Hannah Omarjee | homarjee@radioislam.co.za
20 March 2023 | 16:30 PM CAT
2 min read

Photo Credit: Al Imdaad

The Al Imdaad Foundation and Rescue South Africa have partnered to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Blantyre, Malawi, after the country was devastated by Cyclone Freddy. The cyclone caused 460 deaths and affected over half a million people in Malawi; it destroyed infrastructure, crops, and shelter to protect people from the elements.

According to Rescue South Africa’s Ian Scher, the team comprised eight rescuers, six specialised in water rescue, and two needs assessors from the Al-Imdaad Foundation, Nelson Mandela University, University of Johannesburg, and The Gauteng Department of Health. The team was sent to evaluate the needs of the people on the ground.

Scher said, “Malawi is an extremely poor country. It has about twenty million people that populate Malawi. A large portion of them are subsistence farmers, and unfortunately, a lot of the areas that have been affected are exactly where the subsistence farmers are. You will find that whatever crops they may have planted, let’s say, it could be maize and potatoes and so on, is almost ready for harvesting. So, just before the harvest season has arrived, they’ve now lost their production of what was going to be their food for the year.”

Scher claims the programme was initiated as a joint effort by Rescue South Africa and the Al Imdaad Foundation, who have recently gone into a partnership where they share their resources to have a more significant impact.

Rescue South Africa has also decided to train a group of Al Imdaad volunteers to enable them to assist in future rescue missions.

Scher said, “It’s a partnership that works for both entities in an extremely positive way. It’s also partially funded by the United Nations, which in itself is an unusual occurrence.”

Generally, the UN does not fund responders but has made an exception for the groups after seeing their response to previous disasters in the SADC region.

Listen to the full interview with Mufti Yusuf Moosagie here.