“This drought has pushed us to the edge of our lives.”
Mary’s Meals offers hope amid widespread hunger caused by Zambia’s historic drought
Published onEuphrasia Banda, a grandmother from Zambia, cares for her 10 grandchildren. Zambia is in Southern Africa, which is facing its worst drought in 100 years.
The drought has forced her sons and daughters to leave their homes to find work and leaving their children under her watchful care. “They couldn’t just stay home doing nothing,” she says. “We have no income. This drought has pushed us to the edge of our lives."
For the past two months, the family – who all live in Euphrasia’s single-roomed home – have had nothing to eat but unripe mangoes or maize bran gathered from the community mill.
Like millions of Zambians across the country, the 45-year-old widow has been deeply impacted by the devastating drought that has crippled the country’s agricultural production. During the 2023 and 2024 farming seasons, everything she planted in her fields withered under the relentless heat and scarce rainfall. The small harvest she managed to salvage wouldn’t even sustain her family for a week.
The drought has devastated crops, dried up pastures and threatened water supplies (1). In February 2024, the President declared a national disaster, with 5.6 million people facing crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse (2).
When rains eventually came, they brought destructive winds, lightening and flash floods that further damaged crops and increased the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera. The drought also triggered Zambia's worst-ever electricity blackout in October 2024, as dangerously low water levels at reservoirs like Kariba Dam left insufficient water to power hydroelectric turbines (3).
Now Euphrasia has new fears. The communal water pump in her village is no longer reliable. She has no idea how long it will take to revive her devastated vegetable garden.
Yet, amid these struggles, Euphrasia finds hope in her 15-year-old grandson, Mangani. He attends Kagoro Primary School, where he eats Mary’s Meals.
He says: “When schools are open, we are happy because there is clean and nutritious food at school. It makes me energetic and focused."
David Phiri, head teacher of Kagoro Primary School, says: “This year alone the number of learners at this school has dramatically increased to more than 1,000 from around 600 pupils because of the Mary’s Meals school feeding programme.”
He continues: “Every morning, women and men come to my house asking for food. People are starving. [If you] go around the homes, you will find people eating mangoes. That’s their food.”
Residents rely on seasonal mangoes, but soon the trees will be bare. Euphrasia prays the crisis across Southern Africa will end, though full recovery will take years of normal rainfall. For now, she depends on Mary’s Meals to feed her grandchildren, hoping their school meals will lead to a brighter future.
In Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, our school meals are bringing vital relief to families like Euphrasia’s. The promise of Mary’s Meals means they know their children will eat at school and they can stretch the little food they have at home further.
We are currently reaching 1.5 million children in the region with our nutritious school meals. But there is more we can do. We need your help to bring more children back from the brink of desperation. With your support, we can reach many thousands more children waiting for our daily meals. Please donate today.
- Zambia: Drought Response Appeal May 2024 - December 2024 (May 2024) | United Nations in Zambia
- Zambia: Acute Food Insecurity Situation for April - September 2024 and Projection for October 2024 - March 2025 | IPC - Integrated Food Security Phase Classification
- Drought is parching the world's largest man-made lake, stripping Zambia of its electricity | AP News
