First Person

Voices, video, and photos from Oxfam's fight against poverty

Sahel food crisis: A powerful bond

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Stevens recently returned from the Kolda region of Senegal which – like much of the western Sahel region of Africa – is experiencing a severe food crisis. This is the fourth of four blogs from the trip.

As photographer Holly Pickett and I traveled around the region of Kolda, Senegal, we noticed a powerful force at work in this emergency: the bond between mothers and children.

Fatoumata Dioum, the mother of two sons and two daughters, expressed the way that connection amplifies the pain of privation: “My only concern is how to buy food for my children. All the time, I’m worrying about food. When I go to bed, I worry about food. When I get up in the morning, I worry about food.”

But Holly and her camera captured something more: for many of the families caught in this crisis, the mother-child relationship also looks like one of the places where hope resides.

  • Photo: Holly Pickett/Oxfam

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  • Photo: Holly Pickett/Oxfam

    Food vendor Dado Sade cooks the evening meal with her baby, Dauda Mballo, on her back. “If I haven’t anything for the children to eat, I go to another home and ask for food. If they have rice prepared, we give it to the children. Between the women, this is okay.” Our cash programs are intended to provide indirect benefits to vendors like Sade, who depend on the market for their living.

  • Photo: Holly Pickett/Oxfam

    Adama Diallo, a participant in our cash program, comforts her son. “It is difficult to see the children go hungry. You cannot feed them . They think it is because you are refusing to give them food.”

  • Photo: Holly Pickett/Oxfam

    Sira Mane takes time to connect with her child at a hygiene kit distribution in the village of Fafacourou.

  • Photo: Holly Pickett/Oxfam

    A mother cares for her daughter, who is recovering from severe malnutrition in an emergency feeding center run by a Catholic mission. Our programs are aimed at preventing food shortages from becoming health emergencies like this.

  • Photo: Holly Pickett/Oxfam

    Though they have no mother of their own, orphaned twins at the feeding center receive kind attention from a caregiver.

Read blogs about the situation in Senegal and our programs to improve access to food and help families protect their health.

Read about Oxfam’s work on the food crisis across the Sahel region.

An urgent request: Oxfam’s programs for this emergency are severely underfunded. Please help us with a donation if you can.