27th September, 2011
Breaking the cycle: freeingTurkana from hunger
Once Turkana was a prosperous land, home to a thriving, healthy community.Today the story is very different.
Turkana is now synonymous with insecurity, hunger, perennial drought, disease and under-development. The Turkana people are grappling with a drought that has been ravaging their land for almost three years.
AMREF has been working in Turkana, a region in the north-west of Kenya, for close to 30 years, with development projects mostly centering on primary health care, water, sanitation and nutrition. But the drought has forced us to re-address the priorities of our projects.
“We have had to divert a lot of effort and resources to tackle the effects of the drought on the communities we serve, “says Ali Jillo, a Project Officer responsible for AMREF’s drought response activities in Turkana.
"You cannot talk to starving people about hygiene when they do not have water.”
At an AMREF medical camp, the leading diseases seen by AMREF health care staff are malaria, upper tract respiratory infections, pneumonia, diarrhoea, malnutrition, intestinal worms and eye infections. “Malaria cases are disturbingly high; in two previous medical camps, over 600 of the 1,210 patients attended to were infected,” notes Nurse Kizito.
“The medicine is never enough."
"We can set up shop here for a whole day and we will never be able to attend to all the sick people. It's mostly because of the drought that many are ill, as their bodies are weakened,” says Nurse Kosgei, as he screens a skinny five-year-old boy.
For Pelech Losanitei, 65, and his wife Chegen, 45, the drought has brought a chain of misfortune. Not only did they lose their cattle, but their two daughters also died within weeks of each other, both weakened by hunger until they could not cope with illness. Pelech and Chegen now have nine additional mouths to feed, as they grapple with their own hunger and failing health.
James Ekapeton, a community health worker and chairman of Napak village, is also concerned, “Old people are really suffering. Something should be done for them too because they cannot eat the hard maize provided in the rations given by the government, and yet they are not eligible for supplementary feeding.”
Implementing sustainable solutions
The desperate circumstances of the Turkana communities clearly call for immediate responses, but the answer to this perennial problem does not lie in emergency measures.
Besides drought, insecurity and poor health, some blame the poor quality of life in the area on illiteracy, remoteness and exclusion of the Turkana from national development, deforestation, poor development policies and leadership, and unyielding cultural practices.
That is why Chief Paul Meyan Marioa of Kaikor believes that even a million bags of food will not alleviate the community’s suffering.
“Donors want to come with emergency solutions when there is hunger. But we need to deal with the problem of water, so that our people can farm.”
AMREF’s health, water and sanitation projects in the division have made a huge difference, he says. AMREF has constructed several boreholes in Turkana district and plans to build more in coming months.
Working alongside the community to implement measures such as these, AMREF is helping people in Turkana work towards returning to its former status – a land of plenty.
Find about more about our work in Kenya or read and update on the situation in Turkana.