Idai draws Bloom to Mozambique
Bloom |
UN Children’s Fund Goodwill
Ambassador, has visited Mozambique to commiserate with Cyclone Idai victims.
The actor travelled to the
coastal city of Beira, one of the areas worst-affected by Idai which killed
over 600 people and destroyed nearly 240,000 homes when it made landfall in
March.
Sitting on the sandy floor of a
tent at the Samora Machel site for internally displaced people, named after the
country’s founding president, he listened to children recount devastating
stories of how they lost everything in the cyclone.
Thirteen-year-old Alzina Lopes
described the moment Idai made landfall, leaving her stranded in waist-deep
floodwaters. Now she wants to go back to school, and dreams of becoming a
traffic officer.
“It’s remarkable to see children
who have been through so much gain a sense of normality in the safe spaces set
up by UNICEF, where they are free to sing, dance, play and just be children,” Bloom
commented.
“These are children and young people
with dreams, they want to be in school, but almost everyone I’ve met here has
lost their classrooms, their books and crucial identification documents due to
the cyclones.”
He added that it was
“heartbreaking” that without IDs “they are unregistered, almost invisible and
vulnerable to exploitation.”
In the aftermath of Cyclones Idai
and Kenneth, 1.1 million children remain in urgent need of humanitarian
assistance.
UNICEF is supporting families
affected by the cyclones to either return home or relocate to safer places. It’s
also providing health care, nutrition, education, sanitation and protection
services.
In the days following the storm,
UNICEF and its partners restored water supplies to thousands of people in Beira
and procured and administered one million doses of the cholera vaccine, curbing
a large outbreak.
At the Mutua resettlement area in
the city, currently home to around 1,500 cyclone-affected people - half of whom
are youth - Bloom danced and sang with young children and spoke to them about
their hopes and dreams.
He also visited a Beira primary
school which the students themselves repaired after the cyclone.
Wrapping up his trip, he spent an
afternoon with young volunteers at an interfaith group on the beachfront – a
poignant venue, as the deadly storm barrelled in from the sea.
They told him that the pain and
suffering they saw after the cyclones had strengthened their resolve to help
others.
“Thousands of children and
families in Mozambique have seen their lives upended by these devastating
cyclones and it’s going to be a long road back,” said UNICEF Mozambique
Representative, Marcoluigi Corsi. “We’re working on the ground with our
partners to help get children and their families back on their feet by
providing support in health care, nutrition, education and protection.”
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