FARMERS STAND WITH TURKANA.
Have you ever skipped a meal? Or even walked for a long distance without water? How did it feel? Like you would die if you don’t get food, right? Now imagine, someone has not had a meal for days, has walked miles just to get even a single drop of water. Leave alone for himself or herself but for that child staring at her blankly. Imagine a child staring at a starving mother, fragile as she is but still must stand strong for she is the hero to the child. A hero who can’t save herself, but she still must strive to save the child. She can neither offer food nor promise the child tomorrow but all she has is hope. Hope in her sunken eyes.
Devastating it is. To some, only a story they heard of in the 1984 famine in Ethiopia which caught the world’s attention. A story told through the lenses by the late Mohammed Amin (MO). This time, we are not talking of Ethiopia. We are talking of Kenya, Our home. Our Mama Land. People in Turkana are facing starvation. Children are dropping out of schools and must trek miles to escape from the jaws of starvation. Where they walk to, they know not. Will there be food there? Will they see tomorrow? These, they themselves can’t answer. All they know is that they must walk and keep walking for behind them is death walking closely, waiting to devour them. The region has not received any rains in the last 9 months. To make it worse, they recorded poor yields last year due to a locust invasion in irrigated areas using rivers Turkwel and Kerio. No food, No water, temperatures of up to 42 degrees is what they must endure in a fight to survive.
Images have flooded our mainstream media; the social media is filled with pictures of frail people staring at the photographers hoping the cameras will come with food. Nine people have already died of hunger in Turkana Central and the same fate awaits thousands of others if nothing is done. For this reason, Friends of Farmers for Zero Hunger have joined hands to transport food to affected areas, donate farm inputs, set up and train residents in the affected areas to start growing their food. We not only believe in feeding someone but also training them how to get their own food. For who will feed them once they have consumed all that was donated? It is high time that we end this vicious circle and be a hunger-free nation.
Join us in this worthy course #FarmersStandWithTurkana
BY. LORGISA ROSE
