El Niño Food Crisis Affects Millions

Reflecting on the severity of the El Niño food crisis that is affecting millions of people across East and Southern Africa, it’s easy to be overwhelmed. The scope of the need is massive.

Thousands of families, who depend on their crops for survival, have been unable to grow anything as the result of a devastating drought. It is heartbreaking to know that many people have few places to turn.

Yet, there is encouragement in scripture. In Isaiah 58:10, Isaiah declares that “if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.”

It can be easy to focus on the darkness – on the incredibly difficult situation many are encountering because of this drought.

However, Isaiah makes it clear that by helping the hungry and aiding the afflicted, light overcomes the darkness.

For several years, World Renew, in partnership with Food for the Hungry Ethiopia (FH/E) and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, has been living out Isaiah’s declaration in the Dugda district of Ethiopia. Through the support of Global Affairs Canada, World Renew has been able to scale up the project in response to the growing needs.

Besla Tikese is one of over 41,000 people who have been receiving food distributions between January and August. Tikese and her husband live on a 1.5-hectare farm with their two children – a three-year-old and a 10-month-old. The only livestock they own is one ox. While this has been enough to support them in the past, Tikese and her family lost their entire harvest last year because of the drought.

Each month World Renew is providing Tikese and her family 15kg of maize, 1.5kg of pulses, 0.5 litres of vegetable oil and 4.5kg of Famix (a food supplement high in vitamins, minerals and protein).

Without this project, she says, she has no idea what her family would do to survive. She is grateful for the work of World Renew in her community.

Eshete Habte Yohannes and his family are others that have been blessed by the work of World Renew. Yohannes is a farmer with eight children – six are living with him and the two oldest are working and finishing high school. They own sheep, goats and a pair of oxen who plough their five hectares of land.

Though Yohannes has been a successful farmer, able to feed his family and sell produce at the local market, he experienced 100 percent crop failure this past season. Without crops to support his family, he was forced to sell some of his sheep and goats. His oxen are barely surviving because of a lack of food and they are too weak to plough right now.

Through this project, Yohannes and his family have received enough food to eat and have not been forced to sell off more livestock. If Yohannes is able to locate some seed, his family will be able to bounce back quickly.

As food assistance continues to be provided, the words of Isaiah 58:10 are being lived out – the hungry are fed and desires of the afflicted are satisfied.

Tikese and Yohannes are testimonies of how World Renew’s work in Dugda is bringing light and hope into an unimaginably difficult situation.

Click here to donate to help Word Renew in its response in Ethiopia.