Freddy was the longest-lasting tropical cyclone ever recorded. It pummelled Malawi, where the president declared a state of emergency.

Ngonidzashe Nyambawaro was one of the early responders for the RCCE Collective Service, a grantee of The Rockefeller Foundation focused on community engagement and communication during a public health crisis.

The Collective Service provides coordinated risk communications and community engagement intelligence and support to governments and partners involved in national and local responses to Covid-19, and other public health emergencies. The Collective Service is a collaborative partnership between IFRC, UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), Global outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), and key stakeholders from the public health and humanitarian sectors.

Here, in a five-part series, is a report of his two weeks in the field.

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Freddy spent five weeks in February and March careening across the Indian Ocean. For Malawi, it meant disaster.

Cyclones like Freddy have been worsened by climate change, with warmer temperatures making the storms wetter, more intense, and more frequent.

In Malawi, the storm killed hundreds, displaced more than 500,000, and left overwhelmed rescue workers burrowing through the mud with their bare hands.

The numbers, though astounding, fail to capture the full human tragedy. Catastrophic flash floods flushed away lives, homes, crops, and livestock. The storm crippled the nation’s power grid.

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Some roads between Lilongwe and Blantyre are impassable, having being torn apart by Freddy. Still, as we set out from the capital, I am struck by the day’s sunny weather and clear skies. Green maize is springing up in the fields, smelling earthy and nutty, almost ready to harvest.

That is a heart-warming sight.

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Those of us who have never met before are getting to know one another even as we assess the situation here in Malawi.

The trauma of Cyclone Freddy, meanwhile, continues.

It is sobering to realize that weeks after the cyclone struck, people remain stuck under the mud or trapped by floods. Search and rescue teams are using sniffer dogs and helicopters are being sent to various of the effected districts—14 out of Malawi’s 28 districts.

Life is nowhere near back to normal.

Take education, for instance.

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This field work is the most satisfying part of the job. Our response team, identifying the most pressing needs through community engagement, has supplied households with cash, food, and medical supplies, as well as buckets, soap, plates, and cups.

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These responders are the real deal. Collectively, they are a vibrant group that has largely been left out of national coordination efforts.

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All of this was made possible through small, but significant changes in the tax code. The pandemic-era decision to make these federal tax credits fully refundable, with income requirements removed, created a cash benefit that acknowledged all the kinds of work that people are doing, regardless of whether someone collects a paycheck for their efforts. These expansions have the potential to create a more just and secure economy for low- and middle-income Americans, especially for people of color.

The federal CTC expansion has expired, despite a furious public education campaign by an aligned group of organizations through the end of last year. These efforts continue, at a slower pace in light of the intricacies of working with a divided government in Washington, and the President touted the CTC success in his State of the Union speech again this year.

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Today, we begin our open call for applications to convene at the Bellagio Center in 2024.

While all applications are welcome, we’re specifically interested in:  

• Addressing Climate Change – Especially the challenges faced by low and middle-income countries.
• Promoting Well-Being – Reorienting social, political, and economic systems to promote the holistic well–being of individuals and societies.
• Reinventing Capitalism – Alleviating the negative social impacts our economic systems have on low and middle-income countries and marginalized communities.

You can read more and apply on our website here. Applications are due ​June 16th, 2023.

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But vaccines don’t deliver themselves, so it is important that we pause, every year during World Immunization Week, to recognize the importance of the programs – and people – around the world that deliver these lifesaving tools.

While this is an opportunity to celebrate remarkable progress, this year we’re marking a different, but equally major milestone – though I’m sad to say it’s not a positive one: challenged by the pandemic and the many ways it interfered with routine immunization, countries around the world are experiencing the biggest sustained backslide in vaccine coverage in 30 years. To respond to this challenge, the World Health Organization and other immunization partners have launched The Big Catch-up, a campaign to rebuild hard-won progress on vaccination.

In no small way, my career has been driven by what I have witnessed, the transformative power of vaccines. But as the response to Covid-19 and the disruption of routine immunizations made clear, vaccines only save lives when they become vaccinations, and there are many obstacles that can hinder that process.

In 2022, The Rockefeller Foundation launched the Global Vaccination Initiative (GVI), a two-year investment to address immediate Covid-19 vaccination inequities facing low- and middle-income countries. Since then, the GVI has driven progress on vaccination by supporting leaders to build deep regional knowledge-sharing networks, derive insights from timely data, and communicate accurate information to vulnerable communities. While these lessons came in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, they are applicable to routine immunizations and the promise of health and well-being that they deliver.

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After two and a half years of drought, 5.4 million people in Kenya were projected to be without adequate access to food and water between March and June 2023, according to the International Rescue Committee.

But on March 16, the skies broke. “I planted maize with the soil still damp. And then I told God, ‘I have done my work. Now please do yours,’” said Julia Muroko, 60, who also grows cabbage and potatoes while raising two cows, pigs and poultry in rural Kiambu County, where we visited her.

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