Contributor: Muna Ahmed

Muriya Mohamed and her four children feel more secure being able to use the new latrine within their homestead, built through a Mercy Corps cash-for-work program. Photo: Muna Ahmed/Mercy Corps

Muriya Mohamed and her four children — Bishara, Gabey, Nuh and Issak — proudly showed me the new latrine in their community.

It was built by local people paid by Mercy Corps to improve sanitation and water facilities here in Wajir, a part of northeastern Kenya hit hard by the drought and food crisis across the last year. Our team is giving people who have lost their animals – and only source of income – the chance to take on short term community improvement tasks like this in return for cash to buy essentials like food and medicine. Creating work in return for a fair wage in this way helps keep what’s left of the local economy going, and allows families to buy exactly what they need rather than rely on emergency handouts.

The results themselves bring long-lasting benefits as well. Muriya told me that the latrine in her community is making life safer for women too: “Before the latrines were constructed, I had to go far into the bush to relieve myself. There are lots of risks going into the bush at night. It’s not safe, especially for women. Attacks from wild animals like lions, hyenas, poisonous snakes and foxes are very common.”

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When we told Zeinab Abdikadir that Mercy Corps was going to construct a child-friendly center, she replied, “We are very grateful to you Mercy Corps.” Photo: Muna Ahmed/Mercy Corps

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.

Families here have no water supply or facilities, and their children have no school. When I visited, the children were learning under a tree, with no blackboard or any learning materials in sight.

After months of work providing water and emergency support to the community here, we’re now working with community elders and leaders in the village to create a child-friendly center where children can safely learn, play and spend time away from the difficulties they face every day.

“I am so thankful to Mercy Corps," said Boqor Ali, the village elder. "First they quenched our thirst for water and now they are building this center for our children, who were learning under a tree with no desk, blackboard or even any books or pencils. No child here has ever had access to these kinds of things."

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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.

“Previously my family had 80 camels and 120 goats,” explained Sangaba, who arrived with five grandchildren — all but one under the age of 5. “All that is remaining now are two weak camels.”

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Halima and her children do not eat regularly.

Halima Abdi Noor has not seen her husband for the last three months. He has gone with the few animals the family has left towards the Kenyan-Ethiopian border, in search of food and water for them. She is one of many abandoned women in the dusty settlement of Qaraa, whose husbands left because they can’t provide for their families at the same time as looking for better pasture for their remaining livestock. Previously, Halima’s family had 20 camels and 50 sheep and goats, but the drought has left them with only 5 camels and 3 goats.

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Zeinab Abdikadir waters her family's goats at a Mercy Corps watering point in Kenya's drought-stricken Wajir County. Photo: Muna Ahmed/Mercy Corps

I met Zeinab Abdikadir as she was watering her family’s goats with her father at a Mercy Corps water storage tank in Bilil Burbur. She caught my attention because, at just nine years old, she was completely focused on her work. At such a tender age she was watering 100 goats in careful shifts, a few at a time.

She told me how before Mercy Corps began supplying water close to her home, she and her father used to walk to Lagbogol — which is 50 kilometers from where she lives — so that they could find drinking water for their goats.

She said: “My family used to have 300 goats, but as the drought continued they became fewer and fewer day by day because of the long trekking distance to water. My father and used to have to walk two days to reach Lagbogol and another two days to return with our goats, which are getting weaker as days pass because there is nothing to feed them on.

"I am so grateful that now I don’t have to trek anymore as water is brought closer to us by your people. Now I am able to go to school and learn because I don’t have to walk for days with our goats.”

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