Mum-of-seven in Kenya tells World Vision: “I only eat leaves”

13 July 2011

World Vision continues to help people suffering from severe food shortages in East Africa, as its fundraising appeal in Ireland gets underway.

The international aid agency is providing vital food, water and healthcare in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. Some areas are experiencing the worst drought in 60 years.

Children

Three-year-old Catherine (pictured), from Batei village in Kenya’s northern Rift Valley, is among those affected.

Her mum, Mama Selina, said: “In the past the rains were more and you could get something from the land. But now I cannot plough and get anything from the land.”

Her children are ill, her home is in disrepair, and Selina was forced to enter her 14-year-old daughter into an arranged marriage in exchange for livestock to help the family stay alive. Now, even the goats she received have died.

Hunger

“Often I’m very hungry and I only eat leaves,” says Selina, who has seven children. “It’s very painful when I feel hungry. I always feel hungry and I’m not getting food.”

Her seven children have stopped begging her for food, she says. “When there’s no food, they don’t ask. They’re used to living like that.”

Drought

Helen Keogh, CEO of World Vision Ireland, said: “People in this region are used to periods of drought but not of this scale. In some places, there’s hardly been a drop of rain for two years.

“More than ten million people are affected including vulnerable children. Their crops and animals have died and food prices have soared. That’s why World Vision workers are on the ground right now helping hundreds of thousands of people survive.”
 

 

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