heks

In 2011 the people of the Horn of Africa witnessed the worst drought in 60 years. Since September HEKS and the local partner organisation Oromo Self-Help Organization (OSHO) have been distributing food to the people in the HEKS project region of Borana in Ethiopia. The situation has not improved even with the rains that began in late October:  the people lack the oxen they need to till their fields and those that they had planted by hand were flooded by the unusually heavy rains.

HEKS has been active in the Borana region of Ethiopia since 2006 and, jointly with the local HEKS partner the Oromo Self-Help Organization (OSHO), had already provided emergency relief during the severe 2008 drought. Since September 2011, OSHO has been distributing monthly food packages to the victims of the current famine. They contain maize (corn), lentils, cooking oil and a food supplement specially enriched with vitamins and minerals.

People are given food under a food-for-work project in which they do community work, such as renovating village infrastructure. The long-awaited rains finally began in late October 2011 and people confidently began planting their fields with what little seeds they had received from the Irish NGO Goal. Because most of the oxen that normally pull the ploughs have perished, farmers had to furnish that energy themselves, or work the fields with hoes. Besides, the increasingly heavy rainfall has flooded most of the freshly planted land, thereby dashing people's hopes of being able to provide for themselves again thanks to an early harvest.

The Ethiopian Government and the UN are currently making detailed verifications in the region in order to assess the needs of the people for 2012. Based on those findings and on its own assessment, HEKS will decide how the aid programme should continue for the over 30,000 people in Borana. Plans are in place to continue distributing food to the population until February 2012. But owing to the failed harvest that has occurred, food distribution could well take place even beyond February. Moreover, new seeds as well as oxen are urgently needed to plant the fields again in the next rainy season – expected to begin in April 2012.

Account for donations: PC 80-1115-1, Please mark "Horn of Africa"

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HEKS is an accredited partner of Swiss Solidarity.

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December 2011