A Smile Despite the Drought

Waris is a mother who has seen three of her children admitted at the Targeted Supplementary Feeding Program (TSFP) in Dangorayo funded by World Food Program (WFP). She brought her two-year-old daughter Sundu, four months ago at the centre and the girl steadily regained her full health and discharged. Soon after Sundu’s discharge, she brought in her 18 month old son Abdulahi who was immediately admitted in the program.

“I hope that he will recover as fast as his sister,” she says with hope.

Her first-born child, who is seven years old, also benefited from the TSFP and is fully recovered.

“The TSFP has been integral in keeping my family healthy. Initially, I would use traditional methods to prevent malnutrition like lemon water, but this did not work,” she admits.

At 35 years old and with seven children, Waris is constantly worrying on how to feed her children. Her husband is a casual laborer and she runs a small vegetable kiosk at the town center. When life gets tough, she relies on her relatives living in the diaspora to send remittances so she can stock her shop.

The drought situation has also caused the cost of water to increase in the community

“The cost of water has gone up and we are buying it a very high price. Before the drought, we would buy a 20 litre jerican of water at between1000-2000 Somali shilling (USD 1.5-3) but now we buy it at 3000 Somali shillings (USD 4).”

If the drought persists she says, “It will get to a point that my children and I will sleep hungry and my son may not fully recover. My husband has no job and the shop I am running is not doing very well as people have no money to buy food and the high priced water at the same time.”