Zimbabwe's food crisis.
For the past eight years, 60-year-old Red Cross volunteer Esther Mhike has arrived at the Red Cross office in Masvingo every morning at eight o’clock.
Over the next four hours, Esther and her colleagues will head out into the surrounding area to visit Red Cross clients – people living with HIV and AIDS. She will sit with her clients – friends really – and listen to them talk about their problems and frustrations. Gently, she will remind them of the importance of continuing their anti-retroviral treatment (ART).
Lately, though, Esther’s quiet advocacy for continued adherence is proving more and more challenging. You see, there’s no food in Masvingo at the moment.
“When my clients are taking ART, they need to have food,” Esther explains. “They need to eat sadza (the thick, porridge-like Zimbabwean staple) otherwise the drugs make them feel very sick.”
“If we don’t take the food, how can we take the pills?” her clients ask her. Esther can’t answer, except to explain that they will deteriorate quickly if they stop their treatment. There simply isn’t much food anymore.
According to the UN, there are currently millions of people without access to food in Zimbabwe. Masvingo Province – which lies about 300 km south of the capital Harare – is one of the worst hit areas. A violent combination of drought, floods, a lack of agricultural inputs and hyper-inflation has left Zimbabwe’s fields barren and its store-shelves bare. And the situation will only get worse.
We asked Esther what she would say to someone thinking about donating to the Red Cross appeal. She smiled.
“I would try to explain the severity of the situation, and how their support could go a long way to alleviating the suffering of my clients.”
The IFRC Zimbabwe food security appeal aims to provide assistance to about 260,100 people over the coming nine months. The programme will focus on supporting people like Esther’s clients – a group particularly and acutely vulnerable to food shortages