crisis

I have been working as an intern in Save the Children’s Head Office for two months now. Seeing how many millions of people, especially children, are suffering in emergencies all over the world can be upsetting, but this is counterbalanced by seeing our responses. I was shocked at the number of emergencies that we respond to at Save the Children. Earthquakes, civil wars, typhoons and drought are just some of the situations that I have seen in the short time I have been here.

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In Niger’s bustling capital, Niamey, it’s easy to forget that more than 80 percent of people in this country are dependent on the land for food and their livelihood.

Most are extremely poor – a combination of regular poor harvests which yield little and a hand to mouth existence when the harvests are good.

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I’ve just met a Nigerien woman in the capital, Niamey, who is determined to challenge the unscrupulous traders who are partially behind the high prices of millet – the staple here – and other grain which is playing an important part in the severe food crisis which is devastating this country.

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Too much water can be as destructive as not enough. Hardened earth cannot easily absorb large amounts of rain, quickly creating a flash flood. Then, after a rain, standing water can soon become breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes and disease-ridden bacteria. The return of the rain is no simple event.

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During the last eight weeks, while I’ve been in Niger, I’ve often been overwhelmed by the scale of the problems people face here. It’s not just the current food crisis and the number of people who are going hungry now but also the future and what this has in store.

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I arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan this morning. I’m reading up on country statistics as we go. As the plane flew we started bumping around in the turbulence over the mountains that surround Kabul, and cover 80% of Afghanistan — what was this? Nervousness? Tension? The bumping stops, but I’m still nervous.

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I’ve lived in Niamey for almost a year now, and I’m never sure what to do when someone asks me for money. It’s the worst feeling to hear a kid ask you for some money because they are hungry, but it’s even worse to think about the possibility of whatever you give them benefiting someone else.

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The discussions on infant-feeding at the World Health Organisation are under the shadow of the emergency in Haiti. We know that every year, one-third of all child deaths have undernutrition as the direct underlying cause. So promoting breastfeeding and stopping the inappropriate promotion of breast-milk substitutes and other products is vital to protect children’s lives.

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We had a terrifying wake-up call by earthquake yesterday.

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Three days in Haiti and it feels like an eternity even though the days just fly by! There are simply not enough hours in the day.

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