January
• In Zambézia, estimated 38,261 ha of crops have been lost

29 January: Report on the work of Adeptos

Mario Muromua leading the Niassan response in Zambezia reported on the work of Adeptos (Community facilitators):

After a long week of procurement, purchasing and committee forming and reforming we are almost finally there… These is what took place last seven days, In Milange, the adeptos with a lot of difficulties due to poor roads and fallen bridges so in all the communities they had to use motorbikes.

Being a new thing in most of the ten communities, it took long time than planned to come up with a strong committee with clear understanding of what is expected “that came from Memory one of Milange adepto”

In Morrumbala, adeptos only managed to activate the six Megaza zone committees as Shire is still isolated and only reachable via helicopters up to now. Mario and archdeacon Samuel plan to go by motorbike next week.

Through a meeting with a World Vision response team, we were informed that a team of three people had visited Shire by motorbike where community member carry the motorbike using canoe in three places with broken bridges.

We managed to hold a meeting with Worldvision in Quelimane and shared our response towards floods and also heard their response too in Morrumbala.

Today we met Morrumbala administrator and INGC Morrumbala coordinator to share and hear from them. We are now in Megaza and tomorrow afternoon we start our distribution here because we could not ferry all products at one go.

Adepto Pedro took Milange products through public transport, a normally 4hr drive Quelimane to Milange took 26hrs leaving Quelimane 13hrs on Tuesday and arriving Milange 15hr on Wednesday. Milange team starts distributions on Friday and Molumbo starts on Saturday!!

30 January: Update from Niassa Diocese

Today (30 January) we have heard from our Link Officer, Revd Helen Van Koevering,  quickly online while the generators were running, that cases of cholera are occurring including Bola the Messumba Adeptos who has thankfully recovered. Power has not yet been restored.