Recent food distributions in Imvepi and Palorinya settlements serve close to 300,000 people
The crowd was very orderly. Everyone looked patient and ready for a day-long wait. Volunteers were busy offloading the sacks of sorghum and boxes of other food items. World Vision’s field monitor Gift Ayikobua assured they will finish early in a day. He says, “Over 110,000 people in Imvepi settlement will be provided with food ration in the next 12 days. The process is going as planned. As we have always done in other areas, it does not take long for all the people in the list to be served.” Actually, the team always meets its target to finish the job in four hours barring bad weather and broken roads.
Gradually the 1,200 sacks of sorghum with 50kg each, 300 bags of corn-soya-blend with 25kg each, 247 boxes of vegetable oil were unloaded. While the refugees lined up, Gift and Ambrose Barigye, another field monitor helping supervise the distribution activity, discussed through a loudspeaker on how the distribution will be done and what will they get for the month’s relief ration.
Ahead of the briefing, the verification is done as the beneficiaries show their ration card provided by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM). If there are complaints, these are handled by the community help desk committee who are tasked to looked into attending the refugees’ questions. As the information is disseminated, the staff also shares child protection policies and some tips on how food can be managed by families properly.
As the distribution starts, the people are grouped according to family sizes and they divide the food rations accordingly. Barigye explains, “The grouping empowers them to be responsible in sharing the resources provided to them. It also helps build relationships as they get to know each other during the process.”
“As much as we want the activity to start early and reduce waiting time, often hauling the food in trucks from the warehouse takes time. The roads were bad after the heavy rains in the past days. In Imvepi settlement, this is the first time we did the distribution and organising the FMCs is still ongoing. We expect things to be easier on the next distribution cycle”, Ayikobua adds.
He further shares, “There are always complaints that the ration is not enough. We try to explain to everyone that the food is for survival and we are not able to provide the normal supply that they usually have. But we try to educate them on how to manage the ration so the supply cover their month’s need. We know it is hard but this is the way we can provide for everyone.”
World Vision recently completed its food distribution in Palorinya settlement for 158,000 refugees. The food assistance started last December 2016 and just completed its 5th cycle. The very first cycle last December has provided food for 25,292. In every activity, the team is composed of six World Vision staff and 43 Distribution Assistants that have now been scaled down to 30.
Commodity Officer Michael Odokorach said the team usually completes the distribution work in four hours following the process stringently. “Barring bad weather and broken roads, we can always manage to finish within this duration. The number of beneficiaries can vary in every cycle depending on the list coming from OPM. Our schedules are shared with all our partners including the World Food Programme (WFP) and local authorities and leaders.”
In partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP), World Vision’s food assistance program enables every beneficiary to receive a monthly ration of 12kg cereals (either maize or sorghum), 2.4kg pulses, vegetable oil, corn-soya- blend and salt. Recent distributions in Palorinya and Imvepi settlements have reached close to 300,000 refugees.
All photos by Moses Mukitale, Communications Officer, West Nile Refugee Response