Malian Solidarity in a Time of Crisis

Guest blog post by Marie-Eve Bertrand, Quebec Director of Development, Communications and Fundraising for CARE Canada. Marie-Eve recently returned from Mali, where families are facing a difficult drought and food crisis.

Mali is an African country, located in a region commonly referred to as the Sahel. The Sahel, or Sahil in Arabic, is the border between the Sahara and more fertile and green lands.  It is a dividing zone, a mixture of cultures, people and tastes. Here in Mali, the number of ethnic groups and tribes are too numerous to count, yet  they still talk to me about tolerance, love and sharing.

You can make a difference on World Humanitarian Day

August 19th is World Humanitarian Day. The message of the day is “Do something good somewhere, for someone else.” There are a lot of ways to take action in honour of this day, including helping support a humanitarian response that can have a positive impact on hundreds of thousands of people. 

Photo: Brendan Bannon

Did you know that a food crisis in the Sahel Region of West Africa is currently affecting 18 million people?

The women of Mali

Guest blog post by Marie-Eve Bertrand, Quebec Director of Development, Communications and Fundraising for CARE Canada. Marie-Eve recently returned from Mali, where families are facing a difficult drought and food crisis.

Here I am, thinking about my life and aspirations – wondering what I will do in two or three weeks, even a month. As for her, she can only think about tomorrow. She needs enough milk for her youngest baby who still depends on her breast milk. She must have enough rice for her other children, to stop them crying due to hunger. Only when they are all fed will she sit and eat. Even though she’s pregnant, she will never let her children go to bed on an empty stomach to fill hers.

That was three months ago, before CARE started giving emergency assistance here in central Mali.

The Time is Now for Development in Chad

Guest post by Kevin McCort, CEO, CARE Canada

One year ago I travelled to Kenya amid a devastating drought and food crisis that was affecting 12 million people in East Africa. Last summer I saw the outpouring of support from Canadians from coast to coast and because of that CARE was able to respond quickly and strongly.

However, one year later, I’ve just returned from Chad amid a similar crisis affecting countries in the Sahel Region of West Africa.

Unlike in East Africa where the UN declared famine in parts of Somalia, Chad and other countries in the region are not currently experiencing that worst-case scenario. Regardless of that, 18 million people in the Sahel region of West Africa face a severe food crisis. What struck me during this trip is that in some ways our success in preventing famine in Chad has actually impeded our ability to draw attention to this critical situation. The lack of a “highly visible tragedy” that a famine declaration provides just isn’t there. Although our efforts are averting a famine, we lack the means to support long-term development, which is worrisome because now is the time for development in Chad.

For the first time in a decade, Chad is experiencing peace and stability, particularly when compared to its neighbours in Libya, Nigeria, Mali, Sudan and the Central African Republic. It’s one of the country’s most stable periods, which has seen a history rife with civil war, armed rebellions, border conflicts and guerrilla campaigns.

Meeting with the Village Leaders

At CARE we have a window of opportunity to do truly effective and impactful development work in Chad. When we visited a small village near Biltine in the eastern part of the country, we gathered in a traditional way, sitting on mats under a large tree, sipping tea. As we engaged with female and male community leaders, we discussed how CARE had refurbished water supply points, how funds we raised through the HUMANITARIAN COALITION have helped with the current emergency. Throughout this meeting I kept wondering how we could take the next step, build on our successes and truly seize the golden moment for development.

Chad still faces challenges including a population of over 366,000 refugees, an economic collapse as cross-border trade dries up, and of course, the current drought. In addition to managing refugee camps in two separate regions of Chad that 60,000 refugees from Sudan and the Central African Republic call home, CARE is also scaling up its emergency response efforts to support both refugees and local community members who are struggling to feed their families.  

While in Chad, I visited a government run hospital where CARE was referring malnourished children. The head of the hospital (supported  by Médecins Sans Frontières), expressed a frustration at the number of children who successfully received treatment but reappeared at the hospital within weeks because there was not enough food at home to keep them healthy. He talked about how more resources were needed in the most severely affected communities to prevent this cycle. In its next phase of operations, CARE will target the communities where 6 to 7 per cent of the children are severely malnourished and a further 17 per cent generally malnourished.

What was striking to me was seeing the arm bands used to measure the circumference of these children’s arms. It was truly shocking to see these tiny little arm bands and how hundreds of children in Chad are really that thin.

Clearly CARE needs to continue to provide emergency assistance, but we also need and want to build on the opportunity for development. We will continue to invest in Chad and help families become stronger, healthier and better able to face challenges such as recurrent drought and economic downturns. We cannot and must not abandon Chad.

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

Hope and Help for Chad in a Time of Crisis

The number of people affected by the food crisis in Chad is approximately the number of people living in cities of Ottawa and Toronto combined, but government officials and CARE workers have hope for a brighter future – with lots of work ahead.

In the country of Chad alone, 3.6 million people are finding it increasingly difficult to eat this year due to chronic poverty, erratic rains, high food prices, and regional conflict.

Despite these devastating figures, Barabara Jackson the humanitarian director of CARE International writes of her meetings with local government officials in Chad last week and her message is a positive one:  “Chad is an oasis of peace and stability.”

Surrounded by neighbouring countries that are riddled with instability and conflict, Chad’s Ministers of Plan and Agriculture speak of their country as an oasis or safe haven with vast opportunity for growth and progress, as they recognize the value in their country’s oil and water reserves.

In an effort to make this positive vision a reality and alleviate the struggles currently facing Chadians country-wide, CARE Chad is working to repair wells, provide food and nourishment to the most vulnerable populations, and distribute seeds for planting to local communities.

CARE repaired water pump in a region where water coverage is only 2% of the population.

In a community where water coverage only reaches 2% of the population, and women are forced to walk several kilometers on journeys of up to 10 hours, this CARE repaired well, is an easy fix with a vast impact.  “This helps us a lot,” says Tamboshe Dere, 60. “I am happy the pumps are fixed. Before, we had to walk seven kilometers to get water.”  

A young girls sits with her mother at a CARE Chad blanket feeding center

In addition to its ongoing long-term development work and support of refugees in eastern and southern Chad, CARE Chad is also supporting the local government’s response to the food crisis by providing a blanket feeding program to children ages 6-24 months, and to mothers breastfeeding infants under six months. This blanket feeding program offers nutrient-rich food like “Plumpy Nuts”, and “Super Cereal” to mothers and children, with the goal of fighting malnutrition in these vulnerable age groups.

“Thank you for asking our opinions.” A woman thanks CARE workers for taking the time to speak with her and the other women at the blanket feeding center.

Barbara Jackson also writes about speaking with young women receiving blanket feeding and general food distribution and the success of the program so far. The women, grateful about being asked their opinions expressed,  “The food has helped as we had nothing, but we have many people to share it with including our elderly who are not able to walk to collect the food and who have not been counted.”

“Clearly we have much work to do,” writes Barbara.

The children of today are the future of tomorrow. In support of the local government, CARE Chad is working with partners and other NGOs to help make this future one of opportunity and progress for the Chadian people.

Chad, while being a “forgotten” country, is also a country ripe for opportunity and one in which we and other partners should support to develop communities’ and governments’ clear recognition of concerns of building resiliency and adaptation to the climatic and economic challenges of the present and the future. We need to continue to invest now and over a longer term to build individuals’ and communities’ abilities as we listen and learn from their local experience and voices to shape a strong, resilient and courageous future.

         -   Barbara Jackson, Humanitarian Director, CARE international

Bringing attention to the Sahel Food Crisis

CARE and our partners have been sharing stories and information to bring attention to a drought and food crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa. We’ve scaled up our efforts recently with the launch of a joint HUMANITARIAN COALITION fundraising appeal. Have you been following us?

Read our Storify story about the Sahel and our CEO’s trip to Chad amid the crisis.

Photo credit: Thomas Schwarz/CARE

The faces of the food crisis

Guest blog by Rodrigo Ordóñez, Regional Communications Coordinator, Sahel food crisis (Chad, Mali, Niger) for CARE International.

The food crisis currently affecting the Sahel is a result of several causes, including drought, high food prices and regional instability. Certain factors might have a bigger influence than others depending on geography, people’s livelihoods or even personal choices. Every region, every village and every house in Niger attributes their situation to a different combination of reasons, but the result is invariably the same: this year, people don’t have enough to eat.

In the last few weeks, I have talked to families in several regions of Niger, while traveling on my own or when taking journalists to the field. Despite the variety of personal circumstances, certain elements are common in people’s stories.

Clockwise from left: Delou Ibrahim, 70. Her granddaughter Latifa, 8. Delou’s hands hold sorrel leaves, used as a condiment, and grains of sorghum at her home in Saran Maradi, Niger. (Photo: Rodrigo Ordonez/CARE)

Delou Ibrahim has four children and suffered the loss of nine. She has about 40 grandchildren, 16 of which live with her.

“I’ve seen several crises. The famine in 1984 was the hardest. Rains were very weak. The stems of millet came out but the spikes gave no grain – nothing,” she recalls. “Two years ago at least there were people who harvested millet, but this year the crops have been worse because of the drought and the leaf miners.” Delou’s last crop was 30kg, which only provided food for about two days.

Delou and her family receive cash from CARE. “I get to buy cereal to feed my family, particularly my grandchildren.” They have two daily meals, porridge in the morning and sorghum paste in the evening.

Clockwise from left: Maka Ali, 80. Her granddaughter Maria, 10. Maka’s hands hold sorghum at her home in Saran Maradi, Niger. (Photo: Rodrigo Ordonez/CARE)

Maka Ali has been a widow for twenty years. She has eight children and about twenty grandchildren. She has experienced the loss of six children, four of them at an early age. “I was alone taking care of them, so I cannot say their deaths weren’t related to lack of food,” Maka recalls.

Nobody in her family can work, so she receives a cash transfer from CARE. “When I receive the payment, I buy sorghum and maize,” Maka explains. “Before this support, I couldn’t; I was eating leaves.”

Clockwise from left: Sahara Mahama, 40. Her daughter Mariama, 4. A bucket of millet at Sahara’s home in Saran Maradi, Niger. (Photo: Rodrigo Ordonez/CARE)

Sahara Mahama has seven sons and a daughter. She lost four other children; one of them was only 14 days old. “I lost the youngest one during the rains, in the lean season. I didn’t have enough to eat.”

Eating has become increasingly harder through the years, recalls Sahara. “When I was a kid, we used to have three meals: in the morning, at noon, and in the evening.”€ However, one meal a day has now become the norm. “It’s never guaranteed, but we try.”

Sahara participates in CARE’s cash-for-work project. With the money she receives, she buys cereal and gives her children two meals per day.

Clockwise from left: Mariama Oumarou, 55. Her granddaughter Rakia, 4. A hand holds grains of corn in Mariama’s home in Saran Maradi, Niger. (Photo: Rodrigo Ordonez/CARE)

Mariama Oumarou has ten children and three grandchildren. Through the years she has lost four children and two grandchildren. She participates in CARE’s cash-for-work project. “Not only can we buy millet and sorghum now, but also corn and condiments.”