After the devastating effects that Cyclone Idai has had in Mozambique over the past month, approximately 305,000 children are being left without attending school.
UNICEF broke down the importance of education amid the cyclone in a recent press release. The humanitarian organization reports that over 3,400 classrooms have been damaged in the surrounding regions where the natural disaster took place with an additional 2, 713 damaged ones in the Sofala area.
Educators in the community are also suffering from the absence of schooling, but UNICEF is determined to help out the cause in any way they can.
“UNICEF and its partners are working to help children return to school as quickly as possible,” reads the statement. “This includes providing educational supplies and early childhood development (ECD) kits, establishing temporary learning centers, distributing school tents, making repairs to school water and sanitation facilities, cleaning and disinfecting schools, and training teachers on psychosocial support for children.”
The organization has launched an appeal of $122 million dollars from the U.S. to help support the children and their families who are affected by Idai in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
According to CNN, 300 to 400 were washed on a road out of Beira, a city in Mozambique. And at press time on March 25, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said that the country may have over 1,000 people dead after the cyclone. The commissioner for Mozambique in England, Filipe Chidumo said that the country needs both domestic and international help to overcome this tragedy: “a sustained effort on part of the Mozambican government as well as the international community,” he said.