One year IDAI - Messed with one, messed with all!

A lot was already done, but the women in Sofala still need your support in 2020!  

A year is not enough to recover from Cyclone IDAI.

One year after Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique and triggered a series of unprecedented climate disasters, 2.5 million people, almost half of them children, still need
humanitarian assistance, according to UNICEF.
Food is still short in cyclone affected areas. Crops were destroyed by Cyclones Idai so the first harvest in a year will start later this month.  Unfortunately, in many areas,
crops level is low as the soils were flooded by salty water and pests appeared.
(For more information see links below)

We are the Sofala Women’s Group for Sharing Ideas  - GMPIS (Grupo de Mulheres de Partilha de Ideias de Sofala) in Mozambique. Existing since 2014, we are a feminist
network of community based associations, connected with the Worldwide Women’s
March. We are smallholder farmers/peasant women, informal sector workers,
women living with HIV, teachers, mid-wifes, lesbians, leaders of women’s associations in various communities affected by the cyclone. 

In 2019, with the donation from the GoFundMe plattform and other small donations, we managed to help already 726 women and their families, a total of around 3400
persons, in Sofala, Manica and Tete. To get more information on how the money mas
spent, please access our report which is published in this site (informative note 17).

We confirm the studies saying that women and children are the most affected in
natural disaster.  Many women and their families in Sofala are still facing imensa
economic, materials, physical and psycho-emotional damages.  The IDAI cyclone
phenomena was huge and one year is not enough to rebuild lives. 

In 2020, your support will continue to go to affected women and their families via our associations.

Your solidarity funds will be directed to GMPIS’ 30 associations working in affected
communities.  Funds management will be done by the network’s coordination
committee presenting accountability and disaster update reports on the GMPIS Facebook page and on this platform. The funds will be received by ADS, a member
organization of GMPIS that is administrating the groups funds. 
For administrative reasons, the GoFundMe account was opened by a GMPIS activist. The donations from the GoFundMe platform will be transferred to Heike Friedhoffs
bank account, a member of the GMPIS. She will transfer the funds immediately to the mozambican account of ADS. That was the most suitable way we found, as it is not
possible to register a mozambican organization on the GoFundMe platform. 

To hear the statements of the activists about the cyclone and how we organized the
donations, please access the following link: https://youtu.be/IXnj0iWRzPk or our facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/gmpis.sofala

Let’s make a difference in Sofala’s women lives, keep alive the solidarity! 
Please donate.

Find below a comment of a donor of this campaign and why he decided to donate and some news about the current situation:

“Jacques testimonial: “It is not for nothing that, in recent years, more and more social programs (including the Brazilian Bolsa Família) are based on the protagonism,
responsibility and engagement of women from the families involved in them. Even in countries where violent patriarchal practices and values still prevail, government
officials understood that, by opening space for women in the social policies they
intend to develop, they are able to expand the impact and results of the programs in which they invest. 
In the case of GMPIS Sofala, the articulations did not pass through governments, nor through large international agencies or NGOs of great magnitude. The resources
mobilized by a solidarity campaign of international crowdfunding were channelled
directly to women’s groups from areas directly affected by Cyclone IDAI. No one
better than them could, at that moment, make the best use of the money received. No one knew better the affected region. No one better than them knew which families
were most in need of support. I made my donation, publicized the campaign in the
best possible way and followed the support progress through the careful reports
produced by the women who intermediated the work. With the experience I have, in
terms of humanitarian actions and in development programs with vulnerable and
impoverished communities, I know the strength and creativity that exists in these
communities, especially in women’s groups rooted in them. I know that much of this
strength and creativity has often been wasted. In the case of the present effort, I know that the money sent to Mozambique central region was well used and contributed a lot to facilitate the start over of people’s lives, after they suffered from the severe
impact of nature in revolt.  I am proud to have participated, even if very modestly, in
the work that was done and I am grateful for the opportunity. ”
Jacques Schwarzstein - Rio de Janeiro.

Links:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/03/one-year-after-cyclone-idai-tens-of-thousands-of-people-still-homeless/

https://reliefweb.int/report/mozambique/mozambique-cyclone-idai-one-year-after-14-march-2020

https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/afrika-mosambik-zyklon-103.html

https://www.stern.de/panorama/video-ein-jahr-nach-zyklon--idai----ueber-eine-million-hungernde-in-mosambik-9180500.html

https://www.moz24h.co.mz/post/um-ano-ap%C3%B3s-o-ciclone-idai