Emily Bhatti is Oxfam America’s Media Relations Coordinator

On my first visit to New Orleans, I arrived with over 150,000 visitors, football fans, and Mardi Gras party goers. The Super Bowl drew the eyes of the nation to this city in southern Louisiana, but most paid little attention to the ongoing struggles of the area’s long-suffering residents.

New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region are no strangers to disasters; from Hurricane Katrina, to Hurricane Rita, the BP oil spill, and the most recent Hurricane Isaac, this region has seen its fair share of struggles. Oxfam America has been working in the Gulf Coast since before Katrina and with our local partners we have fought to not only restore the area but better prepare it for future disasters.

It would have been easy for me to go along with the party in the Big Easy, throw on some beads, order a big plate of crawfish, listen to the music, and have a good time. But I knew what many of the other party goers didn’t know: There is still work to be done.

Completely different world

So instead I went to Plaquemines Parish, where I was soon in a completely different world. The level of destruction was staggering; from boats floating on fields of grass, to vacant homes and silent streets. During Hurricane Isaac in August 2012 flood waters rose almost 14 feet in some areas, damaging hundreds of homes and displacing many.

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Some of my most vivid images of the Sahel food crisis are of hands and feet.

“The climate was better in the past," said Fatoumata Dioum, shown here in her garden in Fafacourou, Senegal. "Now, there is sometimes too much rain, sometimes not enough. We began to notice this more than ten years ago.”

When I traveled to Senegal recently to document Oxfam’s work on the crisis, I met with women farmers who lost their last harvest to erratic rains. Several times I noticed an injury to a woman’s foot or finger—usually something simple that without medical care had become so serious that it was disabling or worse: from the look of it, some would require amputation. But none of the women had any food stocks left  and, with prices on the rise, none could afford to purchase enough for her family to eat, so a visit to the doctor was out of the question.

The painful realities in West Africa are part of a bigger picture in which climate change and food price spikes are jeopardizing the lives and futures of many of the most vulnerable people around the world. A recent Oxfam research brief –”Extreme Weather, Extreme Prices” – explains how:

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Telley Madina is a Coastal Communities Officer as part of Oxfam America’s US program. This is the first of two blogs.

Before Isaac hit shore and lumbered through Louisiana and Mississippi,  I relocated my family from New Orleans to the Baton Rouge area. As I struggled to make my way back to New Orleans, searching for roads that weren’t blocked by downed trees or water, I was stunned to see the extent of flooding—in  areas that had never seen it before.

While Isaac clocked in as a relatively mild Category 1 storm, with nowhere near the destructive power of Katrina, the swelling water sent shock waves through our communities. As all of us are scrambling to restore order, we’re also reaching out to our friends and family who are vulnerable and hurting; and wondering what we need to do to prevent the next big storm from washing away more of our homes, businesses, and the culture we love.

Men getting around in water right next to the road in St. John Parish, which has never seen flooding before. Photo by: Telley Madina / Oxfam America.

Isaac hit especially hard in poorer coastal parishes, where the federal government had not invested in flood protection the way it had in New Orleans. Our partners are still reaching out to their communities, with direct aid and with plans for a long road to recovery. Plaquemines Parish, where our good friend Rev. Edwards runs the Zion Travelers Cooperative Center, was deluged after the water topped the levees. Many of the roads are still closed, and the power is still out in many spots; we’ve managed to contact some folks who report the damage is so extensive, and so close on the heels of Katrina’s devastation, that they may not struggle to rebuild again. Read the rest of this entry »

Kichwa women in Chirikyacu, Peru, work together to cultivate traditional crops. Photo: Percy Ramirez/Oxfam America

The more I learn about Oxfam’s work in South America—and I’ve learned a lot in recent months—the more impressed I am by the power of women.

Indigenous people in countries like Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador have experienced centuries of discrimination and exclusion. Even today, many remain trapped in poverty. That’s why Oxfam works with indigenous groups to protect their fundamental rights and increase their political and decision-making power.

While many groups face ethnic discrimination, indigenous women have to overcome gender bias, too. A recent Oxfam report found that although women in Peru made significant contributions to the indigenous peoples’ movement, they are still less likely to hold elected office, get an education, or earn a living wage. They also face new challenges in their traditional roles as food producers. “Women are feeling the effects [of climate change] more, because they are more tied to the earth,” said Nancy Iza Moreno of Oxfam partner group the Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas (CAOI). “They are the ones who work in the gardens and in the fields.”

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I recently visited the far eastern Kedougou region of Senegal, where inconsistent rains last summer led to a poor harvest in the fall. Since then food prices have shot up, and many there are struggling to find the food they need to survive each day, all the while worrying about how they will procure the seeds and other agricultural inputs they need to plant when the rains come, with any luck, in May or June. The farmers I met spoke about the struggle to feed their families and the concerns they have about the upcoming rainy season. They described the creative ways they have earned food money to make up for their poor harvest last fall, and what they need to be able to plant when the rains come. I was impressed with how resourceful the people are, how hard they work, and most of all by their determination to plant crops this year. However, all the farmers I spoke with were worried about finding the resources they need to plant– and eat– during the upcoming rainy season.

Please share this with others and contribute to our West Africa Food Crisis Fund. Oxfam is putting in place programs to help farmers in Kedougou and other areas of West Africa with seeds and other agricultural support, so they can plant this spring. We are also planning work that will help keep their drinking water clean and safe, and to provide food or short-term work for cash wages, so farmers will have food over the summer while they work their fields. With your help, we can expand this work to include as many people as possible and head off a major disaster.

Baobab trees

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Baobab trees near the road east from Dakar to Kedougou (700 kilometers): During the dry season it is hard to imagine growing anything in the semi-arid, Sahelian climate in Senegal. Photo by Brett Eloff/Oxfam America.

Oxfam is aiming to help 1.2 million people across seven countries with programs that include cash transfers and cash-for-work initiatives, veterinary care for the livestock on which many families depend, and access to clean water and sanitation. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.

Kassa Danfakha: “We need good quality seed, for rice, groundnuts, millet, and maize.” Photo by Brett Eloff/Oxfam America

Kassa Danfakha says usually one of his biggest concerns in the growing season is cows wandering on to his millet field and eating his plants. It’s a significant source of conflict in the community, but last year he had bigger worries.

“Last fall I got almost no harvest. There was not enough rain,” he says, sitting by his home in Bembou, in Senegal’s far eastern Kedougou region. “The first rains came and the seeds we planted started to grow, but then the rain was very irregular. At one point the rain stopped and the plants died.”

“Some more rain came later but we had no more seeds to plant.”

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Kenny Rae traveled to Ethiopia in March to support relief efforts for communities in the Bale zone who are struggling to overcome the East Africa drought and food crisis.

Every morning Yenee leaves her two children in the care of her sister and ventures off to collect water for her family. After walking for two hours she arrives at the spring–the only source of water for miles around.

She is not alone. In Laga Hidha, a remote district in southeast Ethiopia which hasn’t seen rain for over a year, collecting water for drinking, cooking and bathing can be an all day affair–every day. At mid-morning at the spring there can sometimes be more than 100 women, some of whom have walked for more than seven miles. She will wait patiently in line for another two hours to fill her  jerrycans. She then returns home, carrying 30 liters (66 pounds weight) of water on her back.

In some parts of Ethiopia, women like Yenee walk several miles to collect water for their families and livestock. Photo by Kenny Rae / Oxfam America.

It wasn’t always like this. Nine years ago a well equipped with a hand pump  was installed in her village which provided water for all. Twice yearly rains would replenish the open wells and ponds that provided water for livestock, for bathing and  for laundering clothes.

The hand pump has been broken for over a year, and a promise to replace it by an aid agency has yet to be fulfilled. The prolonged drought has caused the open wells and ponds to dry up, and the cattle and goats that benefited from them have been sold off or have perished. Where there was once pasture, there in now only dust. Those determined to hold on to a couple of animals for milk must venture further and further from home to find food for their animals.

In Hidha Hunda village, an elder told us that one of the few remaining cows had, the day before been taken in search of food  and water and, miles away, had collapsed from hunger. Its owner left it where it lay and returned home. In every village we visited here, and in the neighboring district of Sawena we learned of the hardships that people are dealing with.

In  Gale  village all the  livestock has been sold. Families were unable to  keep one or two animals for milk as the surrounding pasture is long depleted. No crops have been cultivated for over a year. Collecting honey used to provide additional income for the villagers but, without water and flowers, the bees are gone. Read the rest of this entry »

Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin getting a taste of the local food and drink in Ethiopia. Photo credit: Audra Melton / Oxfam.

NFL wide receivers Anquan Boldin of the Baltimore Ravens and Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals are currently in Ethiopia with Oxfam staff to raise awareness about the food crisis in East Africa and see first-hand the effects of the drought. During the trip the players are meeting with local people, Oxfam partner organizations, and Ethiopian athletes. They are also visiting Oxfam development projects.

The players participated in a live call with fans and Oxfam supporters and from the field today. Fitzgerald said on the call: “I’m blessed to be able to come over here. And I feel like the work that we’re trying to do, the attention that we’re trying to raise, and the awareness is not going to fall on deaf ears.”

Listen to a full recording of their conversation.

Watch a Public Service Announcement from the players. And donate now to help save lives in East Africa.

Maka Djibo is the president of a garden co-operative in Niger. Photo by Fatoumata Diabate/Oxfam

Hungry for spring, people here seemed to be celebrating in the disturbingly high temperatures that hit Boston last week. But all I could think about was how parched the ground is at a time of year when it should be spongy with the snowmelt that replenishes the ground water we’ll need later this summer.

How would we manage if there was a severe water shortage here?

I keep thinking about the daily struggle countless families in West Africa are now facing as their limited water supplies shrink: a food crisis is looming for millions of people, triggered in part by little rainfall.

Poor harvests in Banibangou village in Niger, near the border with Mali, means that some families have already exhausted their supply of millet. But women there are working to stave off the worst with produce harvested from their vegetable co-operative. Read the rest of this entry »

Ubah Hassan is a model and activist, and the President and Co-founder of Maji Umbrellas. Ubah has also served as a spokesperson for FEED projects and recently became a Sisters on the Planet Ambassador for Oxfam America.

As a model, I promote luxury goods—handbags, shoes, and couture clothing. But as an activist, social entrepreneur, and native of Somalia, I know what real luxury is: access to clean water.

Since the July 2011 declaration of famine in Somalia by the United Nations, I have been thinking a lot about water and food shortages in the Horn of Africa. I recently partnered with Oxfam America and created Maji Umbrellas to raise awareness about the crisis in East Africa and money for the 13 million people affected by the drought and famine. Maji will donate a portion of each umbrella purchase to Oxfam America’s relief work in East Africa, enough to provide a day’s supply of clean water to 20 people.

One in eight people has inadequate access to water supplies. And that lack of clean water claims more lives each year than all forms of violence on the planet combined.

The numbers are shocking. And the reality’s even worse.

I know firsthand what it’s like to go thirsty. I was born in Somalia and, at the age of seven, fled this war-torn country to Kenya with my brother and father. There were many days in Kenya when my family, neighbors, and I went with very little water. Sometimes the water pipe in my town would break or the water would get contaminated. When that happened, we’d travel for hours to the next village to get water. And once we got there, we had to wait for hours while others who arrived before us filled their canteens. Read the rest of this entry »