By Mahnoosh Mossadegh | Grants Manager
Zambia has experienced an extreme drought over the past year, causing widespread hunger and malnutrition. The ongoing drought is affecting millions of people and significantly impacting the most vulnerable, including women, children and persons with disabilities.
Given the low rainfall and the unsatisfactory harvests, the cost of corn, the main staple food, has increased, forcing poor and vulnerable families to live on one meal a day and adopt negative coping strategies. Children are struggling to attend school and if they do, they lose concentration in their classes due to a lack of food.
Hands Around the World (HATW) works in partnership with Pamodzi Ndi Ana (PNA) in Zambia, and to provide some relief to vulnerable families during these unprecedented times, has been providing essential food relief to children with disabilities and their families.
During 2024, PNA distributed a total of 750 bags of maize to vulnerable families. Children with disabilities have been provided with a 25kg bag of maize when they visit the PNA centre for their wheelchair check-up and maintenance and to register for their disability Zapid ID cards. A Zapid ID card is specifically for people with disabilities. The card certifies the type of disability and contains important medical data in case of emergencies. It also certifies eligibility to obtain assistive devices, tax exemptions and access to social services, such as cash transfers and education support.
The distribution of maize has been a great support to these vulnerable families, particularly families with many children and single mothers who are taking care of a child with disabilities alone. By providing food relief during these unprecedented times, these vulnerable children have been supported, malnutrition has been reduced and these families have been prevented from falling further into poverty. Food relief has also enabled these children to keep attending school.
Thank you for your support to these vulnerable children during these challenging times.
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