Home away from home
How WFP’s food assistance is helping refugees build a new life in Tanzania
Story written by Desta Laizer
Five years ago, fighting broke out in her village and only flight could save her and her children. Along with others, she embarked on the treacherous journey armed with hope and fuelled by a mother’s instinct. She had to get the family somewhere safe. And Nduta camp, in Tanzania’s Kigoma region, has provided not only the safety she needs, but has been her home away from home.
“My children are waiting for me, it makes me happy as a mother to see the joy in their bright eyes when they see me walk home with food.”
New beginnings
I met Leokadia enjoying a family meal with her now four children, Niyoinkuru (9), Manariyo (6), Dushirimana (4) and Gateka (3) in a place she now calls home,. The laughter, chatter and smiley faces fill up the room. Nothing suggests the pain the family endured fleeing their country of birth.
Despite the long queues, Leokadia patiently waits in line to receive her food assistance. She will be going back home with food for her family.
“The food assistance means a lot to my family. We are grateful as we know what it means to go without food, I hope the amount and frequency of the rations will increase in the future,” she says.
The majority of the refugees are dependent on WFP food assistance. Families like Leokadia’s are certain of having a healthy meal on their table with no one going to bed hungry. This has significant impact especially on children’s health and development.
“Life in Burundi was not so bad until the political unrest made us run from a life I knew,” says Leokadia, recalling her earlier life. “Our travel wasn’t easy either, it became more difficult each day until when we arrived at Nduta camp.
“We would only eat one meal a day and sometimes nothing at all,” she adds. “My children were always hungry and at times they would cry themselves to sleep, as a mother I was scared and felt helpless because I wasn’t sure what the future holds.”
Tough Times
Leokadia and her family endured unimaginable suffering during their long journey from Burundi. With nowhere else to go, they sought refuge in Tanzania after fleeing their home. With little to subsist on, much less nourishing foods, and wracked by regular illnesses such as diarrhoea, her family risked malnutrition.
Upon their arrival, registration and assessment at Nduta camp in Tanzania, her second born, Manariyo, was assessed and confirmed that he was moderately malnourished.
Manariyo was placed under special supervision and was provided with life-saving supplementary food through WFP’s malnutrition prevention and treatment programme until he recovered.
WFP support
With support from donors such as the European Union, WFP is able to provide food assistance. It usually is composed of fortified maize meal, specialized nutritious food, beans, fortified cooking oil and iodized salt. The food is basic but enough to tide them through tough times. Indeed, for the more than 200,000 food-insecure and vulnerable refugees living in the camps, it has been the difference between starvation and survival.
