Red Cross Blogs

Sarah Oughton

When I met the ever-smiling Nkhetheng in a kitchen in Pokane, in the mountainous kingdom of Lesotho, he was leading a group of villagers in some exquisite harmonies which filled the room alongside the fragrance of chutneys, pickles and jams which they were making as they sang.

Nkhetheng Pitso, 55, is married with ten children and knows all about the struggle to grow food in Lesotho’s challenging climate. This is his story:

“When I was younger I worked in the mines, but I came home in 2004. Now I’m a farmer, but at first it was difficult to feed my family. I used to try gardening but the crops would die, as I didn’t have the skills I have now. But things changed after I got involved with the Red Cross in 2008.

“The Red Cross officer encouraged unity in the village and I started volunteering because I was nominated by my community. I was taught about growing vegetables and now I give advice to others. Being a volunteer has boosted my confidence and I feel honoured in the village. We now have food to eat and before we struggled in the community. Now we can help each other.

“We were given seeds and the gardening is now very successful. We were also given water containers and taught to capture and store rainwater to use during droughts.

“Most of the community members are very poor, even me, but we know we will definitely get vegetables from my garden, such as spinach, radish, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes and pumpkins. Now I can grow vegetables all year round and sell some to meet other family needs. But I just give vegetables for free to those in my village who don’t have the money.

“In 2009, the Red Cross taught us to preserve food. Before that I only knew to preserve peaches and didn’t have so many recipes.

“I would love to open a restaurant but buying the utensils would be expensive. My children are so impressed by my skills and always recommend my food. I’m often asked to cook for people’s funerals.

“In February 2011, I was diagnosed with TB, but I wasn’t shocked because I had been in Red Cross workshops where I was taught about TB, so I knew I could get cured. As soon as I had some signs I went straight to the clinic.

“The Red Cross care facilitator was very close to me and my family, giving us support. She always came to check I was taking the medicine properly and I was still very active while taking the treatment, which I completed in July 2011.

“I was also tested for HIV and my wife too but we don’t have it, although many people in the community have been affected by HIV. Before, people were very ill but since the Red Cross came there are no longer bedridden people, all are living a better life and we are learning about HIV prevention.

“I’ve always loved for my children to be educated and now I work hard around here to pay for school fees so they can have a better future. I’d love my family to have peace and happiness and I’m doing what I can to make sure they get what they need so they are not sad.”

Read more stories from our HIV programme

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Tags: AIDS, food preservation, HIV, Lesotho, TB
Posted in Health and social care, International

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Despite the many tragedies Sthabile, 15, has already known in her life, she is a quietly assured young woman, with a vision for her future.

Sthabile never knew her father and was just five years old when her mother passed away from HIV in 2001. For a while her grandmother looked after her, but then she also died.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m alone,” Sthabile says. “But I try to forget it.”

Sthabile lives in South Africa, where one in four adults lives with HIV. You can donate to the British Red Cross South Africa HIV Fund, and help us continue our HIV programme in South Africa.

Becoming an HIV orphan

For many years now, Sthabile has been looked after by her neighbour Nomusa Mnguni – who was a friend of Sthabile’s grandmother.

A few years ago, a Red Cross volunteer came to the house and invited Sthabile and Nelly – another teenage orphan adopted by Nomusa – to join the support group.

“The Red Cross gave us some food parcels, clothing and blankets,” says Sthabile. “I like going there, as there are lots of children to play with. I’ve also learned things, like about HIV and how you get infected.”

Red Cross support

Zinhle Doncabe, who runs the Red Cross club for orphans and vulnerable children, says: “When I first met Sthabile in 2008 she was shy and had low self-esteem.

“We do an exercise with the kids called ‘the tree of life’ which involves them drawing a tree and looking at their lives and plans for their future. We also encourage them to make memory boxes. They put photos of the family members they’ve lost in them, with stories that they we encourage them to write about them.

“When we began this with Sthabile, she was questioning a lot about why we were doing it and how it would help. But over time, through playing and talking with her and encouraging her to write things down, she’s changed. She talked to me about not having her parents and she’s no longer struggling with her emotions. She’s ready to go on with her life and keeps emphasising she wants to continue her education.”

A granny’s love

Nomusa looks after Sthabile and Nelly as if they were her own children. She says: “When the girls’ families passed away and they were left alone, I was afraid they would feel bad. I was also worried they might be abused as girls living alone. I don’t have much but I don’t see it as difficult choosing to look after them. Whatever I get I try by all means to take care of them.

“I think the Red Cross support group opens their minds and encourages them to do everything – to help out in the house and take responsibility for their schoolwork. Sthabile has no problems now. But Nelly’s mother only died last year and sometimes she doesn’t feel well but she doesn’t talk about why she’s not happy. I think maybe the group will help her.

“Times are changing but I always educate them about how to take care of themselves and especially not to have boyfriends at an early age. But I don’t talk about HIV, though I know they’ve learned about it from the Red Cross.”

Teenage pregnancy

Sthabile has a busy life – during the week she has school, and on Wednesdays and Fridays she goes to the Red Cross support group after school. On Saturday she washes her clothes and on Sunday she goes to church. But like any teenager, it’s hanging out with her friends that Sthabile most enjoys.

“My best friend Thobeka is understanding and I can really trust her. We like playing games like skip rope and listening to R&B or gospel music,” Sthabile says.

At 15, she is happy to wait a little longer before having a boyfriend. Despite, or perhaps because of the high levels of teenage pregnancy and domestic abuse around her, she is determined to avoid the same choices made by many of her peers.

“I want to grow up without getting pregnant while I’m young. I only want to have a family when I have the things I need. When I grow up I’d like a boyfriend who will take care of me, someone who won’t destroy me and who will like to see me happy. If I behave myself I think that it will happen.

“I don’t want to disappoint my granny. She is everything to me – my father, mother, uncle, everything.”

Daring to dream big

With around 40 per cent unemployment in South Africa, finding a job is a huge challenge, especially for those without a privileged start in life. But Sthabile is not daunted and as her confidence has grown she’s begun to think big.

“My granny says if I finish school and she’s still alive maybe her relatives will help me get a job with the police,” says Sthabile.

“But really I would like to be a nurse or doctor or social worker. I feel that if I face the world and tell them I can do this then I can make it. Even if I can’t be a doctor, I’ll get a job with payment. I won’t let myself down, I give myself the hope that one day I’ll be something.”

Find out more about how the Red Cross helps people living with HIV

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Tags: AIDS, HIV, orphans, South Africa
Posted in Health and social care, International

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Emptying your savings account to buy food is a last resort. But that’s the equivalent of what farmers in Mali are doing by selling off their cattle to buy cereals which will feed their families for longer.

Cows, goats and sheep are important assets for many people in this region but, with food prices rising beyond the reach of most families, people have no choice but to cash in on them.

“Selling one cow will buy enough cereal to last a small family a couple of months, but the number of animals people have is diminishing quickly,” says Kati Traore, chief of Sakabala village. “Another problem is that so many people are selling, the price has gone down by around 10 per cent.

“I have three wives and 15 children, but we have nothing. Normally when we prepare millet the residue is used to feed the animals but now we are eating it ourselves. We’ve also reduced the size of our meals.

“But we don’t have enough animals to sell to last us till our next harvest in November. I can’t sleep at night. I don’t know how I can help my village.”

Struggle for food

Survival is always a challenge in the Sahel, an arid region just below the Sahara desert, but the ‘lean season’ doesn’t usually start till April, with malnutrition rates peaking in August. Last year, lack of rain caused crops to fail in many communities in Mali, as well as Mauritania, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Senegal.

Across the region, up to 23 million people now face a massive struggle to afford food.

“The rain stopped early last year and since September we’ve had no rain. We worked on our fields but they didn’t produce any crops,” Kati says. “Normally our harvest lasts us till August the following year, but since November we’ve had no reserves. Now we have to pick wild fruits and many people have left to look for work in the cities or abroad. When we have to start selling our animals, we hope to God for help.”

Red Cross support

In February, Malian Red Cross volunteers distributed a month’s supply of rice, oil, salt and sugar to 8,200 people in villages in west Mali. They also provided information on good practices for nutrition, food storage, health and hygiene to help prevent malnutrition.

Working with the Malian government, the Red Cross is now finalising plans to scale up its response to help save lives in some of the most affected communities, including Sakabala.

But, given there have been three major food crises in the region in the last decade, investing in long-term programmes that build communities’ resilience is also vital. For example, the Malian Red Cross and its partners will help farmers diversify their livelihoods so they are no longer solely dependent on the rains.

The Red Cross urgently needs more funds so it can take action to avoid the situation in Mali and other countries deteriorating as it did in the Horn of Africa last year. Please give what you can today  to our appeal.

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Tags: food crisis, food prices, livestock, Mali, Sahel, West Africa Food Crisis Appeal
Posted in Emergencies, News

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Before mid-morning it is already hot in Tin Akoff and Mohamed Ingouda, 46, stands patiently in line waiting for his Burkinabe Red Cross food voucher.

“We are all suffering due to the bad rain and bad harvest,” says Mohamed, who is a farmer. “I have 11 children to feed and of course I have a problem to find food.”

In 1974, Mohamed moved to the Ivory Coast where he had a job as a fishmonger, but in 2007 he lost his job and went home to Tin Akoff, in the north of Burkina Faso. Like most people in the Sahel region where he lives, Mohamed now survives by growing millet and sorghum and tending livestock.

Access to food

Failed crops, rising food prices and the underlying issue of poverty mean thousands of families who usually rely on growing their own food can’t afford to buy the food available in the market. In October 2011, the Burkinabe government reported the price of maize had increased by 35 per cent compared to 2010. *

Those who have livestock are having to sell them at lower than usual prices, in order to buy their staple foods, knowing they still have difficult months ahead of them until their next harvest, around October.

Families without livestock assets are turning to more extreme coping mechanisms, such as: searching for wild food; reducing the number of meals they eat; depending on friends and extended family; sending girls to the city to work as home help and men leaving to look for work in the Ivory Coast.

Uncertain future

“People are not realising how bad it is,” Mohamed says. “But sometimes we spend a day without eating at all. Also, there’s no pasture for the lambs and they are not in a good state. We have to sell our lambs to buy some rice or millet, but the price we can sell them for is going down and the price of grains is going up.

“I’ve had to sell 15 lambs over the last seven months. I have never experienced it like this before. Last year one bag of millet cost 12,000 CFA francs [£15] and now it is double around 27,000 CFA [£33]. We don’t have enough money to buy millet to last us until the next harvest and we don’t have stocks of food, we are really suffering.

“Already, we are only eating once instead of three times a day and this has been going on for seven months.”

Red Cross food vouchers enable families to buy basic foods at local shops in their villages to meet their immediate needs without having to sell off more assets. In most cases, vouchers are preferable to distributing food parcels as they have the extra benefit of stimulating local markets, ensuring traders don’t take their produce elsewhere.

Despite his situation Mohamed has a generous smile. As he picks up his food voucher and heads off to the local store, he says: “This will help us survive for some weeks. After that, I don’t know what the future will be, but I must keep my family together.”

Donate to our West Africa Food Crisis Appeal

Read more stories about people affected by the food crisis

*  W.Africa Food Security Working Group, Sahel Strategy 2012

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Tags: Burkina Faso, food aid, food crisis, food distribution, food vouchers, Sahel
Posted in Emergencies, International

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Let me tell you about a boy I met last month who I couldn’t help.

I was in a remote village in the middle of the hot, barren, sandy savannah in Burkina Faso. There, I met Ouilimatou Diko, a young boy, not even two years old, who had just been diagnosed by a Red Cross nurse as acutely malnourished.

I spent several weeks travelling through Senegal, Burkina Faso and Mali to report on the looming food crisis. I met many mothers and fathers who told me their stories about how they are literally on the brink of survival, how their children are hungry and the burden they carry worrying about how to provide the next meal.

Ouilimatou’s grandmother Fatima, had been looking after him since his mother became sick a month ago. Fatima had been bringing Ouilimatou to the Red Cross health post where he receives a vitamin and mineral enhanced porridge.

But because he’d developed diarrhoea, his health had rapidly deteriorated. The Red Cross nurse referred him to the nearest health centre, which is 15 km away, as he needs more intensive care. However, Fatima has no means of transport and getting there will be a huge challenge.

As Ouilimatou sat limply in his grandmother’s lap I proffered him my finger and he held on tightly with a strength I didn’t think he had. When children are acutely malnourished in the most extreme way they are at risk of getting ill and can have literally a few weeks to live, unless they get appropriate treatment. If they do get treatment however, it is not difficult to save their lives.

Ouilimatou would not let go of my finger and in the end I had to pull it away and all I could think was: ‘I’m sorry I have to walk away from you, but I will try and help in whatever small way I can, by telling your story.’

I hope that his grandmother found a way to get him to the health centre. I don’t know if she did.

The next day, on one of the long journeys between villages, I bought a packet of banana chips to snack on. I threw the packet, empty except for crumbs, in the bin in the room I was staying in that night along with some other rubbish.

In the morning when I checked out I returned to the room to find the cleaning boy had removed the packet of crumbs from my other rubbish and finished them off. I know this sort of thing happens on a daily basis around the world. But normally I don’t have to see it. And there is nothing like seeing someone else eating your rubbish to make you question what kind of a global food system we’ve set up for ourselves.

Right now across the Sahel, millions of people are suffering from severe hunger. The UN estimates a million children could be acutely malnourished by the summer.

There are many demands on all of our time and money. It can be particularly hard to feel connected to a crisis like this one, that’s only just emerging and has received little media attention.

And we can’t all meet children like Ouilimatou. But I did, and all I can tell you is that it made me understand how urgent the needs are in west Africa, and how important it is that we don’t ignore these people’s stories.

The Red Cross desperately needs more funds to help save lives and livelihoods in the Sahel. Please don’t wait until it’s all over the news, it will be too late.

The time to act is now.

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Tags: Burkina Faso, Mali, malnutrition, Senegal, West Africa Food Crisis Appeal
Posted in Emergencies, Health and social care, International

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