At first, no one ever thought that Tropical Cyclone Freddy, which made landfall in Malawi on March 11 last year and caused massive destruction, had hands long enough to reach into the future. Unfortunately, this is what the people of Mazuwa Village in Chiradzulu District are coming to realise now. THOMAS KACHERE writes:
The spectacle of school-going children loitering around greets the first or umpteenth-time visitor to Mazuwa Village in Chiradzulu District.
The children can as well be described as ‘orphans’ of Tropical Cyclone Freddy and other natural disasters, which, to some, are long gone but, to them, linger—in the form of their negative effects.
When the cyclone hit last year, it swept away people’s crops from the fields and destroyed houses and other property such as health and education infrastructure.
Then, when the onset of the 2023-24 rainfall season came, the people were still unsettled, with some staying in camps such as schools while other survivors of natural phenomena were staying with well-wishers elsewhere.
As such, they missed out on the chance to cultivate crops—of course, not on their own volition but due to the cyclone and other natural disasters.
For some of the people that cultivated crops, El- Nino-induced dry spells and, in other cases, heavy rains did the damage.
The culmination of all that is the spectacle of children that are exclusively spending time in the village instead of being in ECD centres.
John Chimala of Mazuwa Village puts the situation in context.
“I rely on farming to support my wife and five children. However, I am struggling to fend for them due to financial constraints. I have been struggling to support my children due to, first, Cyclone Freddy in March last year and now El-Nino-induced dry spells that left me with nothing in the [crop] field.
“What is worse, I am failing to send my children to community-based early childhood development (ECD) centres because I did not harvest enough yield,” Chimala says.
Already, the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) has been giving a 50 kilogramme (kg) bag of maize to each of the 5.7 million Malawians that are said to have been affected by hunger.
The department launched the programme after a Malawi Vulnerability Assessment report indicated that about 5.7 million people would need food assistance between now and the next growing season.
Initially, the programme was expected to commence next month but has started ahead of schedule following a directive by President Lazarus Chakwera early this month.
For Chimala, this still leaves children that go to ECD centres out.
He is quick to say this does not mean he does not understand the importance of ECD education.
“But, then, if I send my children to school on an empty stomach, will they concentrate on lessons? To make matters worse, the ECD centre we have here does not provide porridge to the children,” Chimala, whose house collapsed under the weight of cyclone-induced floods, points out.
Chimala, who, up to now, stays in a kitchen, says they are going through a bad patch.
Doreen Kanyoza of the same village faces the same predicament.
“I can confirm that many of us around here are facing economic challenges that are making it difficult for us to send children to ECD centres. We depend on farming but after Cyclone Freddy damaged our crops and El-Nino impacts hit us hard, we were left with nothing, let alone hope.
“We are failing to provide food to our children at home. ECD centres, too, do not provide meals,” Kanyoza points out.
Kanyoza wishes nongovernmental organisations could have assisted ECD centres with maize flour for making porridge or just make ECD services free of charge, now that most households have inadequate food.
Village Head Mazuwa says he is equally worried that hundreds of children in the area are not visiting ECD centres to access services.
He says he has, at community meetings, been urging parents and guardians to be making sure that they are sending their children to ECD centres.
“It is true that many children are not attending ECD centre lessons in this area because of challenges such as poverty. We have hardworking people in this area but the long effects of climate change are forcing them to backslide.
“I know that all parents and guardians have the will to support their children’s education but they cannot do otherwise but leave the children at home as they look for means of making ends meet,” Mazuwa says.
However, other stakeholders have decided that they cannot be watching idly as the next generation of future leaders—namely today’s children—is making a date with poverty right before everyone’s eyes.
One of the stakeholders is Chinkombero Youth Organisation, whose officials have been monitoring the situation by conducting door-to-door campaigns.
“After observing that a lot of children were not going to ECD centres, we introduced a monitoring activity. The idea is to see how many children are not going to ECD centres and see how best to help them so that they can be patronising ECD services,” says the organisation’s director Macfallen Monjeleriwa.
“We noted, with concern, that there were hundreds of children who were not attending classes in early childhood development centres against a few who were reporting for such classes. From the onset of the school calendar in September 2024, we were shocked to see hundreds of children not presenting themselves to ECD centres despite the fact that it is necessary to promote, care and give more attention to the child, especially during the first years, which are critical for human development,” he adds.
Monjeleriwa says they went around three most affected villages door by door to collect data.
“And what we found was that 212 children, of whom 111 were boys and 101 girls, were not attending early childhood education.
“We found that lack of proper facilities also prevents some guardians from sending their children to ECD centres. The data were collected from those living around Chinkombero CBCC in Kunchema Village, Mazuwa CBCC and Chakachadza under Group Village Head Chakachadza, Traditional Authority Mpama, in the district,” Monjeleriwa says.
“For example, when we visited the area, we found that Chakachadza, Chinkombero and Mazuwa villages had 15, 28 and 20 children, respectively, that were actively participating in early childhood development activities. It is community members that are in the forefront, in terms of setting up and running these ECD centres,” he added.
Deputy Director of Gender Mainstreaming Ronald Phiri says the Government of Malawi has taken a step farther in strengthening ECD education in the country.
“We are developing an Early Childhood Development Policy and a bill which will propose the establishment of a Directorate of ECD and strengthen activities of early childhood development in communities at district level and national levels,” Phiri indicates.
Phiri says on top of that, they believe that ECD should embrace values of gender equality as well as disability mainstreaming so that the country may not leave any child behind.
Malawi’s ECD Policy ensures that the provision of care and support services is in the best interest of the child and in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that: “The child, for full and harmonious development of his/her personality, should grow up in a family environment in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.
However, by December 2023, out of 2,552,406 children who were supposed to access ECD services in Malawi, only 1,075,985—about 42.2 percent—were doing so.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 4 asks countries to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
For that to happen, though, there is a need to reach out to the children that are being forced out of EDC centres through unforeseen circumstances such as disasters.
