GLIDE n° OT-2012-00046-GMB
6-month summary update
Period covered by this Ops Update: June to November 2012 (cumulative narrative and financial). The emergency appeal has been extended by one month bringing the timeframe to 9 months instead of 8 to enable the completion of planned activities. The date for the submission of the final report remains unchanged and will be available at the end of March 2013.
Appeal target (current): CHF 1,100,051.
Appeal coverage: 64% (excluding DREF allocation of CHF 185,974)
Appeal history:
• This Emergency Appeal was initially launched on 27 April 2012 for CHF 1,859,746 in cash, kind, or services to support Gambia Red Cross Society (GRCS) to assist 8,500 households (51,000 beneficiaries) for 8 months and to be completed by the end of December 2012. As a start up of the operation CHF 185,974 was allocated from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ (IFRC) Disaster Relief Emergency Fund (DREF) to support this operation. Un-earmarked funds to replenish DREF are encouraged.
• The Revised Emergency Appeal launched on 2 July 2012 reduced the budget to CHF 1,100,051 to assist a reduced number of 5,778 households/34,668 beneficiaries within the same timeframe.
• This Operation Update reports on the progress made from April to November 2012 and informs of the extension of operation timeframe by one more month to the end of January 2013 (a total of 9 months) in order to finalise the implementation of the vegetable communal gardens and other planned activities.
Summary:
Following the launch of the Emergency Appeal in April, funding arrived in June and subsequently the first activity to take place was the training of 48 Red Cross volunteers on data collection, beneficiary registration and relief distribution including 15 local community members that were also trained during the relief distribution.
The objective was to reach 34,668 beneficiaries/5,778 households to receive rice seeds and fertilizer vouchers in the North Bank and Lower River regions in the month of July, in time for planting during the main rainy season.
However, an additional 8,191 beneficiaries received this support as well; bringing the total figure of beneficiaries to 42,859 instead of 34,668. The reasons are due to some households being much larger than the six person head count that was estimated per family and also includes some students from religious schools and some vulnerable beneficiaries that had been left out during the beneficiary identification process.
For the health activities 146 volunteers were trained to follow up on the malnutrition activities. The operations are now in the recovery period and activities are focused on women-run community vegetable gardens. These vegetable gardens will allow them to diversify their nutritional intake and also be an opportunity for income generating activities to help build household resilience. 120 volunteers were also trained on hygiene promotion, screening and referrals to health facilities and of malnourished children up to 5 years old, using the mid upper arm circumference (MUAC); a total number of household visited was 12,537 in which 25,918 children have been screened for malnutrition.