Today as Caritas Australia opens the East Africa Crisis Appeal, I’m heartened by our commitment to do what we can to help, here in Australia. I’m heartened as I know aid can and does help. We’re getting far more professional as a sector using evidence based approaches, we’re increasingly more accountable to communities and donors, we’re required to reflect on our impact and to integrate lessons learned, and for me most powerfully of all I’ve had the priviledge to see and hear the stories of impact.
Today, in the Eastern parts and Horn of Africa, the rains, crops and livestock have failed for 2 seasons and malnourishment is widespread and severe. 10 million people are in dire Humanitarian need. Conflict and poverty compound the crisis, and the region’s people wait for help as they arrive after long journeys across borders for food, water and much needed health care. It is a desperate situation.......but not impossible. Just last month in the world’s poorest country, Niger, A 63 year old lady I met in the rural district of Dosso, told me that she had lived through 5 droughts. She told me that the drought of 1968 was the worst, as there was no food anywhere, and no way to get to places where there was food. She told me how the last drought ( 2009/10 ) was the “best” drought, as the aid arrived in time, and no one in her community died. She told me that her community, government and the aid community were getting smarter in how they helped.
As I watch the Humanitarian story unfold in East Africa and ache for the loss and hardship of life which so many people in that great continent of Africa endure, I know we are doing the right thing in hearing the Humanitarian call for help and responding.
To provide life-giving support to the people affected by the drought crisis in the Horn of Africa, please donate to Caritas Australia's East Africa Crisis Appeal >>
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