Kenya Crisis Relief Update
The year 2009 was a difficult one for Kenya as a nation with famine and drought severely affecting almost all parts of our country. The badly hit regions were Samburu, Meru North, Tharaka and Mbeere where we have several of our churches. We remain so grateful to all who generously gave their resources to help us stand with those badly affected.
In the last four months, Nov 2009 – Feb 2010, our emergency and relief teams have maintained:
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A regular feeding programme with relief food supplies which included maize, beans, Unimix for children, sugar and cooking fat to the targeted persons in all areas of our operations that has seen several lives sustained.
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Medical clinics alongside feeding programmes, including issuance of mosquito nets.
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Restocking programmes - During the drought/famine periods, several families lost their animals, which is their main source of livelihood especially in Samburu, Mararal and Mbeere regions. Our teams have given hundreds of cows, goats, sheep and camels to the affected families as a way of restoring their livelihood.
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Water related projects – Tanks and water reservoirs are being constructed in Samburu, Mbeere, Tharaka and Meru North Districts which will allow harvesting of rain water and water from rivers.
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Other sustainable projects including issuance of soft and re-payable loans for small and medium enterprise projects through women groups. This exercise has already kicked off and so far around 900 women representing around 40-45 groups in Samburu, Mararal, larger Meru and Mbeere have been assisted. The amount loaned will be revolving to be able to help more groups.
Positive Observations:
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From around March to December 2009 the target was still 3,000 persons whom we continued feeding and sustaining. Up until this moment the target is 2,000, the reason being that up until February there has been some harvest in some parts of the country. We have not included these regions in food supplies, although they are still considered in other interventions i.e. restocking programmes, sustainable projects and medical camps.
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As a result, there has been a reduction on food supplies i.e. maize and beans in certain areas after what has been a fair harvest within Meru Region.
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Prices of maize and beans have substantially reduced, which is very good news to us.
Current floods:
As I write these briefs, we are suddenly facing an appearance of unexpected/unexplained torrential rain that has caused serious floods in Isiolo, Samburu, Meru and the far North. We have lost a number of lives, animals and major destruction to especially roads and bridges. The army/police helicopters have been ferrying trapped people on top of treetops. A number of Game Parks and Game Lodges closed down.
Our teams have gone out to Wamba/Mararal (Samburu) on scheduled relief/medical operations, and have also used their trip to collect facts on the impacts generally, especially if our people have been affected as scanty news has indicated that hundreds in Samburu have also been left homeless.
In our centre in Meru, for the first time since this centre was built, our basement was flooded without our knowledge resulting to major destruction to equipment and books and old documents that were stored in our archives. It will take some time before we can ascertain what got destroyed.
Challenges noted in the last four months:
The greatest challenge has been working with our budgets which have been hugely affected due to:-
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A steady upward trend of Kenya Shillings against hard currencies.
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Rising inflation affecting prices.
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Very high prices of animals affecting our plans for restocking in three districts. Many animals died, so the few available are going at a higher cost of between Kshs. 17,000.00 – 20,000.00 for a cow and between Kshs. 5,000.00 – 7,000.00 for a goat, which is almost double the price we had budgeted.
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When we were putting our budgets together, the Pound was 127 Kenyan shillings. Towards the end of the year, we had some of our suppliers not paid as we hoped that it would appreciate, which unfortunately wasn’t the case. The trend has been deteriorating, which has now gone to between 111 and 115 and has badly affected our budgets.
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With the current rains, we fear that prices of cereals may escalate again as the rain is affecting part of the harvested maize and beans and also part is still in shambas being harvested. We still have some parts of the region harvesting maize.
Way forward:
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Much concentration is geared towards all the sustainable projects i.e. completing of Manyagalo Water Project that will serve a population of over 2,000 families in five camps. The entire project has already cost 7.5M Kenyan shillings. We will also continue building water tanks/reservoirs in the following areas i.e. Mbeere, Samburu and Kiutine.
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Supporting our churches in North Tharaka and Mwingi with a brick making business, ploughing equipment and bulls.
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Releasing more funds for soft loans.
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Food supplies in a small way, medical camps and restocking programmes
With the way this drought presented itself and its severity, it is clear it will take some time to normalise as it affected the economy badly. All the same, our teams have maintained and kept the objectives of reaching out to the targeted people with the most needed items.
Once again we are so grateful to all our dear friends, brothers and sisters within and without for their support both financially and through much prayer.
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