2 mothers struggle to feed children as relief food delays

In need. Ms Teopista Nansubuga, a resident of Kitettikka, Kasangati Town Council in Wakiso District, stands near her empty stall. PHOTO BY ELIZABETH KAMURUNGI

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As the Covid-19 lockdown continues to bite, many women who have been making ends meet for their families have faced it rough, writes Elizabeth Kamurungi.

Forty two-year-old Teopista Nansubuga, a single mother of six, lies nearly unrecognisable beside her three-shelved stall.
On a number of days, she has gone to bed on an empty stomach.
The good samaritans who used to step in frequently to help make life better have stepped back, and the government relief food that would have sustained her and her five children is nowhere near sight, 36 days later.
Prior to the pandemic, the stall would have had some tomatoes, onions and a sack of charcoal.
This would have helped feed her and her children, as well as buy kerosene to power her candle at night.

“Every weekend, I would send the girls to go to Kalerwe (market) to buy some tomatoes and sugarcane but since we can no longer sale these things because of lack of transport, we even ate the capital…getting a meal has become a gamble,” Nansubuga says as her voice slowly drowns in her throat.
Now the stall lies virtually empty, safe for a small heap of potatoes (donated by a friend).
Her life, her stomach and those of her children may as well just be in the same state as the stall.
“We survive on neighbours’ generosity, one may offer half a kilogramme of maize flour. When chanced with a kilogramme, we then have two meals, but quite often, we have a kilogramme. So we only have lunch,” she says.

The visually impaired resident of Kitettikka Village, Kasangati Town Council, Wakiso District, has been waiting on government food for about a month since an official registered them for relief food.
Government launched food distribution on April 4, to sustain the urban underprivileged through the difficult times bred by the Covid-19 lockdown, which has left many with no source of livelihood. It was estimated that 1.5 million people needed the relief food, with Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono districts named as priority districts.

The tortoise-paced distribution process has to many people, rendered the President’s initiative to aid the urban poor null and void. Consequently, many such as Nansubuga have been left starving as tonnes of food donations waste away at the Nakawa stores.
Many have also blamed the delay on the decision to centralise all distribution activities with the national taskforce.
“We have been hearing about the food by the President, it all remains just in the news, we don’t even know if it will ever reach this side…they are still far where they have been distributing for all this time. By the time they reach us, won’t we have starved to death?” she wonders, adding: “We need food, it is the priority. We are hungry.”

Nansubuga has been battling a strange disease since 2016. It is this that cost her sight, along with her energy and the multiplicity to make a living.
“I need to eat, actually I have the appetite now, the problem is that I don’t have the food,” Nansubuga adds.
Ambrose Ssalongo, a neighbour who has known Nansubuga for more than 10 years, remembers her hustle and determination to provide for her children.
“She would do any kind of activity, selling foods, roasting maize and taking to construction sites but now she can do none of that,” Ssalongo says.

It never rains but it pours
Teopista has had the opportunity to have her children supported through school by well-wishers.
Her first born had recently graduated and worked for one month (February) on trial. She would have been paid the next month but that is when the outbreak happened and schools were closed.

The third born, 17-year-old Cissy Nabakka, was is in her second year doing a course in Early Childhood Development. Her worry is palpable following reports that her sponsors from abroad have been badly affected by the pandemic and financial support is not assured anymore.
“I could finish school and join efforts with my sister to help mum, but now I am really scared,” she says, tightly clutching her sling bag.
The fate of the youngest two, Seven and 10 years old, who are in primary school, is equally uncertain.

For retired teacher Florence Acan Labongo, the burden of feeding a family of 10 is becoming too big to bear in these times.
“I used to sell samosas but now people are at home, they are not working, they don’t have money. That was my daily income. We used to have three meals per day, but right now we only have one,” she said.
“All we hear is that there is food distribution but we have seen nothing,” she says.
“When this disease came, we had many things in our minds, either we are going to die or we are going to starve. I had saved some money but used it to stock some food. But now our stock is almost over and I don’t know how we are going to survive for the remaining days,” Labongo says.

Elderly couple Margaret and Joshua Ssekweyama believe that decentralising the process of food distribution would have made it fast enough and saved many from starvation.
“We want food, we need the food,” Margaret says. Joshua argues that efforts to help the needy should not be politicised because people are suffering.
The couple, together with their four grandchildren, also resorted to one meal a day since they cannot access their gardens in Mpigi and Kyagwe due to the ban on public transport.