Kirstin Davis visits Dadaab Refugee Camp
Africa is currently experiencing the worst drought in over 60 years, leaving more than 12 million people in East Africa desperate for food, water and healthcare. Due to the lack of rain, families across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are struggling to find nourishment. As a result of the rainless seasons livestock has perished in the order of hundreds of thousands and food prices have sky-rocketed.
Sex and the City star, Kristin Davis, has decided to put her fame and recognition to good use for the cause. For the past six years Davis has worked with Oxfam, traveling to various regions of Africa to help publicise the humanitarian issues there. Her most recent trip brought her to Tanzania and then to northeast Kenya to visit the Dadaab Refugee Camp to help with disaster relief efforts. Kenya recently declared the drought a national disaster, with more than 1,400 people a day arriving at the camp.
Davis, along with Oxfam, are now urging major strides be taken to aid the East African food system. Farmers and communities have been devastated by the crisis, while their governments have done little to help alleviate the situation. Small-scale food producers have not received adequate investment to help them through such hardship and plans to protect vunerable people were not strong enough to work. Because this problem has continued for so long, food prices are now out of reach for most of the population, leaving people hungry and without hope.
Oxfam is taking action to respond to this emergency by seeing that more is done to address the problem. They see issues such as this as a wake-up call to governments, and to the international community as a whole, and are currently appealing for £50 million, their largest appeal for Africa to date. Oxfam’s GROW Campaign proposes more investment in small-scale food producers as well as better support for those who are being neglected by their governments.
Donations to the Disasters Emergency Committee in the UK have steadily risen, bringing the DEC appeal total to £9 million so far. Chief Executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee, Brendan Gormley said, “It’s heartening to see that the UK public is continuing support for the appeal since it was launched last Friday and we need to keep this momentum going as the crisis continues to unfold.”
For more information on how to help provide food, water and healthcare or to donate visit, www.dec.org.uk.
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