Thanks(for)giving

For those of us who have recently called Canada home or those whose ties go back hundreds of years, we tend to mark this time of year with reflection, celebration and true thanksgiving. We celebrate the bountiful food that our farmers produce; we are thankful for the friends and families we share our lives with; and, for many of us, we enjoy the spectacular natural change of the season.

Maka Kassim and her husband tend to crops at Galbet Farm. Because of CARE's drought resilence programming in Garissa, they been able to diversify their livelihoods income and reduced the impact of the drought on their family and cattle. (Photo: CARE/Niki Clark)

Here at CARE Canada, we have consciously taken the time to reflect on our work and to recognize the positive results yielded: we have made inroads towards empowering women and girls as part of our mission to fight poverty and defend dignity worldwide.  Across the world, women are small-scale farmers struggling to meet their family’s needs. Laws and traditions are stacked against them, but almost daily we have heard reports that changes are taking place which make life a bit easier. The continued struggle pushes us and motivates us all to keep working.

We know that the changing climate will continue to have unpredictable effects on farming fields the world over. We know that more people will be pushed to the edges of poverty. But we also know that working with farmers and their crops today is having a positive impact in preventing the worst-case scenarios of the future. We know this because we are tracking progress, and turning lessons-learned into better programming.

Lucienne Vil picks tomoatoes at the community nursery she co-manages in Atribonite, Haiti.The nursery is part of a CARE horticulture project. (Photo: CARE/Mildrède Béliard)

Positive changes start with the desire of those living in poverty to make changes and with donors deciding that they can support those changes though their actions. We at CARE are incredibly thankful to our donors who show their solidarity with the women, girls, men and boys we work with every day as they continue their fight against poverty. We are also thankful to be working alongside courageous women and men in their struggle, and to be learning from them.

I know that this Thanksgiving season, I am thankful for my friends, family and the harvest, but I also stand in humble recognition of the incredible work happening right now because of Canadian donors and inspirational agents of change all over this planet. Thank you.

The children were playing

I woke up early in the morning and accompanied American and German journalists to a reception center before it had opened for the day. We found people sitting outside in neat rows. Women with their small children made up three lines of about 20 adults each, then two lines were made up of families, fathers and mothers together with their children, and lastly, another three lines of single men, young and old alike. This is the prioritization for access to the reception center – women and children first.

What struck me today were the children and the mothers. I have had the privilege oftraveling to many places in this big world of ours. I have found that in places where I spend time with people with whom I don’t share a common language, smiling and nodding hello is a great way to initiate communication. Often, the children I have met along the way find ways to laugh, to play, to joke with me…or the youngest of the children stare and sometimes cry if I get too close.

Picture taken of children in Dadaab, July 14, 2011.

Here, at the reception center, the children were not laughing, not playing…. The mothers did not really give me a smile back, barely any nodded back at me – rather they just stared at me. The children were sitting, very quietly and others curled on their mothers laps. Not exactly what you think of when you think of a two year-old in line somewhere. Many of these people have just arrived from their long journeys here. And at 7:30 am, they were really only focused on the last few hours before they were to receive their first ration of WFP food.

Later in the afternoon, we arrived at the area where refugees who have been here for about three months had set up their homes. We arrived around 4:30 in the afternoon. Areas with water taps were bustling with activity. Women and men were talking along the side of the dirt road, as women with wood on their heads and a man on bicycle passed by. Goats grazed on mostly barren bushes. And there were children – wow, were there children…they were hard to miss: running, smiling, laughing, playing, and wrestling. I was struck by the contrast of this morning’s scene. Water. Food. Shelter. Latrines. Education – all the services these refugees were now accessing; it gave me hope.

Impressions from Dadaab

Emergency Media Officer Alexandra Lopoukhine describes the situation in Dadaab refugee camp, northern Kenya, where nearly 1,500 people are arriving each day.

When a family arrives:
Outside of the reception centres, crowds of people are waiting. UNHCR has set up a structure that is open on all sides, but has a roof to help shade the burning noonday sun. It is still not big enough for all the people. The people are quiet; they are exhausted and in what seems like shock.  They are called into the reception centre in small groups to keep the flow inside moving.

Once they are called up to enter the reception centre (a fenced in compound with various tents, benches, tanks and taps of water that CARE provides) , they go to one of the three reception centres being run by UNHCR staff. They first go through an electronic finger printing screening which registers them and their family.  They get coloured bracelets based on which camp they are being received in (blue bracelet in Ifo, yellow in Dagahaley and red in Hagadera). They then move to receive non-food items being distributed by CARE staff (plastic mats to sleep or sit on, blankets, jerry cans). At that point they move to the food tent, and receive two weeks’ worth of food. CARE staff gives the food out. There is a medical tent for malnutrition screening and the CARE tent for counseling.  At the final step they are given a registration date and time to get to their UNHCR registration centre where they will then get their WFP ration card, tents and allocation of land.

Living in the camp:
Because the camps are full, people are setting up their places to live where they can find land. This has lead to sprawling overflow, haphazardly set up. Deforestation (de-shrubbing) has taken place. This is a real source of tension with the host community. This is the land that typical Kenyan-Somalis use as nomadic feeding and living grounds. So when the wind blows, the wind blows red dusty dirt all around. At times the dust is so thick, you cannot see one foot in front – cars stop, people cover their faces; lack of visibility can last up to a minute. The houses are round stick buildings with any type of covering around. The wind can blow these houses down. The children are generally covered in the dust. Feet are perpetually dirty, it seems. The sandy-ground is hot and many refugees have no shoes. Flip flops from China seem to be the most popular type of footwear.

One woman’s story:
Hawa Aden Hassan is a 30-year-old old with three children. Her husband stayed in Somalia. She has been here five months. She and a friend went out to collect branches to make their houses and they were attacked. They were able to get away and suffered only minor injuries. They are now afraid to go out and collect what is needed; she said they are sleeping in the open air. They generally don’t feel afraid, but they really want schools for the kids.

“The violence (in Somalia) is not good. This place is good as long as there is no fighting and there are schools to go to.” -  14-year-old boy.

Dadaab refugee camp

Posted by Alexandra Lopoukhine, Emergency Media Officer

The heat is strong and the wind is blowing. The shade provides relief. People are lined-up, orderly, and patient. There is an overwhelming sense of calm. This is not exactly what I would have expected in the Dagahaley registration center, as today, 1055 people wait for food and to be brought into the UNHCR system.

Then we spoke to a few of the women and they explained their long and challenging journey that brought them here, to the world’s largest refugee camp . They told us of their days of walking, of the challenges they faced in the last few days, and last few hours before they reach here. The hunger they faced at home. The insecurity. One women explained she had heard on the radio inSomaliathat here, in Dadaab, they were giving away free food. This was the information she needed to get her kids in order, and start the move. People were calm, I realized, because they had arrived.

They arrived to be greeted by staff from UNHCR, WFP, CARE, and so many other organizations here, ready, and able to support. Relief was offered in the tangible supplies of water, of food, and order. Orderly lines, orderly registration points, orderly information given to people reeling from their recently history of chaos. This is today’s relief.

Arrival in Kenya

Posted by Alexandra Lopoukhine

I have arrived in Kenya, on behalf of CARE Canada, and am en route to Dadaab, where we have operated three refugee camps for almost 20 years. The current drought in East Africa is driving many people to leave drought-affected areas for the refugee camps, in hopes of support. The camps were originally designed to support 90,000 people in the short-term, but they remain today and the population has risen to 367,000. Approximately 1,000 people a day are arriving at the camps and more than half are children.

I was last in Kenya in March of this year. I walked through Dadaab and learned about how refugees here live and the struggles they face each day. Most are desperate to leave, but have nowhere to go. There is so much violence in East Africa – people are afraid for their lives. Still, I saw mothers and children and families working hard to support, feed and care for each other.

This time, though, the situation is much worse.

It is estimated that 10 million people are affected by what is the worst drought the region has seen in 60 years. Yesterday, CARE and fellow Humanitarian Coalition members decided that the drought crisis in East Africa warranted further attention, both in terms of what was happening and fundraising so that we bring life-saving support to the increasing numbers of people affected by it. I will be gathering information to keep everyone up to speed on what is happening, and keep you informed along the way.