As we enter our sixth year of drought more and more regions look to us for food assistance.

Although Kenya is rebounding from the crippling effects of Covid on its tourism sector, by the beginning of the rainy season the drought in the Horn of Africa looked like entering its sixth year, creating more food insecurity, water rationing, conflicts over livestock grazing, and extreme uncertainty in the agricultural sector, which accounts for one-third of the country’s GDP and employs 70% of the rural population.
“We have to walk for seven kilometers to find water,and sometimes what we find isn’t safe to drink.” This dried-up river bed is this area’s only local source of water.
I find it absolutely staggering how much the cost of basic food items has risen since 2021. Our staples, such as beans and maize have more than doubled in price. For example, a 90kg sack of maize, which has fluctuated between 2,500/- to 3,000/- depending on the time of year, for as long as I can remember, has gone up to over 6,500/-. Add to this the fact that casual farm workers haven’t found employment since the beginning of this prolonged drought, now into its 6th year is making it very difficult for many families to afford one meal a day and pay school fees for their children. We have continued to do our weekly food distribution program for the elderly, people living with disabilities, child-headed households and groups still living in limbo in IDP camps. throughout the county.
On one of our recent trips, we traveled to the border of Mogotio to distribute food hampers to the elderly and the vulnerable. Our first stop was at a center known as Barina, which is an internally displaced person center. We found the group anxiously waiting for us. We distributed food hampers and washable sanitary pads to the women and teen girls. One elderly lady said there are families that have slept hungry for days and are very grateful as they will have something on their table that evening and for weeks to come. We then drove another 10 km to the second village, Sawaiti, where we distributed the remaining food hampers to the anxiously waiting crowd. They came out in numbers and although we had prepared 90 hampers for this group, some still missed out. The fact that whatever food is available in the market has doubled in price, combined with the lack of fieldwork over the past 5 years due to drought has made it difficult for many of our food hamper recipients to purchase food. They were very grateful for our visit and thanked and prayed for the hands that contributed towards the food and sanitary pads. We were joined by Ivy, one of our volunteers. Ivy visits our center every Tuesday afternoon to teach our girls a course in business management. Also joining us was our volunteer interpreter Kirui Kirui who, having grown up in the district speaks the local dialect.