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Our mission is to create awareness and support for orphaned and senior residents of Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi, Africa.
Dzaleka, Dowa, Malawi
Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi (southeast Africa) hosts an extremely diverse population of refugees and asylum seekers from multiple countries including Rwanda, Burundi, Congo (DRC), Somalia and Ethiopia. Over the past 20 years, the camp has grown rapidly and is currently home to 45,000 people with more still arriving. Available resources are extremely limited for supporting such a huge, underprivileged community – Malawi itself is one of the world’s poorest nations and does not have the infrastructure and means to offer much aid to Dzaleka residents.
Concerned with the well-being of the most vulnerable populations within the camp at the start of the COVID-19 crisis, a group of World Universities Service of Canada (WUSC) students and a few other friends created Little Acts of Kindness with the aim of gathering and sharing information and fundraising options via this website and promoting this information to all who might step in and help via donations of any size. For group members who were once refugees in Malawi or elsewhere, the challenges that Dzaleka residents face is all too real.
Help them to meet basic needs
One month’s food for a family of four. Photo ©There Is Hope
Even though we are all affected by the pandemic, Dzaleka refugees are in the worst possible position as overcrowding makes social distancing nearly impossible and confinement means they are not able to meet basic needs – like enough food and medical care. In recent years, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has reduced the amount of food distributed to a few kilograms that are barely enough to survive on. Recently, the UNHCR has changed its protocol for food distribution so that some refugees have been completely cut off from receiving the already meagre portion they previously received. Pandemic precaution measures which have been implemented require camp residents to stay within camp boundaries – they can no longer make brief outside trips as they usually do to meet their needs, buying and trading with nearby locals.
Based on the current situation, we ask you to consider helping by giving to one of our program initiatives. For those who were also there, or who have benefited from programs that helped us to create new lives, we urge you to give back to your community, bearing in mind that it takes a community to build a community.
If you have comments, suggestions or other information that you think would be helpful, please share it with us and we’ll add it as the site grows.
