|PIC1|Christian groups are offering aid to help the some 2.5 million Kenyans suffering from a food emergency crisis caused by a severe drought last year.

In October and November last year, a failure of the annual rains has led to a food emergency in northern and eastern Kenya that has resulted in a series of crisis including malnutrition, loss of livestock, and even tribal clashes over resources.

“The situation is extremely bad,” said Sam Mutua, emergency response officer for Church World Service in a report released on Monday. “Members are reporting that a serious drought is still continuing and that the situation is getting worse.”

Peter McGeachie, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development regional office manager in Kenya, said in a report released last Wednesday that “The failure of the 2005 short-rains season in the lowlands suggests that households will have no substantial harvest until February 2007, and household food security will continue to deteriorate.”

The government of Kenya has declared the famine conditions affecting parts of the country a national disaster and has called for national and international efforts to raise much needed aid to provide food for about 2.5 million people, almost 10 percent of the population, over the next six months, according to Action by Churches Together (ACT) International.

Members of the global alliance in Kenya and their partners have been responding at a grassroots level to some of the needs arising from the drought.

|TOP|On Thursday, ACT issued a joint appeal for US$2.4 million from its members in Kenya – Norwegian Church Aid, Lutheran World Federation-Kenya/Sudan (LWF), Lutheran World Relief, Church World Service and the Anglican Church of Kenya – to respond to the drought and famine in a larger and more comprehensive way.

LWR is responding by helping communities increase access to water, providing farm tools, seeds and agricultural training to enable people to grow drought-tolerant crops.

"Because the immediate food needs are already being met by the government and other agencies, we can focus our response on activities that will not only help people now, but will enable them to continue helping themselves," said LWR president Kathryn Wolford in a report released by the group on Friday.

|AD|"During prolonged droughts, households spend most of their time searching for water, and children, especially girls, often end up dropping out of school to help search for and collect water. By improving communities' access to water, we are in turn improving many other aspects of their lives as well. And by providing the seeds and tools, as well as the training necessary for gardening, we will be giving people both the resources and the skills they need to feed their families without outside help in the future."

Working with local partner organisations, LWR-ACT will distribute farm tools and seeds to 2,000 of the most vulnerable households in the Taita Taveta and Makueni districts, including many households headed by single parents, grandparents, or orphans due to a parent’s death from HIV/AIDS.

Another 20,000 households will benefit from construction and rehabilitation of wells and dams – largely built by community members themselves as part of a food-for-work program – that will provide water for both people and livestock, and allow community members to irrigate their crops.

LWR has worked in Kenya for approximately 30 years and focuses on building sustainable rural livelihoods and improving food security.







Michelle Vu
Christian Today Correspondent