DRA Zambia Zimbabwe Joint Response

Zambia and Zimbabwe

DURATION: March 2020 – November 2020 TOTAL BUDGET: €695,071 -– spent in 2020 €653,522

Project description

Zimbabwe faces extreme food insecurity and water-borne diseases - due to the inaccessibility of clean water and poor hygiene practices - as a result of a prolonged drought, exacerbated by a severe economic crisis. The joint response in Zambia and Zimbabwe targets the most vulnerable households, with the aim of improving direct access to food, protecting and rebuilding livelihoods, contributing to the structural response to drought, providing access to clean drinking water and increasing hygiene and nutrition awareness, and screening and treating children under five and pregnant and breastfeeding women for malnutrition.

The design of the intervention is based on the sectors directly linked to the drought and the severe economic crisis, in line with the recommendations of the clusters, based on the expertise of the partners and the complementarity with other ongoing interventions. Partners work in both rural and urban areas depending on locally identified needs. SOS Children’s Villages contributed to the intervention in Zimbabwe. We worked in the same areas as DRA partner ICCO (now: Cordaid), maximising the impact of the programme through complementary activities.

Following the outbreak of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the project’s duration was extended to 30 November 2020 and additional budget was made available to meet increasing needs in both Zimbabwe and Zambia. Target group

The targeted 72 rural communities in the Seke district were selected as there are no other humanitarian actors besides the government, who provides minimal support. Moreover, we supported people in need in the nearby Chitungwiza urban area. Vulnerable groups prioritised were households run by children and women, the elderly, disabled, chronically ill and survivors of sexual genderbased violence.

Main activities and results

SOS Children’s Villages reached a total of 49,200 people through various activities in the following areas. A summary of our main activities and results.

Food Security & Livelihood • Provision of vegetable seeds and organic fertiliser for kitchen gardens for 2,100 households (8,400 people). • Training and coaching on vegetable

production for 2,100 households. • Providing farming inputs (maize seed and fertiliser) for 2,100 households. • Distribution of food in kind for 4 months for 2,100 households to save lives and improve the nutritional condition of families and children (food ration in line with the

World Food Programme standard).

Protection mainstreaming • Facilitating child protection meetings x 1 per ward targeting 15 participants per ward (45 people). • Facilitating child protection meetings at district level for 20 people. • Conducting a men’s forum targeting 270 men. • Conducting community awareness with 900 people to empower them with regard to their rights.

WASH • Rehabilitation and protection of 61

water sources – reaching 49,200 people. • Establishing and strengthening 61 water committees to maintain water points and promote the use of safe drinking water and regulate water use for irrigation and livestock. • Capacity building of 50 community health volunteers regarding Participatory Health and Hygiene education. • Awareness raising campaign for 8,210 households (32,840 people) to prevent water-borne deceases and diarrhoea, and promote nutritional awareness and dietary diversity.

Impact

49,200 people have been given access to clean drinking and washing water, and of these 8,400 have also been given access to food, which has helped them bridge a period of crisis.

At the community garden

◄ “The water source didn’t function and the

dam was drying due to heat and poor rainfall. The Dutch Relief Alliance supported 200 villagers and 500 cattle, by rehabilitating our water point. Now, it also assists us in watering our nutritional community garden, which is one of our primary sources of food.” Osthuizen Chirumbwana (42), Secretary of Kotiva Village Committee, Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe

Ngwenya

“Sometimes I crossed the border fence with Botswana in search for water, around midday when villagers had left for the fields. There was also the risk of being raped in the bushes, being beaten or arrested. Since our borehole was rehabilitated, I can now access water close by. The risks of being caught are behind us.” Ngwenya, mother of 6 and foster parent of 3 other children; villager of Bambadzi, a remote Zimbabwean village

bordering Botswana.▼