A cholera outbreak has had a severe impact in Malawi, with President Chakwera declaring the outbreak a public health emergency in December 2022.
We spoke with MacBain Mkandawire, Director of Youth Net and Counselling (YONECO), a local NGO that applied for and received a Change Fund grant, about the crisis and their response.
A YONECO event to educate children about cholera ©YONECO
“As YONECO we are there to create a safe, healthy and resilient society that respects democratic values. We are committed to empowering youth, women and children as well as promoting good health and human rights.
We use the community mobilisation technique, which focuses on building community capacity, so they can respond to issues facing youth, women and children. We work in a climate crisis area so humanitarian work is part of our mission. We build communities’ capacities to be resilient, and support them to create their own activities, as well as doing a lot of awareness raising.
We run four national hotlines for children, youth and women, focusing on child protection; gender-based violence; drug and substance use; and one assisting with the general issues young people face. We also have places of safety for women and youth who have been abused or victimised.
We also work in the health sector, and by February we could see the cholera case numbers rising.
We decided to apply for a Change Fund grant after an emergency was declared.
Our goal is to look at preventing infection as well as providing treatment and care, so we are mobilising the communities to change their behavior to prevent further cholera outbreaks.
We have targeted schools as well as the community at household level. We also offered targeted support to the district health facilities, in collaboration with the district health offices.
Once the Change Fund declared the country in crisis according to its criteria, we had 72 hours to submit the concept note and budget. The grant was very quickly approved and soon the resources were being channeled to us.
Speed is of the essence.
I can say this was a totally unique experience with the Change Fund.
I must say that if more emergency funds worked this way we would be able to save a lot more lives.
For example, we applied to another emergency fund two months ago and had to follow many complicated processes to apply. We are still waiting to hear the result, while all this time the disaster is getting worse. Speed is of the essence. So, I can say this was a totally unique experience with the Change Fund.
I only wish the Change Fund had larger funds to disburse so we could respond to quickly to emergencies on much wider scale, such as during Cyclone Anna last year. At that time, we applied to another fund, but it took so long to get the funds that the community had already been moved out of the relocation camps by the time it arrived. So, then what do we say?
We need this Change Fund model of fast, flexible funding to be rolled out more widely.”