50 years on, Trócaire is still tackling the toughest situations on Earth
Paul Healy, Country Director for Somalia. Picture: Joy Obuya/Trócaire.
Since 1973, Trócaire boxes have been a staple in Irish households, businesses, schools and churches, a sign of lent but also a call for help for those suffering abroad.
In addition to revisiting some of its best-remembered boxes for its 50th anniversary, Trócaire launched this year’s appeal which will support almost eight million people on the brink of starvation in Somalia.
The rainy seasons in Somalia used to bring about optimism and a sense of life to Somalis, with Trócaire’s Country Director there, Paul Healy, recalling locals chasing birds away from seeds and crops.
“They were always poor, but they could depend on the soil and their livestock,” he said.
Now, as a direct consequence of climate change, he said, the land is “barren” and “cracked”.
Mr Healy has been in East Africa for 25 years and Somalia for six years where Trócaire’s 30-year-old programme focuses on health, nutrition and education.
“30 years ago there was a famine, 250,000 people lost their lives and again that happened in 2011, but this drought is deeper and longer than the previous droughts and it’s brutal,” he said before adding that “nothing is left in the ground”.
Mr Healy has seen the effects of climate change first hand. It has left water sources dried up and almost four million livestock dead.
“It’s a wasteland, the place is bone dry, there’s no water and we’ve just gone through a fifth consecutive failed rainy season and expecting a sixth,” he said.
Hundreds of thousands of people have abandoned their “decimated” rural homes and now reside across Gedo, Baidoa and Mogadishu in displacement camps, living in what Mr Healy described as “shacks” smaller than a bathroom.
“They’re consigned to this desperate life on the edge of a town in a tiny hut made of a few sticks and a few bits of cloth with nothing left.
“Climate change is at the very heart of it. These people didn’t cause this but they’re feeling the impacts like nobody else on the planet,” he said.
Meanwhile, huge outbreaks of measles and cholera are spreading among a population that is already severely malnourished.
“Our stabilisation centre in Dolow is seeing four times the number that you would normally see. We’re getting hundreds and hundreds of children under five every month being treated for severe acute malnutrition,” he said before adding that male and female wards are now full of children.
Mr Healy has seen, many times, starving children arrive too late.
“There is nothing worse than seeing a child die right in front of you, in front of their mother and you’ve done everything but they’ve come to you too late and they’re dead within 24 hours of getting to the hospital, it’s inhumane,” he said.
Despite other global issues occupying public attention, he said Somalia simply cannot be forgotten and despite the data saying Somalia is not yet experiencing a famine, Mr Healy said they are “certainly dealing with the impacts of famine.” The current conditions are leading to masses of children not being able to go to school, while girls are being married off early because there may be resources in doing so.
“It’s a desperate situation for those people to be in and it’s very hard to see beyond the horizon. Longer term solutions are needed as well as the immediate lifesaving humanitarian response that Trócaire and others are operating at the moment,” he said.
The main solution, he said, would be to address climate change and its implications, having seen the effects “as clear as day”.
“I’ve been here 25 years, I’ve seen the gradual disintegration of livelihoods because of the impacts,” he said before adding that previously, there might have a cycle of drought every five years, something families could predict and plan for, however now they don’t know when the rains are coming.
Mr Healy said richer countries must take responsibility “for the damage that has been caused”.
“Saving lives is basically what we are doing at the moment, but that’s not good enough, there has to be a deep global commitment to address the consequences of climate change in places like Somalia,” he said.
This year’s Trócaire Box tells the story of Ambiyo, her husband Mahat, and their eight young children.
After their crops failed and the last of their goats died their only option was to leave or stay and face starvation and death. After walking for three days, they arrived at a camp for displaced people.
Ambiyo was pregnant when she arrived and when giving birth, she experienced serious complications and was taken to the nearby health centre run by Trόcaire where she and the baby received life-saving treatment.
Legacy
To mark its 50 years of service, Trόcaire has revisited one box in particular from 2004, proof of how support from Irish people can have a “massive impact” on those in developing worlds, according to Trόcaire CEO Caoimhe de Barra.
Josiane Umumarashavu from Rwanda became a familiar presence in over a million Irish households, churches and schools in 2004 when she was put on that year’s Trócaire box.
When she was three years of age, Ms Umumarashavu’s father, sister and two brothers were murdered during the genocide in Rwanda which saw at least 800,000 Tutsis and thousands of Hutus killed by Hutu extremists. She and her remaining family were forced to flee their home in search of safety.
Following the appeal for aid, she said her mother was able to start a shop and could subsequently afford a home on a small piece of land, while she and her brothers were able to attend school.
Now 31 years of age and living in Kigali city in Rwanda with her husband and two children, she works as a finance assistant in Trócaire’s office after graduating with a qualification in business management and accounting.
“I still have the 2004 Trócaire box in my home and I look at it now and again to remind myself of how far I have come. I get very emotional when I look at it still, because I know I wouldn’t have finished my schooling, or have the job I have today, or be able to look after my family, without the generosity of the Irish people,” she said.
Trócaire CEO Caoimhe de Barra said since 1973, Irish people have been “unstinting” in their support, and the number of lives “not just changed but saved is huge.” She said Ms Umumarashavu and her family are an example of how support from Irish people can have a “massive impact” on those in developing worlds such as Somalia where almost half of the population are struggling to find food.
“Millions of people are facing starving to death. This is a shocking scandal,” she said.
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