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Flood-hit children start taking action
19 May 2008
Image courtesy of ActionAid
The children from the Thangadzi-1 Primary School in the south of Malawi
understand well what a changing climate means.
Every year their school is flooded by a nearby river. The school cannot absorb
the financial costs of the repairs to the school building. And the children face
a similar situation in their own houses as their parents see their crops and
assets being washed away.
Since the early 1990s Malawi has been experiencing a food crisis caused by
erratic rains and regular floods. This has hampered communities’ capacity to
recover between one flood or drought and the next, and has meant that many are
becoming poorer and more vulnerable to climate change.
But the school community is now taking action to tackle the problem. Children
have begun working with the local community to better prepare for future floods,
for example with new first aid training and evacuation planning, by planting
trees to provide a natural barrier against the waters and by learning new
farming practices to adapt to the changing rain patterns.
This story was provided by ActionAid.
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