Giving hope through food
For some people food is just a meal, but for others, it is the only thing keeping them alive
Thirty-two-year-old Manirambona Deiza, a refugee from Burundi sits with her daughter, Niyobuntu Shanseline, in a dimly lit outdoor kitchen next to their house in Mtendeli Refugee Camp. The kitchen makes her reminisce about the food she ate back home. Her mouth salivates as she describes the cassava, red beans, potatoes and variety of vegetables she grew on her farm.
After her husband died in 2016, Manirambona and her two daughters, now aged 12 and 10, fled political and civil unrest in Burundi. Leaving everything behind, Manirambona and the children trekked from the lush green plains of Makamba province in southern Burundi to Kigoma region in Tanzania, not knowing when they would return.
“My husband meant everything to me. After he died, my whole world came crushing down,” says Manirambona. “Finding myself as a widow to two young girls, and with the ongoing unrest in my country, I had to look for alternative means of survival.”
Lending a helping hand
The European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) is one of the donors supporting the World Food Programme (WFP) Refugee Operations in western Tanzania. Through ECHO support, WFP provides life-saving food to nearly 227,000 Burundian and Congolese refugees hosted in the Kigoma region.
Manirambona and her daughters have been receiving WFP food assistance since arriving in the refugee camp four years ago. Each month, Manirambona queues at WFP’s delivery points with other refugees and collects a food basket consisting of pulses, fortified vegetable oil, salt and maize meal. Refugees are fully dependent on WFP’s assistance to meet their nutrition and food needs, as they are not permitted to work or move outside the camps.
In addition to the general food distribution, WFP provides Super Cereal, a highly nutritious fortified porridge mix, to households with pregnant and nursing women and children aged 6–24 months, to ensure that their nutrient needs are met.
The meals from WFP give Manirambona’s daughters the right nourishments to be able to learn better at school and for physical and mental development.
After receiving her food, Manirambona carefully balances the weight of the bags on her head and walks back to her house. Occasionally falling under the weight of the load, she attracts the sympathy of one of her fellow countrymen who offers to help carry some of the bags for her.
The gift of life
With her daughters at school, Manirambona arrives to an empty house. After bringing the bags into the house, she transfers the food into containers. It is important that food is preserved properly to prevent any moisture from getting in and contaminating it.
Her daughters would normally help her with household chores when they get back from school in the afternoon. As it Niyobuntu’s turn to prepare lunch once she gets home from school, she puts her school bag away and heads over to the outside kitchen, where she gets out the charcoal stove and puts in some firewood. After getting the fire going, she puts water in a pot and places it on top of the stove to boil. Meanwhile she washes the pulses and then puts them in the pot adding a little bit of vegetable oil and salt to taste.
Niyobuntu then boils another pot of water for the maize meal. As the flour turns into a light porridge, she adds more flour and water, stirring in alternation, until the mixture stiffens into ugali (hard maize porridge).
Mealtimes are important to Manirambona and her daughters as they not only bring them closer together but serves as a grim remember of their survival in the camp.
“We are very grateful to WFP and other donors for feeding us,” says Manirambona. “This food means everything to us, and if it were not for the food, we would be far worse off.”
Find out about WFP’s work in Tanzania
