Cyclone Idai Relief Fund

Six months after Cyclone Idai struck Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, nearly one million people are facing food shortages and hundreds of thousands of families are still living in tents or damaged homes. Cyclone Idai is one of the worst weather-related storms to hit the southern hemisphere, taking the lives of more than 1,000 people and damaging health centers, schools, and agriculture yields and disrupting people’s livelihoods.

Unfortunately, the international community did not comprehend the magnitude of Cyclone Idai and the storm quickly faded from the news headlines. The same robust support for emergency relief has not been sustained for the much needed recovery phase. Hundreds of thousands of families have been left in a precarious state as the region enters its next rainy and cyclone season.

However, with the generous support of GlobalGivers like you, our nonprofit partners in the affected area have been able to continue providing urgently needed assistance while laying the foundation for the long recovery that lies ahead.

Associação Esmabama is working to restore dignity to vulnerable communities living amid such challenging conditions. From the very beginning, Esmabama has been providing life-saving assistance to some of the worst affected areas in Mozambique. The tremendous impact from Cyclone Idai continues to be revealed. Esmaba teams are supplying health centers with medical supplies, while continuing to deliver food, sanitation and hygiene products to marginalized groups.

Following the emergency response phase, IsraAID is working on long-term, sustainable resilience and supporting communities in their transition back to normalcy. IsraAID’s protection specialists are working in evacuation centers, offering trauma prevention activities, resilience-buildingresilience building workshops, and Psychological First Aid. In addition, IsraAID teams are responding to psychosocial needs in the Mozambican education system, aiming to bolster community resilience and emergency preparedness.

Fundação MICAIA  is now focusing on longer-term recovery by working with close to 4,000 forest-dependent families in Chimanimani where torrential rains left lasting damage and destruction. These biodiversity-rich forests are on the Mozambique border with Zimbabwe. MICAIA is working with village leaders and community members on agroforestry to replant a mix of native tree species and economically valuable fruit trees in areas identified as restoration priorities by affected communities. MICAIA is helping to restore livelihoods, as well as damaged and destroyed natural resources crucial for mitigating the negative impact from future storms.

We are reluctantly closing this Fund at this time as GlobalGiving has disbursed all Cyclone Idai donations. Thanks to your donation, families have accessed urgent, life-saving care, children are receiving trauma and psychological support, and communities are redesigning their future.

We're grateful for your decision to support community-led disaster response efforts following Cyclone Idai with your cash donation—the smart way to give after a disaster. You can continue to follow the progress of our partners as they help their communities fully recover by visiting our website. 

With gratitude,

Sandrina + the GlobalGiving Team 

It's been just over one month since Cyclone Idai made landfall in the coastal city of Beira in Mozambique, which suffered some of the worst impacts from the storm. Idai has affected nearly 3 million people in the region and claimed more than 1,000 lives across Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, making it the third-deadliest tropical cyclone on record in the Southern Hemisphere. Widespread severe flooding has displaced at least 500,000 people and has provided a vector for outbreaks of cholera, with more than 2,400 cases already confirmed.

We're proud to report that our nonprofit partners have responded swiftly to help those in need—as did GlobalGivers like you, who've generously given to our Cyclone Idai Relief Fund. Thanks to that support, we've been able to send an emergency round of funding to our partners on the ground. Here's how your donation is helping survivors of Cyclone Idai:

• The Waqful Waqifin Foundation (which in Hausa means “Gift of the Givers”) deployed 40 water rescue specialists using boats and helicopters to Beira, where roads into the city were washed away. They have rescued 2,100 people trapped by floodwaters, and have identified another 4,500 people in need of assistance. Their relief teams are providing food, water, medical care, shelter, and blankets to those in need, and they're supplying 1.4 tons of medical supplies.
• ActionAid's local offices and community partners coordinated on immediate relief efforts to some of the areas most affected by Idai, including Mocuba and Lugela, Mozambique; Chimanimani, Zimbabwe; and Nsanje, Malawi. Their team has been working to meet the most urgent needs of survivors, including food, fuel, hygiene supplies, school books, mosquito nets, and tents.
• World Central Kitchen's Chef Relief Team arrived in Beira shortly after Idai passed through the city, and quickly found a kitchen in an event space that could be cleaned, repaired, and used to cook. By mobilizing the local community, their team was able to quickly get the kitchen up and running, delivering hundreds of meals on their first day open. By day two, their team was serving thousands, and they're committed to remaining in Beira as long as there are survivors in need.
• When Idai took down large swaths of the power grid in Mozambique, millions were in need of fuel. Teams from Fuel Relief Fund are on the ground there, providing free fuel to affected families in need, as well as first responders, hospitals, and water treatment plants.
• In heavily-damaged Manicaland Province, along Zimbabwe's eastern border with Mozambique, your donation is helping Kidzcan Children's Cancer Relief ensure that families of their cancer patients are able to travel safely to receive their chemotherapy treatments and secure a steady supply of needed medicines.
• IsraAID's Emergency Response Team has deployed to Mozambique, where they're distributing emergency supplies, providing psychosocial care to survivors coping with the trauma of the storm, and assessing the immediate and ongoing water, sanitation, and hygiene needs of affected communities.
• Afrilanthropy is working with a local partner to deliver emergency supplies to first responders in Beira, supplying them with food, water, clothing, and cleaning and hygiene supplies.

Thank you again for your generous support of this relief fund and for making the smart choice to donate cash after a natural disaster like Cyclone Idai— it has been proven to be more effective than donating physical goods.

We look forward to sharing more stories of progress from our partners in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe in the months to come.

With gratitude,
Will + the GlobalGiving Team