November 14, 2016
Ethiopia
Nowadays Ethiopia is facing huge crop failure and hunger because of climate changes – extreme dryness, hot temperatures and floods. We can point to an effect called El-Nino, the strongest one since 1950 when researchers started to record it.
The most affected people are the poorest and the most vulnerable Ethiopians whose livestock have died, have had bad crops or have lost their way of sustenance completely. The hunger has caused long-term malnutrition and fast diseases spread.
Since March 2016, Caritas Czech Republic has focused on four Ethiopian villages situated in the Kacha Bira District (c. 300km south from capital city Addis Abeba) fully depended on foreign humanitarian aid.
All activities have focused on poor families afflicted with the lack of food, households headed by widows or orphans, families with disadvantaged member with HIV or other illness and households affected by floods.
In the first part of programme the irrigation system and antierosion measure was built. Two hundred women and 300 men were involved in manual work. All these people were honoured not only with positive change of rehabilitated landscape but also with the wage for work, thanks to implementation of a „cash for work“ system.
These women and men can use the money to buy medicaments for diseases endangering the health of their families. Common diseases include malaria, measles, meningitis, diarrhoea or different kind of inflammation. Ashera, a local health centre helped with distribution of medicaments.
Additionally, 400 families endangered with acute malnutrition received food supplement in the form of a 15 kilogram nutrition reach mix Famix and 0.5 litres of consumable oil.
Over the next years, Caritas Czech Republic is planning to support the ability of local people to ensure livelihood on their own.
This project for assurance of food and lowering numbers of acute malnutrition cases in Kachabira District has been financially supported by the Foreign Ministry of the Czech Republic.
