I’ve put quite some thought into this, and how I can possibly sum up everything I’d love to share, in few enough words that you might possibly actually read it. I’m not sure I’ve met that feat. But I will try. And if you are willing to bear with me… I hope it will be worth your read. I –promise– and I really do, I will put together some more pictures and stories from my time in Ethiopia earlier this year, that will help tell these stories better than words alone. I’ve been working on it. It just takes some time.
This is a post about the Horn of Africa, which is dealing with the worst drought in 60 years. And as the crisis deepens, so does my call to respond. And I’m asking for your help.
I know many of you have already helped – through various organizations that have been alerted to the crisis since the earlier months of this year. Thank you - I am sure that it has made a huge difference already.
But as the crisis continues, I hope you might consider how you might respond… maybe “again” if you’ve already done so. We might never be able to do enough. But what we do do, what we choose to do, will make a difference to one life. Maybe many lives. The Canadian Government has also been “generous” enough to realize the gravity of the situation – and will match your donation until September 16, 2011. So, $1 from you before then, means $2 reaching those in need in the Horn of Africa.
I hope to share with you what HOPE International Development Agency is doing, and ask you.. if maybe, you might participate along with us as well, as we focus our efforts in the Horn of Africa region on helping families who have not yet received help, or are unable to access aid as the crisis continues to deepen.
At latest count, over 12 million people (stop.. and realize the extent of that “number”) in the Horn of Africa are in deadly serious need of help. It’s an overwhelming crisis. Over a third of these people are in Ethiopia, where HOPE has long worked with families to bring clean water and prosperity to their villages. A food crisis, triggered by drought, conflict, and high food prices, is affecting mothers, fathers, little boys, little girls, and babies. The situation is dire.
Alle Woreda, a district where HOPE works, saw so little rain this year that their summertime harvests simply didn’t come. My colleague just came back from Ethiopia last week. In her words,
As we drive down the road to the project area the fields are yellow and the maize (corn) is being harvested. The problem is that due to the irregular rains this year, the stalks have produced no ‘fruit’. Some fields are yellow, others are even green but ironically there are no ears of corn on any of them. It’s hard not to feel total dismay imagining the families that have sown these crops by hand with nothing to show for it. The families are ‘harvesting’ the stalks and leaves only to feed to their animals, there is no food for themselves. While typically families store up the current year’s grain and eat last year’s, in these post-conflict areas families lost everything they had 2 years ago. Since then they have been living on a hand-to-mouth existence and no maize harvest this year means they have nothing to eat.
It is a devastating picture. It is dismaying to see so many fields producing nothing. Right now the farmers that have more seeds are plowing the fields and planting the last of their seeds in the hope that this time enough rain will come. Otherwise, they have no alternatives or options, for many farmers it is their last stock they are risking.
Alle Woreda is a post-conflict area where many families fled violence several years ago. This exacerbates food insecurity – many families were put out of their homes, and are still living under plastic sheets HOPE provided as temporary shelters during the conflict. Their back-up food supplies, which they traditionally rely on during lean times, were burned when they fled, leaving them with no safety net. Now over 20,000 people in this district – and 15,000 of them children – are badly malnourished, while their livestock are dying in droves, and bouts of malaria and typhoid are claiming many lives as their bodies, normally strong enough to weather an common infection, are succumbing easily to these diseases.
The scale of the need is so. very. great. HOPE has decided to focus its efforts, first and foremost, on providing help for children who are at greatest risk. We are providing emergency therapeutic food supplements to young children at the clinics that no longer have even enough strength to chew – basically highly nutritious and calorie-rich supplements so they can get the needed nutrients (which allows the rapid weight gain that can mean the difference between life and death) for the next several months in order to survive.
In the camps of Somalia where displaced families are arriving in search of food (yet another story), we are providing maize, rice, flour, sugar, oil, and other supplies desperately needed.
There is so much we can do… that we need to do? .. that’s really only a question mark for consideration. I think I’ve got a pretty clear answer..
Will you join us to respond?
This is a post about the Horn of Africa, which is dealing with the worst drought in 60 years. And as the crisis deepens, so does my call to respond. And I’m asking for your help.
I know many of you have already helped – through various organizations that have been alerted to the crisis since the earlier months of this year. Thank you - I am sure that it has made a huge difference already.
But as the crisis continues, I hope you might consider how you might respond… maybe “again” if you’ve already done so. We might never be able to do enough. But what we do do, what we choose to do, will make a difference to one life. Maybe many lives. The Canadian Government has also been “generous” enough to realize the gravity of the situation – and will match your donation until September 16, 2011. So, $1 from you before then, means $2 reaching those in need in the Horn of Africa.
I hope to share with you what HOPE International Development Agency is doing, and ask you.. if maybe, you might participate along with us as well, as we focus our efforts in the Horn of Africa region on helping families who have not yet received help, or are unable to access aid as the crisis continues to deepen.
At latest count, over 12 million people (stop.. and realize the extent of that “number”) in the Horn of Africa are in deadly serious need of help. It’s an overwhelming crisis. Over a third of these people are in Ethiopia, where HOPE has long worked with families to bring clean water and prosperity to their villages. A food crisis, triggered by drought, conflict, and high food prices, is affecting mothers, fathers, little boys, little girls, and babies. The situation is dire.
Alle Woreda, a district where HOPE works, saw so little rain this year that their summertime harvests simply didn’t come. My colleague just came back from Ethiopia last week. In her words,
As we drive down the road to the project area the fields are yellow and the maize (corn) is being harvested. The problem is that due to the irregular rains this year, the stalks have produced no ‘fruit’. Some fields are yellow, others are even green but ironically there are no ears of corn on any of them. It’s hard not to feel total dismay imagining the families that have sown these crops by hand with nothing to show for it. The families are ‘harvesting’ the stalks and leaves only to feed to their animals, there is no food for themselves. While typically families store up the current year’s grain and eat last year’s, in these post-conflict areas families lost everything they had 2 years ago. Since then they have been living on a hand-to-mouth existence and no maize harvest this year means they have nothing to eat.
It is a devastating picture. It is dismaying to see so many fields producing nothing. Right now the farmers that have more seeds are plowing the fields and planting the last of their seeds in the hope that this time enough rain will come. Otherwise, they have no alternatives or options, for many farmers it is their last stock they are risking.
Alle Woreda is a post-conflict area where many families fled violence several years ago. This exacerbates food insecurity – many families were put out of their homes, and are still living under plastic sheets HOPE provided as temporary shelters during the conflict. Their back-up food supplies, which they traditionally rely on during lean times, were burned when they fled, leaving them with no safety net. Now over 20,000 people in this district – and 15,000 of them children – are badly malnourished, while their livestock are dying in droves, and bouts of malaria and typhoid are claiming many lives as their bodies, normally strong enough to weather an common infection, are succumbing easily to these diseases.
The scale of the need is so. very. great. HOPE has decided to focus its efforts, first and foremost, on providing help for children who are at greatest risk. We are providing emergency therapeutic food supplements to young children at the clinics that no longer have even enough strength to chew – basically highly nutritious and calorie-rich supplements so they can get the needed nutrients (which allows the rapid weight gain that can mean the difference between life and death) for the next several months in order to survive.
In the camps of Somalia where displaced families are arriving in search of food (yet another story), we are providing maize, rice, flour, sugar, oil, and other supplies desperately needed.
There is so much we can do… that we need to do? .. that’s really only a question mark for consideration. I think I’ve got a pretty clear answer..
Will you join us to respond?
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