Dear Sahel: Let’s Not Make the Same Mistakes Again

A Letter from the Horn of Africa to the Sahel

 

Dear Sahel:

I am sorry to hear of the 19 million people in your region who are facing critical food insecurity. Having gone through this myself only just last year, I understand, and I thought that maybe it was time I contacted you so that together we can work out how to change things.

In many ways, I am still trying to recover; in fact, over 9 million of my people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti are still in need of humanitarian assistance. In some regions of Ethiopia and southern Somalia children under five are already showing signs of acute malnutrition. So you may think, who am I to give you advice when my situation is clearly not much better than yours? Well, I may not have all the answers to everything but I do know one thing: droughts, even extreme ones do not come as a surprise to us. We have been here several times before. We must stop reacting to these situations the same way and learn new ways to protect our people.

My experience in 2011 taught me that our best efforts at using early warning systems and monitoring the food security situation of local communities will always be undermined if warnings are not heeded and acted upon. We’ve both been through droughts so many times before; we know very well when poor rains are likely to turn into something more serious. We must learn to trust this judgement and for others to trust us too.

When the situation goes from bad to worse (and I hope you don’t get to this point) the right support for emergency responses is vital. For example, last year, we learned that cash interventions could help as much, if not more than food distributions and that some emergency responses could be harmful to our longer-term interventions. Our people don’t want to be dependent.   They have the skills and resilience to respond to drought and they know best how to cope. But even the best, traditional coping mechanisms cannot withstand increasingly changing climate patterns, uncontrollable rises in food prices, and chronic conflict on top of years of underinvestment in these vulnerable areas.

I hope that the funds and assistance you are beginning to receive are enough. Increased financial support is vital, not only to save the millions of lives that are in immediate risk, but also to help you to  invest in longer-term interventions that protect people’s assets and supports them to cope and develop resilience to future shocks. In my experience, built into this approach must also be the ability to respond quickly and comprehensively when times will, inevitably, get tough again and a commitment to continue working to prevent crises when times are good.

Over the years we’ve changed the labels that we use to describe the tools we use, to explain the problems, and the solutions available to us, but fundamentally the reasons behind our food security crises have stayed the same.

A real challenge I faced last year was the fact that increasingly the most vulnerable communities in my region are located in the hardest to reach areas. Conflict and insecurity means it was really difficult to reach families who needed our help the most. We have to ensure everyone respects the rights of communities in need to receive assistance. Sometimes this means we have to think outside the box and come up with new ways to reach people. But this doesn’t mean we should compromise our principles. Humanitarian agencies should still deliver quality projects in a more coordinated way and be accountable for what they do.

Our Governments and their partners need to invest resources effectively in the infrastructure necessary to promote resilience in drylands areas, otherwise communities will never be strong enough to cope when times are hard. We cannot continue to neglect these areas. We must find ways to maximize their economic potential and support their traditional agricultural and pastoral methods.

We must also focus on the most vulnerable in our communities. During last year’s food crisis in my region, just as in any major crisis, women and children bore the brunt of the shortages. Out of the 12 million people affected, an estimated 360,000 of them were pregnant women. Mothers are the first to sacrifice feeding themselves to feed their children, and with so many cows and goats dying without water, poor milk supplies left over 2 million children malnourished and struggling to survive.

 There is a lot more I could say and a lot more we can do and will need to do, but for now my only hope is that you will keep from making the same mistakes as me. I also hope that I will be able to apply the lessons I learned last year and when (not if) the next drought comes, my people won’t suffer as much as they did in 2011.

Wishing you all the best,

Horn of Africa

East Africa Drought: One Year Later

Last summer Canadians like you responded to a massive food and drought crisis affecting 12 million people in East Africa. Successive seasons of insufficient rainfall, coupled with increased instability in the region, forced families to the brink of survival. Hundreds of thousands of people from Somalia fled their homes in search of food, shelter, and safety, resulting in a dramatic influx of refugees to the world’s largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, as well as other neighbouring countries. In July 2012, the worst-case scenario was realized when famine was declared in parts of Somalia.

As families in East Africa struggled to survive, Canadians like you responded. Your support helped CARE reach 2.8 million drought-affected women, men and children in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia with

• food, water and essential household and hygiene supplies;
• treatment for acute malnutrition of children under five;
• the expansion and rehabilitation of water sources, sanitation facilities and hygiene education;
• support and counseling for survivors of trauma, sexual and gender-based violence;
• support to herding communities to maintain the health of their animals; and
• agricultural support such as seeds to allow farmers to replant.
  

  Shukri Ali Ahalif, a member of CARE’s Gender and Development team in Dadaab, Kenya, and himself a refugee, explains to a Somali family how to access the services they need in Dadaab.

CARE continues to work in the region, as many communities remain vulnerable, and thanks to you, will be there in the years ahead as families face increasingly challenging circumstances.

Want to see more photos of CARE’s work in the crisis? Check out our Flickr Photo Album commemorating the event.

What would it take for you to shave your head?

By guest blogger Rebecca Drouin. On November 29, 2011, Rebecca Drouin shaved her head to raise awareness and funds towards drought relief in the Horn of Africa. We asked her why.

At the end of October, I announced to my friends and family that in exactly one month I would be shaving my head to raise awareness, and monetary funds for famine and drought relief in the Horn of Africa. My goal was to raise $1,000 for CARE Canada, donate rice to the World Food Programme through Freerice.com, and to create awareness about the worst drought in 60 years in which over 30,000 children had died in only three months. I knew that the shock value of buzzing over 13 inches of my treasured hair would be enough of a draw to encourage people to listen to my story.

My Inspiration
Last year, I travelled to rural Kenya. I was immersed in the beautiful culture, scenery and lifestyle of the people for three unforgettable weeks. Food was cooked over an open fire in a mud hut, showers came from solar bags, water was lugged from nearly a kilometer away – it was hardly the lifestyle I had ever experienced coming from a middle class Ontarian family. We toured a primary girls’ school that had no glass in the windows, was filled with mold and devoid of books. I will never forget what was written on each of the dilapidated desks. From “schoolteacher” to “magistrate” to “engineer”, these desks shone with bright dreams of the little girls.

Throughout this past summer, I would watch the news about the drought crisis and try my best to choke back tears. I couldn’t get out of my head the image of all the happy little girls with their big dreams written on their desks. Where were they now? Why was a country that showed me truly what love, generosity and kindness was going through such unnecessary devastation? My biggest question was: What can I do? What difference can I make?

My mind flashed back to the Maasai village that I had visited in Kenya. For the Maasai people, headshaving signifies the turning of a new page, and a new beginning for major life events. What better significance than to shave off my hair to create a new beginning for those my fundraising efforts would reach? Not only was it a way to raise money but it would evoke a reaction from my friends, family and community to create awareness for a cause close to my heart.

Why CARE?
CARE has an excellent reputation for transparency of aid, low administration costs, and allowed me to choose that my fundraiser would specifically be towards the Horn of Africa. Women and children are the world’s most vulnerable populations, but are also the world’s most effective agents of change. CARE Canada implements both immediate assistance and long term programming to target the root cause of hunger, and poverty in developing countries through empowerment of women and children. This made CARE Canada the perfect fit for my fundraiser.

The result!
I raised over 200,000 grains of rice through Freerice and thousands of people were able to hear my story through various media sources. I surpassed my goals and donated over $1,400 to CARE Canada.

Many people ask me what that dollar amount can do when there is so much to be done. What can it do?

• Feed approximately 6000 children.
• Supply meals for 28 children for a year through school feeding programs.
• Buy 14 sheep to provide income for families.
• Provide clean water for 7150 children for a year.

These examples go beyond immediate relief. A meal means more than a child being fed. With a meal, a child is provided with the nutrition to live, the strength to go to school and the promise of a future. It provides a cycle of change for not only the recipient but reaches out to families and communities.

A donation may feel insignificant to some people when there are millions of people in need of aid in the Horn of Africa. In reality, any donation is significant. With organizations such as CARE Canada reaching little girls like Daisy and Faith that sat in those desks in Kenya and dreamed of a future, you have the power to create a ripple that will give life, a chance at a new beginning and hope that dreams do come true. With so many hopeful ripples created, the world is bound to make waves of change.

Special thanks to Jen from ‘Heaven’s Hair Design’ in Fort Erie for donating her time to shave my head. Photo credits for all photos to Jesse from Jesse James Photography, who was kind enough to donate his talent as well. Visit care.ca to learn more about CARE’s work or to make a donation.

World Food Day

Each year, CARE joins the humanitarian community and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation to observe World Food Day – a day that spotlights the global fight against food insecurity. That struggle is more relevant than ever in the Horn of Africa, where more than 13 million people remain locked in the grip of the world’s worst food crisis.

As our bloggers have discussed over the past three months, CARE is responding to the crisis by providing food, safe water and sanitation services, as well as support for the treatment of acute malnutrition among children under 5. To date we have reached more than 1.5 million people.

The following video will give you some insight into what CARE has been doing to fight food insecurity throughout this crisis.

Observe. Understand. Adapt.

Guest blogger Sabine Wilke is an Emergency Response Media Officer for CARE International. This was her first visit to the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya.

I am standing in front of the borehole well, waiting for the clicking sound of my camera. But there is no sound. The CARE engineer has just explained how ground water is pumped up and then distributed to water stations. We are wandering around Dagahaley, one of the three refugee camps in Dadaab. A photographer working for a newspaper is gathering images of how a refugee camp works. But now as we stand at the borehole I feel yesterday’s long hours creeping up on me and my camera battery has obviously run out.

For the past two weeks in Dadaab, I spent most of my days in the camps, documenting the work of CARE, accompanying journalists or interviewing colleagues. My head is still buzzing with all the information and impressions. Like any humanitarian crisis, Dadaab is fast-paced and loud.

A young girl waits at the reception area of the Ifo 1 refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. A young girl waits at the reception areaA young girl waits at the reception area. (Photo: CARE/Sabine Wilke)

But now, sitting down in the sand near a water tap stand, I am quietly watching the hustle and bustle going on around me. The photographer stands on top of a water tank to get a better angle. None of the women or children fetching water pay much attention to us — water is much more important than the strange sight of a visiting foreigner. I curiously watch two young women leaving with their jerry cans full of water. But they don’t carry them on their heads; instead, they roll them across the sand. I wish my camera was working.

I watch a man with his donkey cart. Women lift their jerry cans onto the cart, tightening them with ropes and rags. Getting places here in Dadaab takes time. The three camps cover some 56 square kilometers. Owning a donkey cart is a pretty good business. It is so hot that everything here seems to happen in slow motion. Finally the cart starts to move. I wonder how much the women have to pay for their transportation and whether they will still have enough money left to buy food for their children. While I sit in the sand, their skinny legs are at eye level. I can count the children wearing shoes on the fingers of one hand.

Humanitarian aid means reaching as many people as possible with at least minimum needs, given limited resources. In Dadaab, CARE and other agencies provide about 500 grams of food and about 12 litres of water per person and day, some basic medical assistance, some counselling.

A boy in Illeys Primary School, Dagahaley camp. (Photo: CARE/Syara Kareb)

Every one of these 414,000 refugees is a unique person with a particular history, hopes and sorrows – but the scale of this emergency is so vast, we can’t possibly meet all those individual, specific needs. What we can do is slow things down for a while and pay attention. Observe. Understand. And adapt our programs to what we see. For example, CARE might soon pay the owners of the donkey carts so that weak and poor women don’t have to spend the rest of their money for transportation of water and food.

It is quick and easy to take a picture, upload it to your computer and then forget about it. But the pictures I saved in my head today will linger much longer.

Life as a humanitarian aid worker: Part 1

August 19th marks World Humanitarian Day – a day to recognize humanitarian aid workers around the world, many of whom work under extremely difficult conditions. CARE employs 11,300 people worldwide and the large majority, 97 percent, are local staff.  This is the first installment of a three-part blog series to introduce you to a few of the people who bring humanitarian aid to people around the world.

Fatuma Adan Mohammed is a CARE Community Development Worker working with CARE’s Prevention of Sexual and Gender-based Violence program in Dagahaley camp, Dadaab Refugee Camp, Kenya. More than 1,600 refugees work for CARE in the Dadaab camps.

Twenty years ago, when I was three years old, my family and I were welcomed at the Dadaab Refugee Camp. We had to run away from the fighting in my home country, Somalia. The people we found here in Kenya showed us what it means to be sincere and honest with strangers. They gave us water and medicine. I got an education. So when I saw new refugees arriving from Somalia, so weak and scared, I wanted to help them, like people once helped my family.

I’m 23 now. So I am just three years older than the camp, which opened in 1991. I’ve lived my whole life here, as a refugee. I live in Dagahaley camp, in a hut with my sister, mother, and sister-in-law.

I came as a refugee, but today I am both a refugee and a humanitarian aid worker. I work with CARE’s program to help women who have been victims of sexual violence. Since I grew up here, and was educated here, I know that women are so affected by sexual violence. I wanted to do what I could to help those women.

Fatuma Adan Mohammed, 23, talks with children in the Dadaab refugee camp. Photo: CARE/Juliett Otieno

I have been working in this job for 10 months now, and I am still sad every time I hear the experiences the women share with me. The numbers of cases of sexual violence reported have quadrupled since the beginning of the year. When the women run away from Somalia, sometimes they are attacked on the way. Some women have told me stories of being raped in front of their husbands or children. Some women were raped by many men at the same time.

These women look at me like I am so young, wondering how I can assist them. But I have managed to be confident, and also to show them that I can be of help to them.

There are now more than 400,000 refugees here, like me. The camp was built for 90,000 people. Because I am a refugee, the borders of this camp city are also the borders of my world.

As a refugee, I don’t have a Kenyan national identification card, so free movement is not as simple as getting on a bus and leaving the camps. The buses are checked going in and out of Dadaab. I left Dadaab once this year in May to accompany my nephew to Kijabe in Central Kenya for medical care. For that, I got special permission from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) , which runs the camps, and from the clinic. Other than that, I stay here, in the camp.

As part of my job, we go to the reception centres where the newly arrived people are waiting patiently for food and water. Yesterday I saw a woman lick dust off her wrist as she waited in line at the reception centre, because she was hungry and could not take it anymore. Her husband and her children were all there, I felt so bad for them. They have walked for days with no food or water.

Newly arrived refugees from Somalia wait to be registered at Dagahaley camp, one of three camps that make up the Dadaab refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Photo: Kate Holt/CARE.

We look for women gathered together, or standing alone with their families in the queue at the reception centre. We very carefully and discreetly ask if any of them may have been attacked on the way from Somalia to Dadaab, if any of them were raped or went through a traumatic experience as she travelled.

If a woman says yes, I help them to fast track their reception process, which nowadays takes 30 days due to the high influx of new refugees. I usher them into the gate to the front of the queue. What we do is known, and our partner organizations do not frown upon us when we take someone to the front. They understand that we are serving the women and helping them.

Then I help them get their food and water rations, emergency supplies and their wrist band so they can be registered in the camp. I take them to CARE’s office, where I describe the woman’s story to a CARE counsellor so we can follow up and arrange medical care or report the event to the police. A professional counsellor sits with the woman and helps her psychologically.

Then I return to the camps to help identify more survivors of rape or violence. There are always more. This is what I do every day.

I want to be a professional counsellor in the future, because I feel there is more I can do for the women and girls I meet, but I am not qualified. I want to be able to intervene more than I do already, and especially to support victims of abuse.

As a humanitarian worker, I will continue to do what I can to help other refugees, so they can look back and remember that they were welcomed and given help when they needed it most. That after the horrible experiences they went through to get here, kindness can come from strangers.

More than cows

Guest blogger Jessie Thomson is the emergency response program manager for CARE Canada and recently returned from Kenya, where she was part of the CARE emergency response team. Jessie is travelling back to Kenya this weekend.

In Kenya, there is a saying that when a cow dies in a drought, it dies facing the nearest water point. You’ve likely seen the photos on the news – pictures of cow carcasses laying where they fell on the dry, cracked earth in East Africa. Perhaps you find the pictures shocking or perhaps you barely notice and think, “that’s sad, but it’s just a cow.” For me, it’s not only sad to see an animal that has died trying to reach water and food, but with each death there is a family that was dependent upon that animal for their food and income.

Three men assist a cow to stand up. Due to the shortage of pasture, most cattle in Borana, Ethiopia, are very weak and cannot stand alone. Credit: CARE/Gemechu Dida

I travelled by road to Dadaab, now the world’s largest refugee camp in the world. It’s about an eight and a half hour journey from Nairobi – and the place you start couldn’t be more different than the one you arrive at. After you leave the bustling metropolis of Nairobi, it’s a long journey of increasingly less and less greenery. The closer you get to Dadaab, the drier and less hospitable it gets – and the more the animal carcasses start to appear.

The cow carcasses – one every 100 feet – got to me. I grew up in a small town in farm country. I know what a cow means to a farmer: it’s more than an animal, it’s your livelihood. To lose a cow is to lose your ability to feed and care for your family. For the new refugees arriving at Dadaab, this is the situation they’re in. Many have sold off all their belongings or simply left them behind in order to get to Dadaab where they hope to find help for their family.

Newly arrived refugees from Somalia wait to be registered at Dagehaley camp, one of three camps that make up the Dadaab refugee camp.

I’ve worked in a number of emergency situations, from Haiti to Pakistan, but Dadaab was like nothing I had seen before. People were arriving hungry, many having walked for weeks. They arrive to join thousands other people in a similar situation as them. When new refugees arrive they receive a food ration that is good for 21 days in the reception area.

I was in Kenya to help work on CARE’s emergency strategy. We’re responding now, with life-saving food and water, but we’re also planning activities to help families recover from this crisis and to build resiliency in communities both inside and outside the camps, so that families don’t have to face an emergency like this again in the future.

Defining famine

Across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, a prolonged drought has placed more than 11 million people – most of them children – in need of immediate food assistance. On July 20, 2011, the United Nations declared a famine in two parts of southern Somalia, the Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions. Famine is the highest food security alert level.

We asked CARE’s Stephen Cornish, director of bilateral projects, about what declaring a famine means and what the implications are for CARE’s work.

What does declaring a famine mean?
Basically, it’s the difference between hunger and starvation, emergency and catastrophe. It means there’s a complete breakdown in people’s ability to access food, of the government’s ability to provide and protect, of family support systems and other safety nets. People have no access to food, no ability to grow food, no livestock and no livelihood. In desperation people sell off their assets and uproot from their homes in search of help – they are literally left with no other alternative.

Technically, a famine means that 30% of the population is malnourished, that two people in 10,000 will die per day from the general population or that four children per 10,000 will die per day. In some parts of Somalia, that number is currently at five or six children out of 10,000 dying each day.

How did we get here?
This situation is sadly preventable. Although no one could have said they knew famine was coming, the international humanitarian community knew the area was in a precarious situation. Successive years of poor rain were further compounded by challenges and restrictions on aid in Somalia and the rising cost of food in the affected areas. A famine isn’t like a hurricane or an earthquake, it happens slowly and it is often difficult to see the effects until the crisis is well-underway. However, there is an early warning system in place and it was sounded at the end of 2010. CARE and our partners in East Africa have been trying to bring attention to the situation; unfortunately humanitarian response appeals have been insufficiently funded.

How does the declaration of a famine change the way the international humanitarian community responds?
The declaration itself doesn’t necessarily change how we respond, but the fact of a famine does. It means we ramp up our response significantly. We’re at a stage where we need to provide emergency life-saving needs, such as food, water, medical treatment and shelter. Many of the children need a medical nutrition program. Many areas outside the famine areas are suffering under a drought crisis and we must also ensure that they are able to access food and water.

Newly arrived refugees from Somalia collect water at a water point that is having water delivered to it by a CARE water truck at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

What are the implications for CARE?
We have scaled up our delivery of life-saving assistance, including emergency food, water and sanitation, as well as protection activities. This means sending our emergency response team to the region and hiring new emergency staff. We are also advocating that a concerted, coordinated response is necessary from everyone.

This isn’t a temporary situation – one rainfall, or even one harvest, won’t see everyone returning to their homes. We need to help people get through this emergency by providing the life-saving support that they need, both those affected by famine as well as those affected by the prolonged drought.

In the mid to long-term, people will need support in rebuilding their lives. They will need assistance with getting livestock and tools so they can develop and later increase their own livelihood. We will want to empower families to be more resilient economically against these situations in the future and to develop their own social safety nets. Our ongoing development programs have done this for tens of thousands of people in the region, but, as a result of the drought, it needs to happen for hundreds of thousands more.

The people affected by this crisis are dignified farmers and livestock raisers who were affected by something beyond their control. We have the capacity to save lives; we just need the resources and funds to do it. I believe we all must act – it’s our duty to ensure things don’t get worse.

For more information on CARE’s work in East Africa, visit care.ca.

Borena, Ethiopia: On the Edge of Disaster

By guest blogger Audrée Montpetit, Senior Humanitarian Program Quality Advisor, CARE Ethiopia

We traveled ten hours by car from Addis Ababa to reach the CARE Ethiopia Borena Field office based in Yabello. This small town is located some 200 kilometers from the Kenyan border. CARE is scaling up its emergency relief operations rapidly to address the worsening drought situation for this primarily pastoralist population. The Borena pastoralists are known for their hardiness and endurance, as well as for their cultural tradition of ensuring that the children are fed and asleep before the men eat, and finally the women. When malnourishment of children amongst this population becomes a source of concern, it is clear that there is a crisis on hand.

In a presentation at the CARE office, the CARE field staff and government officials jointly painted a very grim picture of the current situation and repeatedly referred to a disaster in the making with the loss of over 200,000 livestock dead in Borena (out of 750,000) as a result of lack of pasture and water. Without cattle, there will be neither income to buy food or milk to feed the children. As the cattle weaken and become emaciated, they no longer produce milk and often reach a stage that by the time they are slaughtered, there is hardly any meat left on the bone to consume.

Hasalo Duba (right):"Before the drought, I had 10 cows. Six have died, I had two slaughtered today and now I have only two left. I have six children, my husband and my grandmother to feed. Only one of my cows gives milk." Credit: CARE/Sandra Bulling

In one of CARE’s innovative programs in close collaboration with government authorities and community leaders, we aim to recover some value from emaciated and unproductive animals that would otherwise die from the effects of drought. Slaughter destocking decreases the grazing pressure at times of high pasture scarcity. We saw carcass after carcass being thrown into a pit after the animal was killed, and those animals that still yielded some meat were butchered and shared amongst families identified by government authorities as vulnerable. CARE Ethiopia’s program of de-stocking provides an opportunity to pastoralists to sell their cows at a fair price and to receive in addition to nearly USD 50 for each cow, grain to feed two remaining cattle. This project is an excellent effort to help families not only gain some savings from their cattle before they die from weakness, but also to try to save those they still have.

But – their remaining cattle are very few. Of original herd sizes of 15, 30 or 40 in nearly every case, women and men would tell us that they had only two or three cows left. They have lost the majority of their cattle in the past few months with mounds of partially decomposed skeletons scattered throughout the landscape attesting to this fact.

Due to consecutive failure of the last two rainy seasons, water is very scarce in Moyale. Women, who are usually responsible to collect water, now have to walk longer distances to access the nearest water point. Some walk three hours one way to the next well or water pond. Credit: CARE/Sandra Bulling

The respected elderly clansmen of Borena have predicted that the next rains will fail as well. Scientists credit the current drought to the La Nina phenomenon which changes weather patterns and causes drier conditions in Eastern Africa. The rains are not even due for another two months yet they are expecting the worse as their situation now is very grim. A dignified elder told us that there was no hope for them: “We shall pass, but we must help the children.” He told us that they are not able to care for their cattle and that this is not their first priority anymore. The major issue is now the health of their children who are already starting to suffer. His words highlighted the scenes and conversations of the day visiting a local health center where too-thin babies were being treated for malnutrition, to the destocking site, and water provision activities, and later to the amazing clan gathering of around 15,000 Borena who meet every eight years to elect new leaders. At this gathering, we were told that there were very few cattle and camels. One of the elders gestured to the encampment area and said: “Look, it is empty. In the past years there were too many cattle and we had no space. This year we have hardly any cattle.” They told us that their fate is not in their own hands, and that they have to pray to God for rain. However, their cultural wisdom of ages past leads them to believe that the rains in September will fail again.

There is a window of opportunity for the Borena if assistance is able to reach them at this time. They have lost their assets, their source of family insurance has gone, and they now face three months, at the very least, of continued drought. They are sure that without help, they and their families are at extreme risk of losing their lives. The CARE Ethiopia team has worked diligently over the past years to develop an excellent strategy and complementary set of interventions to help mitigate this situation in Borena. But, the complex set of factors created by a catastrophic region wide drought caused by the La Nina phenomenon, the loss of a cattle market in the Middle East, chronic poverty and the dramatic increase in food prices has resulted in a situation where the Borena are on the edge of disaster.

CARE is acting now to scale up and expand our efforts in our current programming areas of CARE Ethiopia — to save lives that will be at extreme risk in the coming months. But we need more help. We need to prevent people from leaving their homelands in search of refuge, to prevent a further long term catastrophe including complete loss of livelihoods as well as loss of lives.

Somali refugees in Dadaab: The worst crisis I’ve seen

By guest blogger Barbara Jackson, Humanitarian Director, CARE Emergency Group

We’ve just returned from a visit to Dadaab Refugee camp in northern Kenya, where I was accompanied by the CARE Canada President and CEO Kevin McCort, CARE Australia Head of Fundraising Andrew Buchannan and CARE USA Head of Foundations Liz McLaughlin.

In my more than 20 years of field experience with CARE, I have not seen such widespread levels of the effects of lack of food on so many people. Every single man, woman and child that we saw and met with of the more than 1, 500 people arriving daily do not have a spare ounce of flesh on their bodies. The adults are literally down to the bone; the children are incredibly listless, showing obvious signs of malnutrition and distress. Single mothers carry one or two children on their backs with others holding tightly onto their ragged wrap.

A mother sits with her child. Newly arrived refugees from Somalia live in cramped and makeshift homes on the outskirts of the Dadaab camps. Credit: Kate Holt

We met groups of over 40 people who had traveled together, leaving behind the elderly whom they knew would not be able to make the walk of 20 or more days to reach Dadaab. They do not know if they will ever see each other again.

Every single person with whom we talked – from those who had just arrived after a grueling journey to those who have been waiting in small hastily and sparsely constructed shelters, to those working as volunteers with CARE to provide food and some basic essentials – asked us to help them to tell the world of their plight. “Please share our message from Dadaab that we need help, that we cannot wait, that we have come this far and we still do not have the food and shelter that we need.”

There are more than 15,000 refugees who have arrived who are still not on the UN registration system and are not entitled to receive basic health services or a monthly ration of food. We met many of these people on the outskirts of one camp where CARE is now providing additional water and sanitation services.

When I asked to see their vouchers that were provided to them upon arrival to confirm when a date had been set by which they would be officially registered, I was surrounded by many people who dug into their carefully wrapped worn bags and pockets to show me vouchers with dates for as far away as mid September. One young woman asked, “I am hungry now and I have no shelter, how will I be able to wait this long for food for myself and my children? We thought we would be able to get help here but there is no help.”

Yet, these vouchers are like gold, and each one is carefully wrapped up and tucked back away for safe keeping. Without a voucher, a family does not get into the system and therefore it is as if they had not walked and risked their lives to reach Dadaab. They do not exist in the system.

Our CARE staff is working many long hours each and every day to help speed up food distribution, to get water and sanitation services out to those who are escaping from the drought plaguing the region, to increase educational services for the influx of many more young children. The commitment and dedication of our staff is incredibly impressive and they are doing this in the face of many challenges and difficult working and living conditions. There is no complaint voiced ever, yet their faces are lined and at the end of the day, almost too tired to talk. We must get them additional help and support and we need to get it to them now.

I am extremely heartened by the great willingness and generosity of the CARE members to offer expertise and personnel as well as hopefully, in the short term future, significant additional funding. Many of the people whom we met thanked us – for the support they are receiving now and for what they truly hope will be the urgent additional support that they need now.

On Monday, Kevin McCort and I will meet with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) High Commissioner in Geneva. We hope that we can help ensure that the refugee registration system in Dadaab will be rapidly accelerated for without that, there will be a continued huge gap and many women, children and men left without any hope.

I am now in Ethiopia, visiting communities where CARE Ethiopia works to see how we can help expand our programming here to ensure that people do not leave their homes in search of help, that they will be able to survive the coming very lean months.