Christian Aid Ireland continues to respond to the East Africa food crisis and is helping people affected across the region. The Anglican Church holds a summit this week in Africa. The Church in Kenya has called upon its government to act.
CHRISTIAN AID IRELAND’S RESPONSE
Christian Aid Ireland has released an initial £340,000/€391,000 for immediate response and their work will be scaled up as the crisis intensifies across the region. A further grant of £200,000/€230,000 for humanitarian assistance in Somalia, mainly providing food aid to the most vulnerable families in the refugee camps in Mogadishu and Lower Shebelle, has also been made.
Christian Aid Ireland’s Humanitarian Officer, Niall O’Rourke, welcomed an emergency grant of £173,900/€200,000 from Irish Aid, commenting, “We are also grateful for the generous support of numerous individuals and churches throughout Ireland, including £17,389/€20,000 from the Church of Ireland Bishops’ Appeal.”
However, as CA’s Head of Humanitarian work, Nick Guttman, has stated, “however much we raise we will be able to spend, and spend again…the scale of the problem is so huge.”
Christian Aid Ireland in its briefing continues, “Through our partners, we are responding to the crisis by providing resources for families arriving in refugee camps, including extra nutrition for malnourished children and pregnant women. We are also working in villages affected by the drought, distributing water supplies, constructing additional water points and ensuring livestock – so critical to people’s livelihoods – have fodder. In the longer-term, our existing projects in Ethiopia and Kenya that prepare communities to cope with droughts and disasters will help to make these areas more resilient to future crises.
“Kenyan partners, Christian Community Services Mount Kenya East, Northern Aid and Ukamba Christian Community Services, are responding in north-eastern and eastern Kenya. In Ethiopia, our partners, Action for Development and Agri-Service Ethiopia, are currently working with local communities in the south of the country, and in Somalia, we are working through our ACT Alliance partner, Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe.”
Anglican response
Anglicans will meet in Nairobi this week to launch an appeal and advocacy campaign on the food crisis sweeping East Africa.The meeting is being organised jointly by the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa and the Anglican Alliance for development, relief and advocacy, through its Africa facilitator, Emmanuel Olatunji.
The meeting which will bring together primates and bishops from the worst hit areas, comes as the UN announced a deepening of the famine in southern Somalia.
Short term relief for famine victims, and longer term measures to improve food security will be on the agenda for the meeting which will also receive a briefing on the state of refugees living at Dadaab camp in the east of Kenya. It is also expected to consider ways to highlight the need for government action – both in Africa and beyond – to increase the level of aid going to the refugees, to improve food distribution through the continent and increase food security.
Sally Keeble, Anglican Alliance director, said: “Emmanuel Olatunji has brought together key people for this meeting to find ways to improve the situation for people in the Horn of Africa both now and in the longer term. We ask for your prayers this weekend for the participants at this meeting – and for the millions across the region who are suffering such acute hardship.”
Church in Kenya calls on its government to act
The Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) advocacy committee meeting last week, called upon the Government of Kenya to urgently respond to the pertinent issues affecting the country, drought and the slow pace of the constitution implementation process.
In a press release, “A Call to Action,” the church commended the efforts of Kenyans to raise funds to provide food in kind for their compatriots affected by drought and famine.
They called upon the Government to consider long term intervention such as water harvesting and ensuring adequate food reserves are in stock to avert dire effects of drought in future. “What mechanisms are in place to ensure food harvested in productive areas is preserved in strategic reserves and distributed when need arises?” the statement asked.