Piotrowska never thought that she would do mission work. She had never been moved by the stories from Africa of children suffering from famine and drought but that changed when she started her volunteer work in 2015 and saw firsthand the work of Salesian missionaries and the volunteers who assist them.

“Everything changed when I experienced missionary work for myself,” says Piotrowska. “I started working in the oratory. I was in charge of the children, taking care of them. I do not say just that these children radically changed my heart, but they managed to enlarge my small, narrow selfish heart.”

Ethiopia is experiencing the worst drought the country has seen in more than 50 years. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently announced that agricultural assistance for the upcoming rainy season in Ethiopia is essential to help the drought-affected people as one of the strongest El Niño events on record continues to have devastating effects on the lives and livelihoods of farmers and herders. The agency reported that humanitarian needs in the country have tripled since the beginning of 2015 as the drought has led to successive crop failures and widespread livestock deaths. According to the United Nations, agricultural production in the affected regions has fallen by 50 to 90 percent and the Ethiopian government has declared a state of emergency.

As a result, food insecurity and malnutrition rates are alarming in the country with FAO reporting that some 10.2 million people are now food insecure. One-quarter of all districts in Ethiopia are officially classified as facing a food security and nutrition crisis. In addition, the country’s first rainy season is delayed and, with Ethiopia’s main agricultural season fast approaching, farmers need immediate support to help them produce food between now and September for millions facing hunger.

Salesian missionaries and volunteers with the International Volunteers for Development (VIS) are utilizing the deep wells built by VIS volunteers in recent years to distribute water to schools, hospitals and first aid clinics, centers for street children, women’s refuges and diocesan centers. The goal during this emergency phase is to support the 12,000 residents of the Somali, Tigray and Oromia regions and those living in the South.

Salesian missionaries’ primary focus in the country is on the education of poor youth. They accomplish this through the operation of six primary schools, three secondary schools and six vocational training centers for older youth. At all these Salesian-run educational facilities, youth are able to gain an education while having access to support services, including family sponsorship and school feeding programs, that provide care for them and their families all with the goal of keeping youth in school as long as possible.

“Education is always our primary focus,” says Father Mark Hyde, executive director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “But we know youth in Ethiopia are dealing with much more than just having access to education. Salesian programs are tailored to meet the needs of the youth in the communities they serve. Homeless and malnourished youth are simply not able to focus effectively on their studies while they struggle to meet their basic needs. Our services provide food and shelter so youth are able to focus on the education provided.”

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Sources:

(PHOTO: ANS)

ANS – Ethiopia – “These children have changed my heart and my life”

UNICEF – Ethiopia

UN News Center – Ethiopian farmers need urgent assistance amid major drought, warns UN agency

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“Owned by their members, they can generate employment, alleviate poverty, and empower poor and marginalized groups in rural areas, especially women, to drive their own destinies,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message, stressing that the number of people still going hungry is unacceptable in a world where every person would have enough to eat if food were distributed properly.

“As enterprises with a social conscience, cooperatives have also proven to be an effective vehicle for social inclusion, promoting gender equality and encouraging the involvement of youth in agriculture.”

The theme of this year’s Day, which is celebrated on Oct. 16, 2012, in honor of the date of the founding of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 1945, is ‘Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world.’

In a ceremony marking the Day at FAO’s headquarters in Rome, its Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, called on governments to do their part and “create conditions that allow producer organizations and cooperatives to thrive” as a major way to lift small-scale farmers out of poverty and hunger.

Although they produce most of the food in many countries, they had poor access to markets to sell their products, lack of bargaining power to buy inputs at better prices and a lack of access to financial services, he said.

“Agricultural cooperatives can help smallholders overcome these constraints,” Mr. Graziano da Silva stressed. “Cooperatives play a crucial role in generating employment, reducing poverty, and improving food security, and contributing to the gross domestic product in many countries.”

Speaking at the same ceremony, the UN World Food Program’s (WFP) Executive Director, Ertharin Cousin, underscored the need for social safety nets for those who could barely feed themselves.

“In our world, too many still struggle to find their next meal,” she said. “Social protection and safety net programs enable the most vulnerable, particularly women and children, to lift themselves out of hunger and poverty. These programs provide a cushion that is otherwise unavailable and build resilience against economic and environmental shocks.”

At the same event, the head of the UN International Fund on Agricultural Development (IFAD), which seeks to empower poor rural women and men in developing countries to achieve higher incomes and improved food security, highlighted its role in working closely with cooperatives worldwide.

“From tea growers in Rwanda to livestock resource centres in Nepal, there are many examples of how cooperatives better support smallholder farmers to not only organize themselves, but to collectively increase their opportunities and resources,” IFAD’s President Kanayo Nwanze said.

“Our experience at IFAD working with farmers has proven time and time again that cooperatives are critical to reach these objectives,” he added. “This is why we place a lot of emphasis on cooperatives and continue to enhance our work with them.”

Speaking from Geneva, the Director-General of the UN International Labour Organization (ILO), Guy Ryder, added his voice to the messages issued on the Day.

“Experience around the world shows that farmers, fisherfolk, foresters and herders have used cooperative organization to increase food production, gain market access, obtain better prices on agricultural inputs, participate more effectively in global value chains and also to manage natural resources and enhance food security,” he said.

In a report launched on World Food Day, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) warns that the ecological foundations that support food security, including biodiversity are being undermined.

“The era of seemingly ever-lasting production based upon maximizing inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, mining supplies of freshwater and fertile arable land and advancements linked to mechanization are hitting their limits, if indeed they have not already hit them,” UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner, said in a news release.

“The world needs a green revolution but with a capital ‘G’: one that better understands how food is actually grown and produced in terms of the nature-based inputs provided by forests, freshwaters and biodiversity,” he added.

The report – Avoiding Future Famines: Strengthening the Ecological Basis of Food Security through Sustainable Food System – was produced in collaboration with IFAD, FAO, WFP, World Bank, and the World Resources Institute, a global environmental think tank.

It points out the challenges posed by overfishing, unsustainable water use, environmentally degrading agricultural practices and other human activities and calls for the redesign of sustainable agriculture systems, dietary changes, and storage systems and new food standards to reduce waste.

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An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating March 22, 1993, as the first “World Water Day.”

Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater – this year’s theme is water and food security.

“Agriculture is by far the main user of freshwater,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in an address highlighting World Water Day on March 22, 2012.

“Unless we increase our capacity to use water wisely in agriculture, we will fail to end hunger and we will open the door to a range of other ills, including drought, famine and political instability,” Ban Ki-moon continued.

“In many parts of the world, water scarcity is increasing and rates of growth in agricultural production have been slowing,” he said. “At the same time, climate change is exacerbating risk and unpredictability for farmers, especially for poor farmers in low-income countries who are the most vulnerable and the least able to adapt.”

Two weeks prior to this year’s World Water Day, UNICEF and World Health Organization report showed conclusively that poor people in rural areas are overwhelmingly those without these most basic necessities for life.

As the world commemorated World Water Day, UNICEF called on governments to pay particular attention to those who are being left behind in their countries’ progress, especially with regard to access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

“Governments must make sure that their resources achieve real results for the poorest people,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF’s chief of water, sanitation and hygiene. “Otherwise they risk leaving large portions of their populations, particularly children, increasingly vulnerable to disease.”

The report, Progress on Drinking Water and Sanitation 2012, says the world met the Millennium Development Goal target for drinking water at the end of 2010, when 89 per cent of the world’s population, or 6.1 billion people, used improved drinking water sources.

However, it says that rural dwellers are several times more likely than their urban counterparts to be without access to safe drinking water. According to the report, globally there is an almost universal disparity of access to safe drinking water in rural areas compared to urban areas.

Of the 783 million people still without improved sources of drinking water in 2010, 653 million are from rural areas. The picture is even worse for sanitation, where globally, 79 per cent of the urban population use an improved sanitation facility compared to 47 per cent of the rural population. Fully 72 per cent of those without access to improved sanitation, or 1.8 billion people, live in rural areas.

UNICEF says the rural-urban divide for safe drinking water is particularly acute in poorer countries. In sub-Saharan Africa the gap between urban and rural is 34 percentage points. On average in Least Developed Countries, ninety-seven out of every 100 rural dwellers do not have piped water on premises.

Overwhelmingly, it is women and girls who are bearing the brunt of the water burden, UNICEF says. Surveys conducted in 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa found that in 71 per cent of all households without water on the premises women or girls are mainly responsible for water collection. Each household typically requires at least one trip a day, and often more, for water collection. It is estimated that women spend a combined total of at least 16 million hours each day collecting drinking water; men spend 6 million hours; and children, 4 million hours.

“Safe drinking water must reach everyone”, says Wijesekera. “We cannot celebrate progress until those who are hardest to reach can also turn on a tap, or go to a well or pump and get enough safe drinking water for their daily needs.”

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UN Photo/Martine Perret

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“The crisis in the Horn of Africa is a human disaster becoming a human catastrophe,” reports Anthony Lake, executive director of UNICEF, the U.N.’s children’s agency.

According to Lake, 1.4 million children are affected in Somalia alone, with an estimated 390,000 suffering from malnutrition. His agency estimates that nearly 140,000 children in south-central Somalia are currently suffering from “severe acute malnutrition” and are near death.

On July 20, the U.N. declared a famine in two regions of southern Somalia, marking the first time since the early 90s that the U.N. has declared famine in Somalia. Across the region, nearly 11 million people are at risk according to UNICEF.

Malnutrition rates in Somalia are currently the highest in the world, with peaks of 50 percent in southern areas, according to Mark Bowden, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia.

Aid agencies have struggled to reach the most desperate parts of Somalia, where Al-Shabab extremists maintain control and refuse access to essential humanitarian organizations, including the U.N. World Food Program. As a result, tens of thousands are fleeing to refugee camps in neighboring countries Ethiopia and Kenya.

The children and people of the Horn of Africa face not only a threat of death from starvation, but from diseases that spread easily in overcrowded refugee camps. Men, women and children travel hundreds of miles on foot to make it to refugee camps where, sadly, they face another deadly threat.

Water-borne diseases are also a “lethal threat to children in southern Somalia,” according to an Aug. 18 report from UNICEF, which urges that a rapid response is needed as cholera cases increase. The report cites that 75 percent of all cases of highly infectious acute watery diarrhea are among children under five.

According to UNICEF, many of the Horn of Africa’s rural and urban areas rely on shallow wells, which – unless they are protected or treated with chlorine – can become a perfect breeding ground for water-borne diseases.

Therefore, aid must not only focus on providing food, it must also include plans for access to ongoing clean water, says Brother Cesare Bullo, executive director of the Salesian Planning and Development Office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

His office has put together plans to “rehabilitate” shallow wells to make them safe as well as dig new wells.

“We have located four water points that need to be rehabilitated and strengthened through the purchase of new pumps and additional excavations to find more water,” says Br. Bullo. “The new wells will be built in four areas for local communities very much in need of water at the moment. The wells need to be capable of providing a sufficient quantity of water during the droughts.”

In order to complete these projects, and provide life-saving food aid and water distribution, the Salesians have coordinated an international fundraising initiative. Salesian Missions of New Rochelle, NY, has put out an urgent appeal to U.S. donors to help raise the project goal of $850,000 that this initial response will require. To make a donation, go to www.SalesianMissions.org.

UN Photo/Stuart Price

Sources:

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39086&Cr=Somali&Cr1=

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_59585.html

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_59241.html

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