Our Journey to Dadaab began at the Red Hole. Red hole is a small remote community we passed by on the way from Garissa to Dadaab. Here we meet with the elders who shared with us how the drought has severely affected them. They told us that each day people just drive-by and don’t care to stop and help, “we are left here abandoned” they said, with no access to a town or village where healthcare is available. They went on to explain how they used to sell their livestock, mainly goats at 3,000 Ksh but now they can only sell for 700 Ksh and that’s if they are lucky to sell them at all as most are in such bad health condition. They showed us one goat that could barely stand. Unfortunately soon most of their live stock would perish and their situation will be even more critical. As nomadic nopastoralists, Somalis depend on livestock for survival, without them they have feel they have no hope. I thought to myself, “This was just a small community of five Kenyan Somali families, imagine how many others are frightened, desperate and helpless”.
But this was just the beginning of a journey that led us face to face with the horrible impact of the famine.
As we passed many who lived in makeshift houses that consisted just of branches….it was sad to think that nature was being more kind and supportive than their own fellow human beings.
Our next stop was Dadaab, where we had encounted even more suffering. We met with WARDA, our on-ground organisation to distribute our contribution of food that was donated by individual and corporate sponsors. We were introduced to WARDA through a a special friend, who i must say has to be the most driven humanitarian i have ever met, Dr.Mohamud Sheikh. He has lead the collaboration between our campaign team and on- ground personnel’s. WARDA had facilitated and organised the food distribution relief work prior to our arrival. They had identified the neediest people and handed out food ration cards. It was extremely difficult to watch some peak through the windows of the facility we were distributing the food from, hoping they would receive something but many had to walk away in despair and hope that next time they would have some luck.
We visited many villages inside and outside the camps and learned that the local Kenyan Somalis were suffering much more that the ones in the camps. Once a refugee is accepted into the camps they are given ration cards entitling them to food on a regular basis however the people living in the communities outside the camps were totally neglected by most NGO’s, in fact we were shocked to see the absence of Aid in these areas.
We witnessed the plight of many who faced calamity, i seen it in every single face, from malnourished children, to the ones that needed urgent medical attention and to all who were struggling to live with no access to water in such extreme weather conditions but the most daunting was to witness the carcasses scattered around the communities illustrating the magnitude of the drought.
We spoke with one mother who held her six month old malnourished child in her arms. She said that she could not breastfeed her child because it had developed some sores in the mouth, she was only giving him some water with a little sugar. She had no money for medicine or powdered milk. I was afraid looking at the fragile state of the child…I didn’t want to think of it living it’s last days. How many more children will we leave to emaciate? I wondered.
Our mission for this trip was not just to hand out food and leave but to identify long-term solutions to the problems these people face, to find hopefulness in the face of adversity. Through the contacts of WARDA, we met the chief of a community called Habaswein, he informed us that he has allocated 12 acres of land that is specifically for the community at large. He had a vision of building an orphanage and after some discussions we concluded that we will be interesting in taking up such a project, not only to build an orphanage for the two hundred orphans that live in that district but also to establish community building & sustainable social development projects such as a tailoring training centre, a farm, school and a clinic. The tailoring centre will empower most of the women who feel abandoned and helpless once they are widowed, this will economically uplift them and give them an opportunity to a better life.
It was a whirlwind emotional ride that will forever remind me of all the people that are left to fend for themselves in such horrible circumstances with no one to hear their cries. I wish one day more people will have the opportunity to experience looking into the eyes of a mother who has to look into the eyes of her malnourished child everyday but cannot do anything to ease their pain. I wish one day more people will acknowledge that this type of neglect is not acceptable, that we all responsible for the injustice that our brothers and sisters face. Until then I hope and pray that peace is just around the corner for them.
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Somar Homeh
LocalAid
