Delivering Food in Times of Crisis

A 500 yen — about US$6 — voucher to Sunlia, a store that sells household goods, clothes and food. Mercy Corps and Peace Winds are passing out packets of vouchers like this to Japanese families as they move into temporary housing. Photo: Christopher Cabatbat/Mercy Corps

After weeks of planning and hours of stuffing vouchers into envelopes, actually handing something to someone who needs it should be the best part of this job. In a way it is, but it can also be one of the hardest. After focusing on problems and solutions in the abstract, actually seeing the people who have lost so much makes the disaster real again.

We did the voucher distribution at the orientation meetings held by the local government for people moving into temporary housing. I watched the faces of the people lining up at the registration table: old women hunched from years of tending rice paddies, old men with hearing aids, young women holding toddlers, a few couples.

The city government, struggling to deal with the enormous demands of the past few months and with many of its staff displaced themselves, had only sent a few people to manage the meeting. Even with assistance sent from other municipalities, plus me and my Peace Winds colleagues, Yohei, Handa, and Takeshi, the line was moving very slowly, but nobody seemed impatient. All of them had done a lot of waiting in lines recently. As I handed over the envelope holding the keys to their new apartment, trying to give each person a smile, I had to wonder what they had lost besides their houses.

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Mercy Corps is assisting humanitarian evacuations of besieged residents of Misrata, a city in western Libya that has seen heavy fighting in recent days.

Our emergency team members have accompanied two boatloads of vital food and medical personnel originating from eastern Libya. They've been helping coordinate the evacuation of residents trapped by escalating fighting.

Mercy Corps' Fadl Moukadem has made two crossings between Benghazi and Misrata in the last two days. These are excerpts of his account of the first trip:

We set sail just past midnight on April 14. The purpose of the trip was to deliver humanitarian aid to the people under siege in Misrata and to evacuate refugees -- known as "third-country nationals," or TCNs -- who were living in very precarious and risky situations.

Fadl Moukadem and the boat he took to Misurata.

On this mission, I was charged of coordinating the work of the medical team which was comprised of three Libyan Red Crescent volunteers and three doctors. However, in the end, we all did what needed to be done at any given time.

In addition, Mercy Corps coordinated with its partner organisation, The Libyan Appeal Team, to bring on the ship 104 tons in food items. Supplies were donated from many other sources. As they loaded the food on board, volunteers started singing patriotic songs and clapping their hands. As a final touch they wrote messages of hope and support to the people in Misrata on each of the containers.

The trip took about 14 hours. The sea was relatively calm and there was plenty of space for the passengers heading to Misrata. In addition to International Organisation of Migration (IOM) staff, there were representatives from the Libyan Red Crescent, Benghazi Hospital, the Libyan Appeal Team, and some journalists. The crew was made up of Romanians, Greeks and Egyptians.

On the morning the day we set sail there were heavy government attacks on Misrata. As we approached the port many hours later, we saw a Turkish vessel waiting outside the port, and NATO ships patrolling the sea. It was pretty tense and many of the crew were frightened. The captain communicated with NATO and while there hadn’t been attacks for awhile, the decision to proceed to the port was ours. We then approached the port.

Non-Libyans to be evacuated from Misurata.

Upon arrival we had expected to see a large number of refugees cueing up, as well as emergency vehicles with medical evacuation cases ready to move. But the port was relatively empty. It was later learned that there was some miscommunication and the refugees were still at various camps.

I then got into a pick-up with a driver, the IOM coordinator, a photographer and a couple of Red Crescent volunteers and sped off quickly to view some of the damages and to locate the camps. It was a trip about 20 minutes, but we saw plenty of bombed out sheds and vehicles along the way to the camp. The camp was more of a spontaneous settlement lined up along a stretch road. There were not many tents; mainly people were using blankets to create some sense of shelter.

In all approximately 1,200 refugees were brought on board plus a couple dozen Libyans with families. The refugees came from Bangladesh, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan, Niger, Nigeria, Lebanon and Morocco. The Bangladeshis (Bengalis) and Egyptians were the largest groups.

As the people boarded many dropped to the ground to pray in gratitude. At first people didn’t care where they were going – they just wanted out. After a time, however, anxiety levels rose and it was decided that a general announcement needed to be made. The announcement started with “The IOM, Mercy Corps and Libyan Red Cross welcomes you to the ship!” It then went on to say that upon arrival in Benghazi the group would be taken to a camp where they would spend one or two nights and then taken across the Egyptian border. The Egyptians would then move on to their home cities and towns and the others would be flown to their home countries. Many of the Bengalis could not understand the message so we were able to find a translator to speak to them. In the darkness of the night I could then see the flashing of teeth as they smiled with relief.

The seas were a lot rougher on the return trip and many suffered sea sickness. On top of that was the stench resulting from so many people in such close quarters which made for the passing of many difficult hours.

By the time we pulled into the port it was 8:00 p.m. April 15. While there was a sense of relief, the stronger emotion was the need to get off the ship as fast as possible. Buses were provided to move people to the next stage of their journey home.

It took almost three hours to fully disembark yet even before I left the port for my hotel. I was already talking with IOM and the Mercy Corps team about my return trip to Misrata the very next day.

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A young quake survivor taking home emergency food supplies from our local partner’s distribution. Mercy Corps’ Yue Yao was on site to help with relief supply distribution in Qinghai over the last several days.
Photo: Yue Yao/Mercy Corps

Please note: this is the third dispatch piece by Yue Yao, Programme Manager with Mercy Corps China, who is currently in Qinghai. I am receiving and posting his notes while he's in the field.

It was a big day today.

I helped our local partner with two of their emergency distributions, the first being in the morning. The heavy road traffic last night forced us to postpone the first distribution until this morning.

It was a small size food distribution targeting 120 people living in the Minzhu Lu temporary housing camp, which we assessed yesterday. Before the distribution took place, our local coordinator provided a very specific list of survivors, with family names and the number of people in each family. We also viewed information regarding the number of people these families lost in the earthquake.

This afternoon, we served 1,007 people living in a camp near Yushu Park. It was a very tough distribution, since the camp was not very well organised and lacked a camp leader to take charge of the event. We heard the community had a pretty desperate struggle earlier during another distribution. While this is completely understandable after an emergency, when survivors are desperate, we wanted to do things right. We were a little worried about how we could efficiently and safely distribute this load of much-needed food — our truck had roughly 9,000 vegetables, including potatoes, carrots and greens.

When we encountered damaged and crowded road conditions, we re-grouped and set our “Plan B” into action: we had to dig out a new path for our food supply truck. We managed to arrive in the camp and then we set up a secure distribution line with a large group of local survivors.

By 8:30 that evening, we had managed to complete the full distribution. It wasn’t until we had all gone back to our operating base that we realized how exhausted we were. Everyone said the same thing before lights out though — we did today this for 1,007 courageous survivors.

This is a great team.

Digging out a new path for a food supply truck en route to an emergency camp for displaced earthquake survivors. Extreme weather, icy roads and heavy traffic have made access tough in Jiegu town.
Photo: Yue Yao/Mercy Corps

Our joint distribution point for emergency food relief. The team worked throughout the day and evening and provided much needed local style food items for more than 1,000 Tibetan survivors.
Photo: Mercy Corps

A Tibetan family receiving a pack of emergency food supplies. Photo: Yue Yao/Mercy Corps

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Photo: Roger Burks/Mercy Corps

Just a little more than a week ago, we helped procure and deliver 15 metric tons of food for Port-au-Prince's beleaguered main hospital. Now, for more than a week, hospital patients — most of whom are sick or injured earthquake survivors, including dozens of children — have had nutritious hot meals delivered bedside by caring staff and volunteers.

It's the first time in years that the hospital has been able to cook for patients. Our team in Port-au-Prince is committed to helping the hospital continue to make this happen.

I took a few videos of the day we delivered these food supplies to the hospital, beginning with loading of the truck at an enormous warehouse, and — because Internet connectivity is sporadic in Haiti — have just now posted them online. You can watch them on Mercy Corps' YouTube channel. Here are the individual videos:

1. Loading the truck at the food supplier's warehouse:

2. Unloading the truck outside the hospital's kitchen:

3. Walking around one of the hospital's many makeshift wards:

I hope this gives you some sense of the process of getting and delivering food in Haiti, as well as an idea of how things look there. Thank you for your ongoing support, and we'll continue to update you on our work to help Haitian earthquake survivors.

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Today, I heard one of the most beautiful and most heartbreaking things of my life. It’s something I’ll always carry with me — and perhaps the one phrase I’ll attach to my time in Haiti.

Rosemarie, who works in the kitchen of Port-au-Prince's main hospital, dishes out rice that will be delivered in a meal for each patient. Photo: Roger Burks/Mercy Corps

I was at Port-au-Prince’s main hospital again, checking on how the food we’d delivered was being cooked and taken to patients. Even before I entered the kitchen, I knew what was on the stove: chicken and sauce. When I went in and talked to the kitchen crew, I also found out that they were making rice and beans — and were just about to do another round of deliveries to the various tents around the hospital grounds. So I followed along.

We wound down the pathways of the sprawling hospital complex, past one fallen building and a couple that have been closed off because of earthquake damage, to a set of tents that are temporary home to injured and recovering children. As volunteers passed out the meals to grateful families, I took time to talk to a few parents.

One of them was 36-year-old Claricia Basaent, mother of two injured children, including 11-year-old Nadine. Nadine sustained internal injuries as their house collapsed around them in the midst of the earthquake, which led to an emergency appendectomy here at the hospital. She’s doing better now, besides some soreness and a big bandage on her stomach, and taking a few small steps each day to gain her footing again.

Today was only the second time since the earthquake that Nadine has had a hot lunch — the first was yesterday, when the hospital kitchen started making meals from Mercy Corps-donated supplies. Before this, she subsisted on whatever was brought in by small organisations and volunteer doctors: mostly crackers and other small sustenance.

Claricia Basaent and her daughter Nadine. Photo: Roger Burks/Mercy Corps

When she leaves the hospital after visiting hours are over, Claricia is still subsisting on whatever she can find, mostly sporadic food distributions from international organisations. She can’t afford to buy food since losing everything when the earthquake took her house.

I asked Claricia where she slept at night. And her smile stunned me almost as much as her answer did.

“Sous les belles étoiles," she said. Under the beautiful stars.

I smiled back, shook her hand and told her we’d keep doing everything we could to help. As I walked away to talk with more families, I kept imagining the place where Claricia drifts off to sleep. Perhaps I’d even been through her neighborhood.

But, mostly, I thought about those beautiful stars and how all of us are beneath them. I don’t think I’ll ever look at the night sky in quite the same way.

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Congolese children, displaced by brutal violence, wait to receive water for their families. Photo: Matthew De Galan/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is helping more than 50,000 displaced people meet their most basic needs in areas of conflict-ravaged northeastern Congo near the Rwandan border.

Mercy Corps is helping alleviate suffering along the country's war-torn eastern edge, where tens of thousands of people are fleeing their homes where fighting rages between government and rebel forces.

The United Nations World Food Programme has estimated that continuing violence is preventing tens of thousands of Congolese from receiving food aid. Mercy Corps is working on solutions to not only bring such critical supplies to families, but also ensure longer-term prospects for food security.

Through a generous grant from The Hunger Site, we are piloting an innovative new approach to help families feed themselves: small "kitchen gardens" constructed from burlap sacks, soil and rocks. These tiny yet productive plots take up less than 50 square centimeters of space, but can produce as many vegetables as a two or three square metre garden plot. Some of the vegetables planted include carrots, cabbage, onions and leafy greens.

While our sights are set on sustainability and long-term objectives, our response began — and remains rooted — in emergency assistance to displaced families.

In September 2007, working closely with the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations, a Mercy Corps team helped distribute food and water to 2,500 families in Mugunga, a town seven miles southeast of the embattled city of Sake. The Mercy Corps team also aided in the provision of plastic sheeting, food supplements, jerry cans, children's clothing, mosquito nets and blankets to an estimated 5,000 families.

Mercy Corps has also helped Caritas and the World Food Programme distribute 60 tons of grain, beans and cooking oil to 10,000 displaced people — the first major food distribution in the area since an epic influx of families fleeing violence.

Today, we are are providing 450,000 liters of water each day to 50,000 displaced persons in the Rutshuru area, ensuring a supply of clean water that helps keep families and children healthy. We have also constructed more than 400 latrines to improve sanitary conditions and keep preventable diseases at bay.

Mercy Corps staff helps displaced people at a community water distribution point. Photo: Matthew De Galan/Mercy Corps

However, this aid and assistance is being delivered under extremely dire and dangerous circumstances.

Congo emerged in 2003 from five years of war involving Rwanda, Uganda and other countries in the region. As many as 5.4 million people died, most from hunger and disease as the country's economy, health system and infrastructure collapsed.

Clashes between local and regional militias have renewed fears of a resumption of the war — which lead to more deaths than any conflict since World War II.

Fighting displaced more than 200,000 people throughout 2007 in North Kivu province, home to six million people. Since January 2008, an additional 75,000 have been forced from their homes.

Nationwide, some 1.2 million Congolese are displaced due to conflict. Life expectancy has dropped by 10 years in the past decade and 20 percent of children die before reaching age five, one of the highest rates in the world.

The needs throughout northeastern Congo are immense. War-weary families are struggling to protect and provide for their children.

Until lasting peace allows them to return home, they need our help. Mercy Corps is on the ground to meet those needs.

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Fati Issia sits with her seven-month-old son, Moctar, at the Dar es Salaam health clinic in Niamey. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Niamey, Niger - Fati Issia seems alone in the crowd.

In the midst of the boisterous waiting room at Niamey's Dar es Salaam neighborhood health clinic, she sits quietly while other mothers engage in conversation. She holds her seven-month-old son Moctar on her lap.

This is her first time at the clinic. It is also her first week in Niamey, Niger's bustling capital and largest city.

Fati did not come to Niamey by choice, but through need. The food crisis that's enveloped the entire country is also debilitating local economies. As crops withered in Fati's home village, so did jobs. Fati's husband couldn't find work.

Fati and her husband made a difficult decision to take Moctar and leave everything they'd ever known to come to Niamey in search of opportunity. It has eluded them so far, as it has thousands of other hopeful newcomers to the capital city. Fati, her husband and Moctar are currently living with relatives in a poor section of the city where shanties built on the sides of sandy streets are a common sight.

While food crisis and unemployment remain beyond her control, Fati is taking control of one critical part of her family's life: the well being of her young son. She is one of thousands of young mothers that are seeking nutritional and health advice at local clinics supported by Mercy Corps. This support is helping train hundreds of health workers to gain the skills they need to help protect children like Moctar from the constant peril of Niger's cycle of hunger.

It's not easy for a young mother, especially one as demure as Fati, to come to a place like this and ask for help. But she is committed to giving Moctar a promising start in life - and Mercy Corps is helping.

A healthy new beginning

When we arrive to visit the clinic, Moctar is already on the scale and ready to be weighed. He is alert and curious, surveying the room through eyes wide with amazement. He grabs a slip of paper and carefully examines it.

As Fati sits anxiously in an adjacent chair, a nurse weighs Moctar. I ask the young mother how she found out about Mercy Corps' therapeutic feeding programme.

While on the scale, Moctar scans the room with wide eyes. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

"A female neighbour - a new friend since I moved here - told me about it," she says self-consciously. "She's been bringing her children here for a few weeks, and they're doing better now.

"She told me the people are nice here."

The nurse turns to Fati and begins to address Moctar's condition.

"He weighs 5.2 kilograms [about 11 pounds]," the nurse says. "For his age and height, it means that he's moderately malnourished."

Fati listens as the nurse thoroughly describes the programme: what she must do at home, how often she should feed Moctar, what food to give him and how often to bring him back to the clinic. Fati nods her head in sincere, thoughtful acknowledgement of each piece of advice.

After the consultation and a time for questions, the nurse writes instructions for Fati to take into the next room, where Fati will pick up supplemental food.

A woman wearing a vibrantly coloured head wrap politely takes the slip of paper from Fati and peruses the instructions. As she measures out cups of UNIMIX - a high-calorie, vitamin-rich porridge - and protein-packed vegetable oil, Moctar turns his head and beams a sweet smile at her. The woman gently laughs and hands bags of food to Fati.

As she leaves the Dar es Salaam health clinic for Niamey's dusty streets, Fati Issia might be questioning what tomorrow holds for her family. There are many needs to be met every day, so many hard questions to consider. But tomorrow and in the months to come, Mercy Corps will be meeting the needs of more than 40,000 children across Niger, including Moctar.

And that's one less thing that mothers like Fati will have to worry about.

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