I knew there was no time to lose when I received the first reports of a looming food crisis in Niger. Having led our response to the food crisis in 2010, the memories are still fresh in my mind. I know the earlier we respond, the more lives we can save. Now that the rains have failed, insects have destroyed some of the crops and prices are rising — over five million people are facing hunger.
A normal Wednesday for me usually involves some laundry, some grocery shopping, maybe a walk in the park, and a jigsaw or a game of hide and seek with DorkySon.
Yesterday was a little different. I went to Downing Street.
I was one of six Save the Children campaigners who went to hand in a petition calling on David Cameron to sign up to the Charter to End Extreme Hunger.
The women sit in the sun waiting for their turn and their faces tell a story of endurance and fortitude. They are reduced to living from hand to mouth. In this battle, the only goal is to survive.
I am in Geneva this week attending the World Health Organisation’s Executive Board meeting. Today I had the opportunity to make a statement in front of government officials from around the world and the WHO’s Director-General, which was nerve-wracking!
Today Save the Children, ONE, Oxfam and African’s Act for Africa will be leading a twitter takeover during PMQs from 12-1.
We need as many people as possible to tweet using #PMQs and #hungercharter with the aim of taking over the #PMQs twitter feed and getting the hunger charter trending.
Nakale missed out harvesting her sorghum this year and is now scavenging for lalok (wild fruits) to make ends meet. The lalok fruit Nakale gathers from trees close to her boma (village) for her and her children are of little nutritional value. The fruit can cause diarrhoea in children, but there are few alternatives.
Just when I thought the drought was over, I am now staring at the silent face of the emergency.
The long-awaited rains have finally come. The greenery goes beyond and into the horizon, an endless, beautiful scene; but the beauty is just a façade.
The main focus of the conference was our #66cities campaign and many of the campaigners there signed up to become one of our #66cities champions, deciding to put the knowledge and skills they’d gained from the sessions into direct action.
Ismael Ayah Gasle has been an Animal Health Technician in Ethiopia’s Somali region for the last 10 years. He told me that animals are now in the worst condition he has ever seen.
Rising food prices over the last year have put the lives of 400,000 children at risk, in advance of the G20 summit in Cannes our director of policy has warned.
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