By Mary Makhiringa

Balaka, December 4, Mana: There was jubilation and dancing in the area of Traditional Authority (TA) Nkaya on Tuesday when the Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD) launched food distribution to families affected by El Nino.

Many danced that they will now afford three meals a day as about 1,700 households in the area have been earmarked for the program and are expected to receive K90, 000 per month for a period of five months.

CARD Executive Director, Melton Luhanga, said the emergency response has come to give hope to all the people facing serious food problems in the catchment area.

"As an organization, we are responding to the EL-Nino emergency declared by the State President looking at how communities have been negatively affected. This cash distribution is meant to buy food items.

“This initiative comes on top of what we are already doing in the area. We have a program that looks at enhancing climate resilience, which we launched in May. We are aware that this program will suffer when people are hungry, that is why we have come up with this program to make sure that people have food so that they participate in the other program,” he said.

TA Nkaya hailed CARD for what he described as timely response, saying communities were struggling to make ends meet.

"Let me, therefore, ask all the people benefiting from this program to utilize the funds for the intended purposes," he said.

The TA reminded all his subjects not to relax but go back to their fields and try again so that next year, God willing, they may have food to feed their families.

One of the beneficiaries, 51-year-old Loveness Hahjie with physical challenges, expressed gratitude to the organization for the support.

“We were hit hard with the dry spells; we did not harvest anything from our fields. I am so grateful that I have been included to benefit from this program,” she said.

With support from Canadian Food Grains Banks, CARD has rolled out the project to caution families facing serious hunger problems in the area following effects of El Nino, which affected most parts of the country.