Helping Tanzanian families build their resilience in the aftermath of a disaster

Sheila Chemjor in AllAfrica.com via the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: Families in Morogoro's Dakawa and Kilosa area, 270 kilometres northwest of Tanzania's capital Dar es Salaam, are rebuilding their lives following flash floods that left a massive trail of destruction earlier in the year, affecting at least 10,000 people. It is the first time since the 1970s that they had experienced such heavy rainfall and as such were completely unprepared. Some houses were washed away leaving no trace of their existence.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) allocated 180,676 Swiss francs from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund to help the Tanzania Red Cross Society in assisting 2,000 people affected by the floods. With the help of the Red Cross, families have now constructed shelters at a temporary site allocated to them by the Government of Tanzania, as they wait to be settled permanently on safer grounds.

As part of the emergency operation, Tanzania Red Cross Society volunteers carried out hygiene promotion to prevent an outbreak of diseases, and provided water and sanitation facilities and shelter materials. They also offered psychosocial support.

With agriculture as their main source of livelihoods, the community was hard pressed as their farms were completely destroyed. Not wanting to wallow in pity, they started to plough the land around their settlements, planting maize, beans and indigenous vegetables to avoid relying on food aid. Others went back to their original homes to plant their crops on their farms while they continue to live in the settlement....

A flood in Dar es Salaam, shot by Muddyb Blast Producer, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license