Hunger and Water Relief

In 2020, the leaders of the Kuntanawa Nation came together to create the Transform and Illuminate project—a revolutionary initiative that aims to unite the Indigenous people of our region with the neighboring non-Indigenous river communities in the fight against deforestation. So far, Transform and Illuminate has already planted 25,000 trees. In the next few months, these Guardians of the Rainforest will be taking on a massive reforestation project that spans across their 100,000 hectares of land (nearly 400 square miles), and will potentially continue in the lands of neighboring tribes as well. This initiative will have a radical impact on the Amazon, and the planet as a whole. Before it can be carried out, however, Guardians are in desperate need of basic food and water security—support for roughly 1500 lives.

Southern Madagascar is currently experiencing extreme food shortages and rising prices caused by the economic impact of COVID-19 and the worst drought since 1981. At present, 1.15 million people in the region, approximately half the population, are unable to find enough food to eat. SEED is responding to this crisis through the implementation of an Emergency Food Distribution project, which commenced in February 2021. The project currently targets seven rural health clinics across 41 high-risk villages in the southern region of the country, where no other NGOs are currently supporting. Results from distributions so far are good with over 90% remission from malnutrition, but as the situation worsens SEED desperately needs funds to continue and expand distributions. Full details of the distribution can be downloaded from here and any donations would be very much appreciated.

The mission of the Mozambique School Lunch Initiative (MSLI) is to improve child nutrition and education in rural Mozambique by providing community-based school lunch programs. In the rural communities where MSLI works, most families rely on subsistence agriculture but are vulnerable to unreliable rainfall. The seasonality of agriculture also means that many families pass through a lean season, in which fewer and less nutritious meals are consumed. Due to these conditions, over 50% of children are chronically malnourished and do not develop to their full physical and cognitive potential. In each rural community there is a primary school, but many kids struggle to complete the full primary cycle due to hunger and poverty. In fact, attendance is typically less than 60% and over two-thirds of students drop out before the fifth grade.

By providing school meals, MSLI addresses key nutritional needs of children while also increasing their school participation and ability to learn. Meals are cooked daily at each school, based on traditional recipes and utilizing fresh food purchased from local farmers. Each meal costs just $0.25 but makes a big difference for the student’s overall nutrition and school performance. In fact, average student attendance has increased to over 90% and pass rates are even up by 14%. MSLI’s model also tackles the root causes of food insecurity by partnering with local farmer cooperatives to increase their production and sell directly to the school lunch program. In this way, MSLI’s resources also develop more sustainable agricultural systems and a path out of long-term food insecurity.

Households in the Manjalende community use traditional cooking methods to boil water for drinking and to perform other important household’s chores which have a heavy cost to the health for families in the area. Traditional practices for using wood – open fire on three stones or traditional hearth – give off highly polluting smoke. If the Manajalende community is provided with clean purified water and eco-stoves, it may reduce pressure on wood energy, pollution and the risk of fuel wood scarcity.

Additionally, women and girls waste up to four hours a day to fetch for water and collecting wood, work that competes directly with girls’ school attendance and prevents women from undertaking economic activities or participating in community development and decision making. Reducing the water fetching and wood collection time by half is greater a move towards equality between the genders.

Goal: $46,000 USD to:

– train 60 champion women in production of an eco-stove (Chitetezo mbaula) and briquettes made from combustible household waste materials to substitute wood fuel
– drill and install 3 borehole water pumps