In 2019, supporters like you helped to provide Khadiza’s family and many others with essential food supplies and hope for the future. 

"We passed very hard times when we first arrived in the camp," she recalls. "There was chaos everywhere and it was very disorganised. We ran with crowds to get food to save our children and ourselves. Sometimes we got something, sometimes not."

Conditions have improved dramatically since then. In partnership with the UN World Food Programme, World Vision provides Khadiza’s family of five with monthly rations of 60kg of rice, 18kg of lentils and six litres of cooking oil.

"We are happy with the food assistance that we receive from the distribution point," says Khadiza. "Everything is systematic and organised there."

*Name changed to protect identity.

She is one of 500 women in South Darfur benefiting from a safety net program run by World Vision and the UN World Food Programme.

"I was very grateful when I was selected to be trained on how to make stoves," the mother of four shared. "We heavily rely on farming to earn a living but it alone is not sufficient to meet all of our needs."

Elham also received cash to buy the raw materials needed to make her stoves. She now produces about 30 stoves a week and sells them at a nearby market to earn income for her family.  

"My first sales gave me the confidence boost I needed to know that this business could grow bigger and guarantee a better education for our children," explained Elham. 

The stoves that Elham makes help reduce deforestation because they consume much less charcoal than the traditional cooking methods used by families in her local area.  

Deforestation is a key cause of poor soil fertility and it contributes to droughts and flash flooding that destroy food crops in communities like Elham’s.  

By making eco-friendly cookstoves, she is not only contributing to her own family’s long-term food security but making a positive difference to the local environment and for other families in her community. 

On distribution day, refugees living in settlements across the region flock to their allocated distribution centre run by World Vision and the UN World Food Programme to collect their monthly ration of staples including rice, flour, beans and cooking oil. 

Among those regularly receiving this food is 34-year-old Butoto, who was forced to flee the DRC with her three children when violence erupted in her village and claimed her husband’s life.

After lining up in the hot sun along with 5,000 others, Butoto is grateful when she’s ushered into the warehouse to collect her family’s ration.

Rice is the children’s favourite, but they are always excited with whatever she brings home to them. Butoto’s daughter Alina, aged 10, enjoys helping her mum cook before the family sits down together to share their meal. 

Behind the scenes, making sure that families like Butoto’s receive the food they need, are dedicated distribution staff like Suzan. She leads a team of about 15 people recruited from the local area. 

"I love giving back to people," Suzan says. "I never want to see people hungry or suffering so it gives me great joy to serve food to such vulnerable groups."

When her mother Muchilange brought her to a hospital in southern Angola, Christila weighed just 6kgs; she had a raging fever and was weak and lethargic.  

She has improved somewhat with medical treatment, but still has a long way to go. And Muchilange worries what might happen when they leave the hospital. 

"When we had plenty of food, we’d eat three times a day," Muchilange explains. "But now that we don’t have much, we just eat once a day … We are hungry."

The growing impacts of climate change across southern Africa are driving an alarming increase in child malnutrition. In the past two years, the region has experienced three major cyclones, floods, a crippling drought as well as record high temperatures. 

With widespread crop failure, families are resorting to harmful coping mechanisms just to put food on the table for another day – more young girls are being married off and children are dropping out of school to try and find work. 

We must act now to help save the lives of children like Christila. Your donation can help meet immediate food needs and enable families to build resilience to an increasing number of climate-related disasters.