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Reports of Valérie Scherrer, Kenya, July 2011
cbm's Valerie Scherrer reporting from the food crisis in the Horn of Africa
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Valérie Scherrer has been cbm's Emergency Response Unit Senior Manager since 2008 and she is the co-ordinator of the Conflict and Emergency Task group of the International Disability and Development Consortium.
Valérie is an occupational therapist by training, and has more than 15 years' experience working in the field of disability, both on development and emergency programmes. Her experiences in the field include refugee camps and conflict and disasters contexts. She has been involved in all phases of disaster management from first assessment to programme definition, management and evaluation. Furthermore she has been involved in developing inclusive disaster risk reduction strategies with local partners' organisations. Her work in the field includes also advocacy, training and capacity building of a wide range of mainstream humanitarian stakeholders and local governments.
Valérie Scherrer has also contributed in a variety of articles and publications related to disability inclusive disaster management.
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Tuesday, 2 August 2011 - Nairobi
Today the country coordinator of Ethiopia, Mr Tigabu, has arrived in Nairobi. We had a long discussion on the situation there and how CBM could support emergency responses there. We still need to collect more information but we have good ideas and I’m confident that we will also be able to develop some response in Ethiopia.
We also had the visit of some partners. Sister Judith from St-Lucy Special Need education school came with pictures of the children leaving the school for holidays with food supplies and hygiene kit for the girls. Sister Judith explained to us all individual stories and gave us many details on the difficult situation some of the children and families are facing.
Five of the children remained at the school as their parents are pastoralists and they do not know where they are currently. They have probably tried to move to find food and water for their cattle and may not come to pick up their children, knowing that the sisters will take care of them.
The sister told us that all the children are really looking forward to go back home and spend some time with their families, however they may not be aware of the situation they will find once home as they most of the time stay within the safe environment of the school.
Sister Leonora from St-Oda school also wrote to us explaining that she had supported families with transportation to come and pick up their children. She wrote that she will take time to visit them during the holidays to make sure they are fine and receiving sufficient food and care from their families.
This is probably one of my last blog from the field until my next mission as I’m going back to Europe on Wednesday but we are already planning for my next trip this time most probably to Ethiopia in few weeks.
I would like here to say also a word on how the cbm Regional Office staff, the country coordinators and the partners have been supportive to the development of the emergency strategy. People have given time and energy to help us and are very committed to support the poorest of the poor. It is great feeling and team work and hopefully together we can continue to do more…
Wednesday, 27 July 2011 - Nairobi
Last night it rained a lot in Nairobi, which is not normal at this time of the year. It should normally only start in about two months. I wish this could have been the same in the north and north-eastern region of Kenya but I know it hasn’t. In fact, if heavy rains come now in the affected areas and the temperatures drop, that will bring another set of challenges in the support of the population - the fields are so dry that the water will just flow over and inundate the areas, increasing the risk of water-borne diseases, for example.
My colleagues, Linda and Greg, are since Monday in Moyale, a border city with Ethiopia. They’ve visited villages in the areas and met persons with disabilities to try to understand their situation. One of them said that nobody thinks about persons with disabilities in times of emergency and he was happy that someone asks about their situation. Linda and Greg will be back tonight and I think Linda will add about her experiences on this blog later this week.
Sunday, 24 July, 2011
It is Sunday evening and we are back from the field visit in Eastern Kenya with our partner the Diocese of Meru. We visited the district of Tharaka North, it was very dusty and we walked into very dry areas to meet with persons with disabilities and their families.
This was a long day listening to stories all of them telling us the same thing: “we haven’t had any harvest since nearly 2 years now, we have a meal a day made of a little bit of maize and water, and we don’t remember the taste of vegetables or fruit, it is so long that we haven’t eaten any!” The life in this part of Kenya is difficult, to find few litres of water. People have to walk for hours every day, one father told us that to bring back 60 litres of water for his family of 13 members he needed to walk three hours one way. Can we try to think about how many litres of water we use every day?
All of the families we visited had a child with disability who is not going to school therefore not accessing the daily meal that schools provide to children. How can they survive then? What can a mother do to ensure her child has enough food? In one of the family we visited, the mother was not at home as she had left to go to beg a bit of food to the main city. She will come back maybe in 10 days with some food for a few days and then the father will go to do the same.
This visit was really important for me and the team to understand the real situation of people and to develop an appropriate response.
I’ve asked Fred my Kenyan colleague to write on this blog and share his feelings from our visit; he said he will do it tomorrow.
Friday, 22 July, 2011
It is Friday and a week I’ve been in Kenya, this afternoon we will travel to Eastern Kenya to visit one of our partners over the week end to gather more information about their situation.
I’m going there with Fred one of my colleagues from the Regional Office and a photographer. Yesterday I had a talk with Caro who is going to be with us for our visit and her story were very hard to listen. She was talking about persons with disabilities being ignored and neglected by their families and the community as they are not considered as “productive” but just as a person to feed.
Persons with disabilities have rights like anybody else to receive food and consideration. Caro is overseeing a community based program, she has great knowledge of people she worked with and our team will be able then to really understand and see the struggle of persons with disabilities in Eastern Kenya facing the drought and the food shortage. I’ll be out of internet access over the weekend so will not be able to blog but I’ll try to tell you the story of the visit next Monday.
Thursday, 21 July, 2011
I’m now in Kenya since last Friday and I have spent my time trying to understand the situation of our partners in facing the drought and the shortage of food. With my colleagues of the regional office we have met many people and quickly discovered that the situation was worst that we anticipated.
Yesterday, the UN has declared that some parts of Somalia have reached the emergency level of famine and the situation in countries around is not much better. It is in a way incredible that in the 21st century anywhere in the world people should face famine.
Most of us have never even felt really hungry and I can’t imagine how it is when you survive on less than a meal a day.
As we are trying to respond to this crisis we should also think of surrounding countries where people have not been able to cultivate their field because of lack of rain, where prices of basic food has increased by 3 to 4 times in a short period of time and where it becomes so difficult to even have a meal a day.
We’ve been working hard with very few hours of sleep during the last 2 days but it is worth as CBM is now raising funds and that we are able to participate to the effort to alleviate the suffering of people.
Saturday, 16 July, 2011
Friday went very fast with first meeting with the Kenya Red Cross and discussing how their emergency response could better include persons with disabilities. It was a very nice and productive discussion which will be continued on Monday with further meetings looking at how we could work together.
Saturday mid day we got the good surprise as we receive a very good draft proposal from one of our partners. We are right now working on putting it altogether. Fred my Kenyan colleague from the Regional office is today working in the office gathering very important information which will help us to move forward with developing the response strategy. It is always amazing to see people dedicated to their work giving extra time and providing essential support to the emergency response. More soon.
Friday, 15 July, 2011
I've landed in Nairobi this morning after my overnight flight from Brussels, and am now in a hotel waiting the team from Nairobi to pick me up to go to a meeting with the Kenyan Red Cross. I may not have first hand field info before beginning of next week as we are first meeting partners and reviewing the possibilities.
Thursday, 14 July, 2011
I’ll be taking a plane in few hours to go to Kenya to support CBM's Regional Office to assess the impact of food crisis in the Horn of Africa for people with disabilities and their families.
It is a crisis which started years ago but today it is very serious, our partners are not located in the worst affected areas but they already report children dropping from school as a result of the food crisis.
I do not really know my planning for the moment but I’m going there with the hope to ensure access for persons with disabilities - and especially children - to food distribution, clean water, health services, etc., as they should not be left out and should have the same chances as other to survive. |
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