Extended families reunite to enjoy their traditional ‘nyama choma’ dinner, the sound of carol singing fills the air and communities come together to make sure the most disadvantaged in society don’t go without…but not this year. With the Coronavirus pandemic putting enormous pressure on the already heavily indebted government, millions of children and their families in Kenya will struggle to avoid starvation this holiday season.
And nowhere is this more evident than in big urban centres. In Nairobi, before the pandemic hit roughly 60% of the population lived in abject poverty in city slums. Living in such close quarters they were susceptible to serious illness. Now more than 1.7 million are so short of basic foodstuffs, they are lacking the minimum level of nutrition and risking death. But this untold suffering is not confined to the capital alone. In the coastal city of Mombasa where the emergency has all but wiped out the local economy, thousands of young children are so desperate that they are living on a peanut-based paste reserved for use during times of famine. In a tourist region which holds happy memories for so many, more than 100,000 are now at serious risk of death from hunger.
It is in these so-called ‘Covid hotspots’ where our exhausted team have been working night and day for months. Through our Coronavirus campaign, we have supplied essential foodstuffs and masks to countless children and families who would otherwise have gone hungry. To put it literally, a constant supply of rice, canned beans & bread has been the difference between life and death for so many. But with Christmas just around the corner, the cries for help from the city slums and country villages have simply exploded in number.
With millions of children and their families battling to survive the toughest Christmas in decades they need our help now more than ever. Through our well established community based network and partnerships we can quickly obtain essential supplies in-country and deliver them straight to those that need our help now. With your help, some of the most disadvantaged children in Africa can look forward to many more Christmas mornings to come.
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