Tamala Chathyoka is a 21-year-old young mother from Mtandiwa village in the area of Chief Nkaya in Balaka district. She has a 5 months old baby boy.

But due to the serious food insecurity caused by dry spells in the area, the lactating mother had difficulties breast feeding the baby. She tells us that her weight drastically went down.

“It was very hard for me to breastfeed my baby because of hunger. But when the ECHO project came, my life changed, first they gave me K180, 000 cash transfer money for two months and later gave me K92, 500 for the third month,” said Chathyoka.

She said she used the money to buy two bags of maize and some four chickens for poultry farming.

Chathyoka said apart from this support, she was also incorporated in the community complementary feeding and learning lessons which assisted to increase her weight and be able to breastfeed her baby regularly.

“I am so thankful to ECHO and Save the Children for supporting me and other lactating and pregnant women,” explained Chathyoka.

Another woman, Febby Mapira from Maduwani village in the same area whose child was malnourished, says the condition of her child has significantly improved because of the cash transfers and community complementary feeding initiative.

Mapiri further stated that within a week, her malnourished child’s weight increased from 8 to 10 kilograms through the community's complementary feeding and learning sessions.

“Apart from the feeding lessons and support, I also benefited from cash transfers which helped me to buy some bags of maize and chickens,” said Mapira.

Save the Children Senior Humanitarian manager, Steve Kamtimaleka says the aim of ECHO project is to deal with acute food insecurity and malnutrition.

He stated that the Malawi Drought Response (ECHO Action) is a humanitarian project funded by the European Union aimed at addressing acute food insecurity and malnutrition across eight districts in Malawi.

“It is a consortium project being led by Care Malawi targeting 15, 035 houses (65, 658 people) with a specific focus on vulnerable groups including pregnant and lactating mothers and malnourished children.

“In Balaka where Save the Children is working, the project supports 2, 560 families approximately 11, 520 in Traditional Authorities Nkaya and Phimbi,” said Kamtimaleka.

He added that all the families received cash transfers worth K734.5 million, mass screening and nutrition interventions, therapeutic food, community complementary feeding and learning sessions among others.

Balaka Principal Officer for Nutrition, HIV and Aids, Madalitso Mwenemurupa adds that ECHO’s interventions are playing a significant part in fighting malnutrition levels, which have gone up from 32.6 to 33.7 percent.

“We have a few partners who are dealing with nutrition issues in the district and the coming in of ECHO did push us and it was actually a lifeline for people in the impact areas of Phimbi and Nkaya,” said Mwenemurupa.

She thanked ECHO and Save the Children for the cash transfers, mass screening and improving the nutrition status in the district.

Eric Milanzie is Balaka Disaster Risk Manager Officer. He tells us that dry spells have been fueling food insecurity in the district.

“According to the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC), 51, 018 families were affected by dry spells, so, the social protection activities being done by the ECHO project filled the gap among hunger-stricken families,” said Milanzie.

In charge of Utale 2 health centre, Pachalo Makanjira commends ECHO project for the mass screening in an effort to curb malnutrition in the area.

“We have an outpatient therapeutic program and supplementary food program but currently we have run out of chiponde and nutritious flour which we give to malnourished children,” said Makanjira.

He then asked various partners and well wishers to take part in curbing malnutrition in the facility's catchment area.