Disaster preparedness and resilience team in the Anglican Diocese of Central Zimbabwe
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Writes Rebecca Munetsi
"Be prepared to leave your relatives' graves. Know your escape routes, such as alternative doors, windows, and pathways. Know your family's numbers to call in case of emergencies and disasters. Shut off gas and electricity because electrical sparks have the potential of blowing up during disasters," says a volunteer from the Anglican Diocese of Central Zimbabwe.
Mr Crispen Makoni is a volunteer in the community Anglican disaster preparedness and resilience program. He works in the Kwekwe and Zhombe rural areas in the Midlands Province, Zimbabwe.
Besides preaching the word of God, the Anglican church is preaching to its communities to be prepared for trouble and to get ready in cases of disasters. Mr Makoni says he meets with groups to equip and educate them on how to secure and protect their lives, property, and livestock before, during, and after droughts, since their area is prone to dry spells.
"Currently, I am in a process of meeting community leaders, Chief Gwasela in Zhombe, Chief Ntabeni in Zhombe West, and Chief Njelele in the Gokwe area to protect our livestock since we have an outbreak of diseases due to ticks".
The church realized the need to set up a team that would be on the ground working towards the conscientization of various communities and ensuring support is given before a disaster, during, as well as after its occurrence.
The Anglican church says planning for disastrous situations in communities has become crucial after its international church partner, Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD), assessments indicated that many countries are not ready when it comes to responding to disasters. Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) is an international relief and development agency of the Episcopal Church. It works in at least 40 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, and the Middle East.
In its assessment, Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) says, "The disaster unpreparedness was evidenced by the loss of lives, over a thousand people dying in one disaster incident. People did not know where to escape or where to find safe places during flooding. Many people on medication went for days without medication as they did not have emergency kits.
People panic because it is not clear what they should do. Of course, response teams came in, but there was a lag that could have been reduced with preparedness. Communities showed low resilience and took a long time to recover. There were poor scores when looking at how people respond to disasters before, during, and after."
Worldwide disasters happen, and the media is awash with images of people and infrastructure being destroyed from disasters such as earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, cyclones or typhoons, tornadoes, fire, tsunamis, extreme cold, and heat waves. In Africa, floods, tropical storms, droughts, and earthquakes are the most destructive.
Besides natural disasters, according to the World Health Organization, between 2001 and 2022, Africa reported 1,843 substantiated public health emergencies triggered by outbreaks of infectious diseases like Ebola, cholera, measles, yellow fever, meningitis, COVID-19, and monkeypox.
Zimbabwe has its own share in terms of droughts and floods, among other disasters. Cyclones such as the most distressing Cyclone Idai in 2019 brought severe destruction to lives and infrastructure in Manicaland Province. Droughts, heat waves, and wildfires, which are uncontrolled fires that burn in rural or wilderness areas, have also become major concerns in the country.
Last year, President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared a national disaster to tackle a prolonged drought crisis. In the same year, Zambia and Malawi also declared states of disaster due to drought. Zimbabwe's worst drought occurred in 1992, when a quarter of the national cattle herd died, with the years 2016 and 2019 declared national disasters again due to drought.
Humanitarian experts say there is a clear need for continued collaboration between various stakeholders, anticipating the potential consequences of disasters, to determine the actions needed before the disaster strikes to alleviate its effects.
Speaking at a recent ordination of Priests, and launching the disaster preparedness program, Anglican Diocese of Central Zimbabwe Bishop Ignatious Makumbe says preparedness means preparing a plan, training for the plan, and exercising the plan.
He challenged congregants to take part in this disaster preparedness and resilience program, which is part of the church's initiatives in complementing the government's efforts before, during, and after disasters in the country.
Bishop Makumbe encouraged every church member to volunteer in this Ministry of disaster response and in resilience building, that is, the community's adaptability and capacity to recover after a disaster. Under this program, volunteers are people who offer themselves to receive mentorship and, in turn, go and cascade proper and life-saving information to communities. Church members and other community members are offering themselves as volunteers.
Having worked with the Anglican church in response to Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe, Cyclone Japhat in Malawi, and many other countries, the Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) then committed to coach, mentor, and capacitate the church to respond to disasters before, during, and after.
Over the year, ERD developed a Toolkit for Pastors in Disaster Response called "A Community-based Disaster Resilience". People are trained for a period of 1 year and six months. After qualification, further training to be church accompaniers is done. ERD, in Conjunction with the Anglican Alliance, has committed to train mentors and capacitate a team to run with the project. The sessions have been running since 2022.
Effective disaster preparedness and response should be supported by strong grassroots education and awareness on how communities should respond when disaster strikes because, in some cases, there have been reports of communities fighting rescue operations in the face of disasters because of cultural issues and lack of knowledge on how to handle situations during a crisis.
Senior Programmes Officer in the Episcopal Relief and Development, Nagulan Nessiah, says "We are very excited that Darlington, among others, has completed an interesting Capstone Project. Capstone is the research work under the Resilience programme that shows how an incumbent has mastered the course sessions.
"It shows how knowledge will be implemented. We are going to support him in this pilot mass messaging project for disaster preparedness and resilience building. Looking forward to lessons learnt and how we can replicate in other areas as well as in future."
Anglican Diocese of Central Zimbabwe Projects coordinator, Darlington Musekiwa, has been seconded to the Africa team, where he is still under the mentorship. Through the sessions, the church has managed to contextualise the knowledge gained and skills acquired.
Several materials have now been developed and are being used in the Church catchment area. The Anglican Diocese of Central Zimbabwe is one of the Five dioceses of the Anglican Church under the Anglican Council of Zimbabwe. The Anglican Church is one of the mainline churches affiliated with the Zimbabwe Council of Churches.
The ZCC is also an affiliate of the Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations. In Southern Africa, the Anglican church is under the Church of the Province of Central Africa. In Africa, the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa works globally with the Anglican Communion, which is in 165 countries worldwide.
As the Anglican church comes on board in disaster preparedness and resilience, it is commendable for churches to be part of a holistic and multi-sectoral approach in aligning development goals in disaster management, as we look at the Agenda 2063 and the UN's SDG agenda. T
he African Union's Agenda 2063 affirms that climate-resilient communities and economies are a key element of the continental vision for an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens, representing a dynamic force in the international arena.
These adaptation solutions present significant opportunities for ecosystem protection and the collaborative approach that the African communities can adopt in face of disasters, particularly droughts and other climate change-induced disasters, which have become widespread across the world.