Kenya
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Photo: Joy Portella/Mercy Corps
Our strategy
Work with youth to address the root of conflict and empower them to champion peace. Help families survive the drought and hunger crisis that hit the Horn of Africa, while building their ability to cope with future challenges.
The context
The underlying causes of Kenya’s 2007 post-election crisis remain. These include competition over land, deep poverty, widespread unemployment, youth alienation, and political manipulation of grievances. Millions of families are also still recovering from the region’s worst drought in 60 years, which began in 2011.
Our work
- Children & Youth: Connecting young people through new mobile technologies to pursue community development, new economic opportunities, and a peaceful political process
- Conflict & Governance: Strengthening local, district, and provincial structures to promote sustainable peace and reconciliation
- Emergency response: Providing clean water and access to food for drought-affected families
- Agriculture & Food: Helping affected populations rebuild their assets including livestock
All stories about Kenya
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Kenya: Protecting the children of Bililburbur December 2, 2011
Bililburbur is a new community in Wajir, created over the past year as families who lost their herds of animals in the historic drought were forced to settle and search for other ways to survive.
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Kenya: We still need you to stretch out your hands October 27, 2011
Yesterday I wrote to our supporters about my recent trip to Kenya and Ethiopia, where people are suffering the terrible effects of the worst drought in 60 years.
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Kenya: 2.5 million bits of hope in northeast Kenya October 18, 2011
Things are not getting better in the Horn of Africa. In the nearly three months since I visited the region, the landscape has gotten drier, and people and animals have become more desperate for water and food.
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Kenya: Seeking shelter from the rains October 16, 2011
Goats and people take shelter from much-anticipated rains in northeastern Kenya.
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Kenya: Cash grant, food provide relief to family October 10, 2011
I met Sangaba Abdi Gullet at Barmil during our cash distribution activities. She looked more distressed than the rest of the beneficiaries. From her face, we could tell she’d been through very tough times.
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Kenya: Drought pushing food prices up October 6, 2011
Here's an example of how prices have skyrocketed in Kenya because of the drought. The conversion rate is simple: 100 Kenyan shilling equals a dollar.
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Kenya: ‘Asante Mercy Corps!’ October 5, 2011
In the town of Lag Bogol and the surrounding villages of Leheley, Boji Yareh and Boji Eyrib, we meet dozens of pastoralist “dropouts” — herders who have no more herds, and therefore are forced to “dropout” of their ancient way of life.
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Kenya: 'Our camels are so weak, we have to help them stand up' October 4, 2011
Chief Saladi Ibrahim shakes my hand and manages a smile. As we sit down in the hut, he pauses to gather his thoughts. He is clearly troubled. He’s been chief for 17 years, and his village of Dela, like the rest of Wajir County, is in a terrible time.
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Kenya: Pressing for time October 3, 2011
All day long, as the heat swelled to a punishing bake, gray clouds teased a promise of rain. But no rain came. In Wajir town and the surrounding scrub the landscape is parched: red sand, broken branches, piles of white rocks.
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Kenya: Death and drought September 22, 2011
Today the Mercy Corps Emergency Response Team headed to El-Adow in northeast Kenya, to begin our work to give cash grants to those hardest hit by the drought. As we approached the small town, the carcasses of dead livestock lay scattered all across the dust, as far as the horizon.