People in drought affected areas still experiencing food shortage

Councillor Yawa Kunjil of Kerepia 1 (blue cap) expressing his view to

 Ms Alison Dage, Interim Secretary General of the PNG Red Cross

Society and Deputy Chairman of the Red Cross branch in Western Highlands,

 Mr Michael Kokom

People in drought affected areas of the Upper and Lower Kagul areas of the Tambul district in Western Highlands province are still experiencing food shortage and are calling on authorities to provide further relief supplies.

Talking to a PNG Red Cross M&E team that went into the area over the weekend, Councillors from Kerepia 1 and Alkena 3  wards in the Mt Giluwe LLG said the government provided relief supplies only once and after that the people have fended for themselves through means available to them.
Red Cross Society officers from the Mt Hagen branch in Western Highlands and the interim Secretary General for PNG Red Cross, Ms Alison Dage were told by the affected people that they needed more food  supplies as relief assistance.
Speaking to Ms Dage and Michael Kokom from the Red Cross, Councillor Yawa Kunjil of Kerepia 1 said his people still needed food supplies. Rain fall was sporadic and people were only starting to grow food crops but they needed food to take them through to harvest time.
Councillor Jacob Jack of Alkena 3 also expressed similar sentiments about relief food supplies. He was then informed that because distributing food supplies was not the mandate of the PNG Red Cross the organisation would provide jerry cans to families to collect and keep water and minimise water security issues.
Councillor Jack said he was happy to see Red Cross going into the communities to do the M&E of the situation after its earlier disaster assessment and appreciated that the organisation was prepared to assist people in his community.
 “I will accept whatever assistance you are able to provide and thank the Red Cross Society in PNG for being on the ground and checking on the actual needs of the people. I am very sure that if it was in your mandate to distribute food supplies you would do a very good job because you already have the information and have identified the most affected areas where relief efforts can be concentrated”, he said.
“Although the rains have returned occasionally, it will take some time before people are able to grow and harvest kaukau. Because our community is located in a very heavily affected area, the kaukau planted is growing very slowly and may take almost a year before they are ready. So during this period the people will be heavily affected and we still need relief support from government and others that are able to assist”, he said.
Meanwhile the National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI) is also keen to work with relief agencies to distribute clean and early yielding planting material to communities in the affected areas to assist people with recovery.

The organisation is focused to distribute early yielding, drought resistant and clean planting material like kaukau vines, wheat seedlings, potato and others.
After a meeting between PNG Red Cross, Baptist Union and NARI representatives, it was agreed the Red Cross office in Mt Hagen would act as a secretariat to coordinate meetings among non-state actors in the province that are involved in relief assistance for effective collaboration and coordination of relief efforts into affected areas.
During these meetings Red Cross will identify organisations distributing food and work along with them to do hygiene promotion and distribute jerry cans to members of affected communities to use for water storage.

Visits to affected areas in Lower and Upper Kagul showed that food especially kaukau is starting to grow but because the ground has been affected by frost it will take almost a year before kaukau can be harvested.

Councillor Yawa Kunjil from Kerepia one in Upper Kagul said with some rain experienced in the area people are starting to plant food but it will take time to be ready and so they still needed food supplies to sustain them between the planting and harvesting period.  

This assessment was done following an earlier house to house drought assessment conducted by the PNG Red Cross which showed that the immediate needs of the people was food.
Both Councillors agreed that they will notify the Red Cross office in Mt Hagen to deliver the Jerry cans to the communities after the people were fully briefed about the role of the Red Cross.