Canadian Baptist Ministries Food Relief
Northeastern Province Kenya
Fifty-two children eating at the daily feeding project
in the village of Atheley, near Garissa.
Since the beginning of June, Canadian Baptist Ministries has been working with several partner agencies on accessing and responding to the drought that is impacting this entire region. One of our responses has been with the Sisters Maternity Hospital (SIMAHO) in Garissa.
Together with our colleagues Yattani Gollo and William Guyo, SIMAHO has been serving nine villages along the Tana River through mobile outreach clinics and daily feeding programs targeted at helping expecting and lactating mothers and children under the age of five. The project is called an "Ambulatory Feeding Program" as it is delivered in cooperation with mobile clinics carried out by SIMAHO's nurses and nutritionist.
Over the past month, Erica and I have become increasingly involved in CBM's Drought Response. This week, we are apart of an assessment team with Diane Bannister who is a registered nurse in Kenya and Canada, as well as Yattani and William. We are working with several agencies and consortiums as we coordinate our efforts and seek to make the greatest impact both for the immediate emergency and for longterm sustainable change.
Change That You Can See!
This is a photograph of our nutritionist colleague, Hassan Abdullahi, measuring the mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) of a little girl a part of the Dololoweyn Feeding Project. Only six weeks ago, 35% of the children in Dololoweyn were underweight and among them several wasting away. The MUAC is a medical instrument for health care workers to measure sever and acute malnutrition. "It is incredible to see how quickly these children have bounced back!" Hassan told us. "I can see the change." Daily feeding, paired with the provision of monthly rations through the Kenyan Red Cross, USAID and the government of Kenya is making an impact upon people living in towns and targeted villages. But there are many gaps in the relief work, and the challenge is working effectively to avoid duplication and reach the people being missed.
While in Dololoweyn, a group of 40 mothers crossed the Tana River from a neglected community in the arid plains beyond. They have no other medical centre or source of food. This is it. Despite the danger of crossing the Tana, they came to feed their children and receive medical help. "We must ensure that everyone is immunized," explained the Zahra from SIMAHO. "Measles, whooping cough, and other communicable diseases are a great concern as so many refugees come to us from Somalia and the bush. We are already seeing outbreaks of measles in the camps, and cases of polio in the western parts of the country."
Erica helping a little girl too weak to lift the
heavy cup of unimix at the feeding clinic in Atheley
With the help of the mobile clinics and feeding program, the villages have attracted hundreds of new arrivals as an influx of pastoral families have moved into each of the nine villages in search of help, most having lost their herds to the drought. Dololoweyn's population, for instance, has jumped from 300 to over 800 in the past two months.
Despite the huge influx, the people are sharing what little they have and are caring for the neighbours. Camilla was one of the many pregnant mothers we met at the mobile clinics. She was carrying an infant and walking with a two year old into the feeding shelter, when we asked her about her children: she explained that her brother returned with the infant and five other children and asked her to care for them because his wife had died in the drought. "I can only feed these children because of the food I am given," she told us thankfully. "I have nothing else to give them."
Diane Bannister checking on a newborn
at the Bura Daily Feeding Project, near Doloweyn
In Prayer:
* Please pray for the 4 million people within Kenya presently affected by the drought.
* Pray for the frontline medical workers, churches, agencies and community groups that are responding to the needs of these people. We pray not only for lives to be saved in the immediate crisis, but for sustainable change that will enable these communities to mitigate against future crisis.
* We pray for hope and spiritual healing among the countless families who have suffered such loss and anguish through this famine.
* We thank God for the people he is using around the world and in tangible ways to show love and compassion to their neighbours. It has been heart warming this week to see men and women stepping forward and serving the sick and weakest among them. People who may not have eaten much themselves, feeding the children of their neighbours.
Aaron in Raya with Abdi, one of the volunteer
men helping in the feeding project
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