Uniting Churches in Australia have thrown their support behind the communities devastated by the tsunami in Samoa, the flood in the Philippines and the earthquake in Sumatra, generously giving over $300,000 to support UnitingWorld relief efforts.

It has been a distressing time for partner churches as they care for the communities affected, where hundreds of lives have been lost and many people are now in need of food, shelter and medical attention. UnitingWorld is working through church partners in Samoa to restore livelihoods and rebuild homes and community centres.

In Indonesia, local church medical teams are distributing essential food and medical supplies. While over 400,000 people affected by the floods in the Philippines have been housed and 1,800 emergency relief packs distributed, thanks to the help of United Church of Christ in the Philippines.

Yet in the midst of these emergency relief efforts in the Pacific and South East Asia, there is a growing crisis that rarely rates a mention in the news: food insecurity in Zimbabwe.

Sophia Chiparu is one of five million people in need of food aid in Zimbabwe. She lives in the Buhera District and like many rural villagers has little more than a small mud and straw home. As she is approaching 70 years of age she is without support, as poverty and HIV/AIDS has devastated her family. She recently received emergency food supplies funded by UnitingWorld. Sophia strained to collect every last grain of corn which had fallen to the ground, knowing the value of even the smallest amount of food in a time of scarcity.

In 2008, Zimbabwe recorded the worst year on record for food security. Regional drought, hyper inflation, political instability and agricultural mismanagement have lead to chronic food insecurity across the country. The situation is set to deteriorate as the United Nations estimates that seven million people, more than half the population, will need to rely on food aid for survival by the end of this year.

Many of those suffering are rural Zimbabweans, like Sophia, who face great challenges in meeting their everyday needs. In most villages, bore water supplies barely function or produce poor quality water. Rural village stores remain closed and transportation is extremely limited. The country that was once the “bread basket” of southern Africa now struggles to feed its own people.

Bishop Simbarashe Sithole of the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, UnitingWorld’s long term partner in Zimbabwe, is eager to assist his people and work towards seeing the systems change so that the cycle of poverty can be broken.

“It will be very helpful if we can have food assistance for our people. As a church we are doing our best to ensure that whatever little is available gets to the remotest part of the country,” he said.

In partnership with the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, UnitingWorld has already distributed food supplies to affected communities such as Sophia’s village in Buhera. This has provided 835 hungry families with emergency food supplies. The grain was bought from Zimbabwean farmers in a more fertile region who had surplus but were in need of an income. Each family was given a food pack and received enough food for two weeks as well as soap and cooking oil.

The great need of the Zimbabwean community means that much more support is required to assist those suffering from ongoing food shortage.