A long trek from the outskirts of the Baidoa in Bay Region brought the family here—to a new camp for displaced people called Booli Qaran, which, ironically, means “looted wealth of the state.”
It’s here that Oxfam’s partner, SAACID, has opened another center for community therapeutic care, or CTC, one of 14 the organization is now operating across the city. And it’s here that Sahro’s son, Ahmed, has been receiving care following months of sickness that left him increasingly weak.
“I really don’t know exactly what is wrong with him, but I think the problem is linked to hunger,” says Sahro. “This nutrition center is extremely important for us. Without it, hundreds of children would have already died from malnutrition.”
Implemented in partnership with Oxfam, the CTC program has been treating children since 2009. It is now admitting more than 3,000 malnourished children, like Ahmed, every week.
“We were displaced after drought killed all the animals we had. We had goats and some cattle; we also had a small farm which we cultivated in order to sustain our lives; but unfortunately there has been no rain at all, and this caused everything to die,” says Sahro.
“We endured a very difficult trip from Bay to Mogadishu, because we traveled on foot for almost 155 miles. I was carrying my sick child on my back, while my husband was carrying another child who is older than my youngest. We begged from Bay to Mogadishu—from district to district and from village to village, for food and water. In reality, we were very lucky to survive. We know of so many families who have lost relatives or children. We thank Allah, who has allowed us to come to Mogadishu together and survive.”
Opened on July 12, the Booli Qaran camp was established for rural families flooding the capital in search of food, services and employment. More than 5,000 people now live here in difficult conditions. The day after the camp opened, SAACID set up a CTC center, which, like the others it operates across the city, have been working hard to save lives.
Ambiyo, a mother of triplets, knows well how important the centers are. She brought her triplets—daughters Qaali and Naciimo, and son Abdirisaq—to one of them recently. Qaali was immediately referred to the SAACID’s outpatient therapeutic program section at the clinic, when she was found to be severely malnourished and in need of immediate treatment. Ambiyo notes that her daughter was in a state of complete frailty back then.
Her other 2 children—Abdirisaq and Naciimo—were placed into the supplemental feeding program section, which treats moderately malnourished children. As treatment has continued over two months, they have all been recovering.
“All of my triplets were weak, especially Qaali, who was so weak and sick and refused to breastfeed at all,” says Ambiyo. “The other two were weak and thin, but still breastfeeding. I was so worried that Qaali wasn’t going to make it. We were well received when I first came to the clinic and the nurses immediately said that they could help us.”
“Our daily life depends on what my husband earns with his work as a barber, and that is not enough for such a large family,” says Ambiyo. “I hope my triplets will recover from the sickness arising from malnutrition problems, especially Qaali who is the weakest. So far, so good.”
SAACID’s senior staff and management lived through the last great Somali famine of 1991-1992, and find this new crisis heartbreaking.
SAACID-Somalia’s Country Director, Raha Janaqow, said, “I had hoped to never see such a hell in Somalia ever again. Yet, here we are, 20 years later, having endured 20 years of statelessness and anarchy; having to see another generation of Somalis suffer and die of starvation. I have seen so much suffering, and still I weep. I no longer know where my tears come from. All we can do is keep helping as much as we can with the resources we have, and hope for a better time.”
]]>Achieving farm resilience requires building up the resilience of vulnerable farmers by developing their skills, expertise and voice while supporting their use of agro-ecological farming practices. Building resilience depends not just on how farmers manage resources, but on how well local, national, and global institutions support farmers. Agro-ecological practices can empower vulnerable small-scale farmers, offering them both greater control over their lives and an accessible means of improving their food security, while decreasing their risk of crop failure or livestock death due to climate shocks. Vulnerable farmers can use agro-ecological practices to build resilient farms and improve their livelihoods, achieving multiple benefits: 1. improved food security; 2. adaptation to a changing climate; and 3. mitigation of climate change.
People-centred resilience consists of five principles which should guide how investments in vulnerable farming communities are designed and implemented. They are:
Following these principles ensures that investments support farmers in their efforts to become food-secure and adapt to climate change. Four institutions central to delivering people-centered resilience are: secure land rights; dynamic farmer associations; responsive agricultural advisory services; and public support for environmental services.
]]>Now, "the field" may sound like an exotic place, full of adventure and intrigue. As a Boston-based writer for Oxfam, that's usually what I've experienced during visits to mountain villages in China, rice farms in Cambodia, and coffee farms in Guatemala. Then I spent a week with Estela in late January, traveling to the northeast highlands of Cambodia. The trip gave me a whole new understanding of the sort of challenges Oxfam's dozens of program officers face.
People like Estela work full-time while finishing their PhDs. They leave their home countries—the Philippines, China, Australia, Vietnam—to live in poor communities. They develop not only specialized knowledge but also the people skills to share it. But beyond the impressive credentials and the wealth of experience, theirs is hard, hard work – and it requires a good deal of patience and flexibility. Luckily for Oxfam, program officers like Estela seem to genuinely enjoy what they do. In fact, it's the messy, uncomfortable, generally stressful work they like the most.
It was a Monday morning, and we were flying north in a chartered plane no bigger than a minivan. Estela was chaperoning photographer Brett Eloff and me during a trip to interview the indigenous people who live near the Sesan and Srepok rivers. We were on our way to Ratanakiri and Stung Treng, Cambodia's least populated provinces, which sit along the Vietnamese and Laotian borders. Brett sat in front with the pilot, Estela and I sat in the middle, and two other passengers sat in the back.
We passed over the snaking Mekong River, the source of life and livelihood for so many Cambodians. Dry rice fields blanketed the ground below.A thick expanse of trees gave way toa patchwork of square fishing plots on the Srepok River.
As we climbed higher, the small plane caught the wind under its wings, skidding a bit atop the clouds. Clutching my seat, I looked over at Estela who gave me an encouraging smile. It was frightening and exhilarating all at once.
Two hours later, the plane touched down on a red-dirt runway doubling as a playground. We loaded our sleeping bags and backpacks into a waiting SUV, and traveled a few miles to the local office of our partner, 3SPN. After a quick PowerPoint presentation and lunch, we were back in the SUV, four of us crammed into the backseat for the two-hour ride to a village in the Taveng District. As we nodded in and out of sleep, our driver artfully navigated the dusty roads, slowing down to maneuver around holes and bumps. By the time we arrived at the village, it was late in the afternoon and the sun was dipping in the sky.
Like many Cambodian villages, Taveng Lou was overrun by livestock. Roosters, chickens, pigs, and water buffalo wandered freely. Giant stilts held up wooden homes with thatched roofs. Children huddled in clusters and stared at outsiders, the smallest kids running around in the buff. Dirt was everywhere, except in the homes, which mothers and daughters meticulously swept clean.
With the light fading and the mosquitoes emerging, we set out on a trek to interview and photograph the villagers. I wanted to talk with the indigenous people who are struggling to maintain their lifestyle despite the construction of a dam upstream in Vietnam. The dam has polluted their drinking water, decimated their fish catch, and wiped out their rice fields.
We hiked to the Sesan River, crossing a suspended bridge rickety enough to test anyone's sense of balance. But when we got to the water, we couldn't find any fishers or farmers. The local people used to depend on the river for their livelihoods. Now, many villagers have simply moved away. Others are spending more and more time trying to supplement their incomes, going deep into the nearby forest to collect honey and rattan to sell.
Kim Sangha, the executive director of 3SPN, told us we'd have to look for people by boat. Getting to the boat, however, required scaling the muddy banks of the river. Estela and I held hands to make it down together. As we stepped into the small fishing canoe, we worried aloud about capsizing it. Before we knew it, though, we were in and on our way. The sun reflected off the water as we motored past sandbars and fishing traps.
Spotting a riverside gardener, we brought the canoe ashore and got to work. Sangha, Estela, and I interviewed the woman, who depends on the natural flow of the river to irrigate her vegetables. The water flow has been erratic since the dam construction. Her gardens have sometimes been flooded and destroyed.
After the interviews, we headed back to the village chief's home to eat and spend the night. When we got there, covered in dust, I remembered what Estela had told me before the trip. No running water in this village. No wells. No pumped water of any kind. We'd have to bathe in the Sesan River.
We walked down to the water. As I leaned against a canoe to balance myself while changing into a sarong, I realized that Estela had no intention of getting in the river. The villagers had told her too many times how dirty the water had gotten since the dams were built. Some reported getting skin diseases.
Given that this was my only source of water, though, I felt like I had no other choice. As I entered the water, Ame Tandem, another 3SPN staffer, warned me that the rocks were slippery, covered with the algae growing uncontrolled since the dams had changed the water's flow. I grabbed her hand as I slithered in. Estela watched us from the shore, using her handiwipes to clean up.
I was cold and feeling ridiculous. Then I looked up. Before me, a sky full of stars. Behind me, the sunset cast an orange glow over the horizon. It was a good way to end a very long day.
Our pocket flashlights guided us back to the village chief's house. We were tired and ready for our beds – sleeping bags under mosquito nets. But Estela informed us that the district chief and his deputy were waiting to speak with us. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But it was the culturally appropriate gesture. So, I did what Estela does every visit. I sat down and listened.
The next couple of days were more of the same, long car drives to dusty villages. Somewhere along the way I ate something I shouldn't have, maybe an undercooked vegetable, maybe something else. It was my second bout of food poisoning in five days. On top of that, I was exhausted and irritable. I told Estela I didn't know how she did this all the time.
That Thursday, CEPA, another partner organization that works with river communities, took us on our next trip. By this time, I'd had plenty of experience with the rough, unpaved roads we'd need to travel to get to the next village. So I was surprised when our driver showed up not in a four-wheel drive, but a 1980s Toyota Camry with no air conditioning. As the driver flew down the road, much faster than felt safe, we sat quietly in the backseat, sweating through our clothes. What else could we do? In these situations, Oxfam staff have to just go with the arrangements made for them.
Finally, our driver's recklessness led to the inevitable. While trying to cross a dried-up riverbed too fast, we got a flat tire. We were 11 miles from the village and in the middle of a forest. The driver had a spare, but after changing the tire, he announced that he was leaving us and would like to be paid for the gas required for his trip back home.
My patience exhausted, I started to argue. But Estela stopped me. There was nothing else we could do, she explained. It was better to just pay the man and move on. We ended up laughing in disbelief at our situation as we waited a few hours for another car to pick us up.
And, making the best of things yet again, Estela pulled her hammock out of her backpack, tied it to a tree, and took a nap.
By the time we made it back to Phnom Penh on Friday afternoon, I was cranky and feeling weak. All I really wanted to do was stumble into my hotel room, take a shower, and go to bed.
It took the weekend to get over my food illness. When I arrived at Oxfam's Phnom Penh office Monday morning, I was still shaky, and quite itchy from mosquito bites. But there was Estela, bustling about, neatly dressed in a pretty linen skirt and blouse.
She told me she was getting ready to leave for Vietnam the next day. Watching her run around the office, trying to secure her entrance visa and finalize last-minute details, I was astounded. A week in the rough had worked me over. Estela seemed invigorated by it, and eager for more.
"Going to the field keeps me energized," she explained. "I love talking to the local people, hearing their stories and experiencing their culture. No matter how difficult their situations, they always seem to not only survive, but live happily. The trips inform my work – and they remind me why I came to Oxfam in the first place."
]]>A five-person review panel, which included the former State Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) leader, Qu Geping, selected the winners.
The competition, which had a water conservation theme, awarded $123,457 to 16 organizations and individuals in Beijing. It was the first time since the competition?s start six years ago that a theme was identified.
Twenty-two projects from a field of 200 proposals were chosen as finalists. Awards were made for tertiary students? activities, and the category in which Green Watershed won.
Ford Motor Company "has seen the important link between water resources conservation and China's efforts to achieve sustainable development and build a harmonious society," said Dr. Yu Xiaogang, founder and head of Green Watershed, when accepting the award.
"It's an honor as well as an incentive for us to continue public participation, good river basin management, and environmental equity."
It is the second time this year that Green Watershed has been recognized for its work in China. In March, Green Watershed was one of 10 winners in a contest sponsored by Beijing's Economic Observer and Shell, which recognized groups that designed outstanding sustainable development projects in China.
]]>The stories that follow testify to the fact that aid can be used effectively—in Africa and beyond. By investing directly in people, by helping them gain access to education, credit, and natural resources, by challenging the policies that perpetuate poverty, Oxfam puts the systems in place that can end poverty. Without this work—and your support—people remain hungry, poor, and lacking meaningful ways to change their lives.
Together, we have the chance to make that change.
]]>She was writing her name in Chinese characters, painstakingly shaping each slope and spike, trying to remember what she learned in school.
She'd lived her 30 years in this remote village on a mountain with no official name. She was a picture of dignity in a place facing difficult times.
For generations the people on this mountain had cut and sold timber. Then, just a few years ago, the Chinese government banned logging to conserve trees.
It was an important decision for the environment, one that helped protect the watershed of Lashi Lake. But it eliminated some important interaction for the Yi people who live here. An ethnic minority who only met with the lowland Han people when they sold their timber, they risked being left behind.
To survive the logging ban, the Yi needed a plan.
Green Watershed, an Oxfam America partner, came up with one. After consulting with the villagers, they discovered potatoes could replace timber as a cash crop. And the women who formed the backbone of the community could learn to speak Mandarin and write Chinese characters so they could sell and trade the potatoes to the Han at the base of the mountain.
In May, I went to China, Cambodia, and Thailand to capture stories like these, illustrating Oxfam America's work in Asia. I had never been to the region before. Like so many in the West, I knew about the extreme poverty only from the media.
But suddenly there I was filling notebooks with the results of our work, watching village after village preserve their way of life using their own expertise:
Rice farmers in Cambodia finding a niche in the market, creating the first organic rice mill in the country. Burmese refugees studying law, risking their lives to document human rights abuses back home. Fishers living on the Tonle Sap lake measuring the impact of over-fishing and developments planned for their community.
I marveled at the dignity of these men and women. They just wanted what we all want: to make a decent a living and feed their families.
Some sought to do the work their families had done for generations, only to watch the developed world encroach on their waterways and flood plains. Some needed to diversify and adapt their way of life.
But for others, the plan was even more ambitious. Let's say these communities make enough to get by.
Then what?
Then, it turns out, Oxfam partners help them learn how to participate in development decisions. They diversify their work options and insist on better governance. They put money away and buy farm equipment, fishing boats, tuition for their kids. They build health clinics, schools, and courtyards for meetings, traditional dancing, and singing with family and friends.
In short, when poor people aren't so poor anymore, they can effectively plan for the future.
What I saw during my travels illustrated the vast range of work Oxfam and its partners do in the regions.
And surrounding it all are the many challenges—few resources, limited participation in decision-making, outside interference, droughts, floods.
But somewhere in between, the work gets done.
A woman writes her name. A village survives.
]]>The environmental organization was one of 10 winners in a contest sponsored by Beijing's Economic Observer and Shell Corporation, which recognized groups that designed exemplary sustainable development projects in China.
An appraisal committee of economists, policy makers, NGO leaders, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists, selected the winners from a field of more than 100 contestants.
Green Watershed, an Oxfam America partner since 2000, won praise from the judges for their work in villages around the Lashi Lake. There, government conservation programs and dam developments threaten the livelihoods of local farmers and fishers, many of them ethnic minorities in China.
Based on their research and interviews with villagers, Green Watershed designed a project, which helped the people of Lashi Lake protect their environmental resources and make a living. Now former timber harvesters are growing potatoes, former fishers are nursing fruit trees and Chinese yams, and Yi and Naxi women are attending schools in their villages, learning to read, write and teach others innovative agriculture techniques.
Li Yue-Chun, 55, a Naxi woman, whose family was the first in her village to begin planting fruit trees and Chinese yams, said she now has hope her community will survive.
"Because of the riverway improvements, my land will never be threatened," she said.
Green Watershed is also working to form self-sufficient watershed committees in Lashi villages, which allow local people to advise their government representatives what kinds of plans would work best for them.
"The Lashi project is like a pilot for the whole of China," said Warwick Browne, Lead Regional Program Officer for Oxfam America's Mekong River Basin Management Program. "It represents what watershed management can be."
Dr. Yu Xiaogang, the director of Green Watershed, said the judges recognized the Lashi project because it demonstrated two key requirements. It could be replicated with just a modest amount of funding. And it involved the village's participation.
"They said this is a very alien concept in China—a process that involves the people participating in watershed management," Dr. Yu said.
Green Watershed received 10,000 Yuan (about $1,200) for the March 2005 prize.
]]>Amid cheers from a throng of enthusiastic supporters and international media, Make Trade Fair won the day.
Oxfam's trade campaign was launched.
Within hours of the Hong Kong debut, events were held in 25 cities including Brussels, Dublin, Geneva, Mexico City, San Salvador, and Washington, D.C. These events ranged from press conferences and symposiums to a rock concert in London’s Trafalgar Square.
Oxfam's trade campaign seeks to unite concerned citizens around the world in calling for fair trade policies that will help move millions of people out of poverty.
Nobel Prize Professor Amartya Sen, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and musician and social activist Bono were among those who endorsed the campaign. "Oxfam has got it right," said Bono. "It wouldn't cost much to change the rules of trade so that poor countries can work their way out of poverty. But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough people telling them."
Also in this issue of EXCHANGE, writers Frances and Anna Lappé discuss their book Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, and we bring you updates on Oxfam's work with water and sanitation, drought in Ethiopia, and indigenous women in the highlands of Peru who are speaking out after decades of violence.
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