Lift up cyclone-devastated families in Mozambique

Over one year has passed since the tragedy in Mozambique, when Cyclone Idai swirled above the Mozambique Channel bringing death and destruction to the nation. A Mozambican staff of Peace Winds Japan (PWJ) looks back on his experience, when he found himself on his bed floating on flood water at 3AM with his family shouting for him to wake up. 

“I escaped to a roof with my family and neighbors, but saw a man and a child clinging onto a tree across the flooded street. I swam over to the tree and first grabbed the child, and helped the panicking man with a rope. There was another man pleading with me to save his child so I went across the fast stream which was quickly rising to my chest. I managed to bring the child from the flooded area to the highway bund, and the father was also able to follow me to safety.”

However, when they later tried to evacuate 50 small children by boat, some desperate women forcefully climbed on board. As a result, the boat overturned and all the children who went overboard lost their precious lives. The PWJ Mozambican staff said that he can never forget what he had witnessed. 

Now the challenge for PWJ is to deliver safe, adequate water to the living survivors of the disaster. Together with funding from GlobalGiving and Japan Platform, PWJ has been operating a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) assistance project in Nhamatanda and its surrounding districts in Sofala Province. Thus far, the project has provided safe water to 1,367 families (6,835 individuals).