Mali Crisis: A Young Mom’s Story

By Helen Blakesley, West and Central African regional information officer for CRS

Djélika pushes a plaited braid off her face and hitches her five month-old son higher onto her hip.

She leans down to look into the metal pot that’s simmering on the wood stoked stove, placed on the kitchen floor.

Cooking has been her main occupation since they left Timbuktu. Since they fled in fear for their lives.

The day the rebels came, Djélika was sitting in the classroom with the other students, as she always did. Listening carefully to the teacher. It was her favorite lesson, physics and chemistry.

Then the gunshots started, startling the teenagers sitting in their neat rows behind their desks. The rebels weren’t far away. Their stray bullets were finding innocent victims in the small school building. Some students fainted, others hid, still others were hit—and a number died.

Djélika Haïdara with 5 month-old Ousmane
Credit: Helen Blakesley/CRS

Djélika was pregnant at the time. A newly wed bride carrying her first son. She knew she had to get out. She slipped out of the classroom, skirted the building and ran to the back wall. She managed to pull herself up and over and kept on running.

Mali Crisis: Life on the Edge of a War Zone

By Helen Blakesley: Regional Information Officer, CRS

It’s not every day you’re sent to a war zone. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. I’m not behind the lines where the military operations are going on. But I am in a country where a state of emergency has been declared.

I’m in Bamako, the capital of Mali, a country in West Africa where life expectancy is 53 years and where just 20 per cent of women can read and write. Mali is so much more than that though. It’s a beautiful place where the majestic River Niger winds from dusty swathes in the north to mango trees and banana fronds in the south. A place whose music boasts a worldwide reputation. A place, until last year, held up as an example of political stability and a magnet for tourists. Sadly, it’s now the subject of the biggest news story coming out of Africa – and consequently, one of the most worrying humanitarian situations too.

Photo Gallery:  Giving Dignity to the Displaced in Mali

By Helen Blakesley, Regional Information Officer in Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Mali, a country nestled in the middle of West Africa, is a nation divided in two. Rebel groups have been occupying the north, an area the size of Texas, aided by the instability of the country's government in Bamako. Fighting in the north has intensified with the arrival of French troops in January 2013. Reports of atrocities against northerners abound: killings, maiming, rape and the recruitment of child soldiers.

As a result, more than 200,000 people have fled to neighboring countries. Another 200,000 have moved south—many to Bamako, the nation's capital. These are some of the people Catholic Relief Services is helping with support from partners Trócaire and Irish Aid.

 Click on the image to see full gallery

Ibrahima and Baba are IDPs in Bamako. Credit: Helen Blakesley

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Mali: Warm Welcome Amid Turmoil 

 

 

 

 

By Helen Blakesley, CRS’ Regional Information Officer for West and Central Africa.

I’m very big on atmospheres. I’m one of those people who walk into a room and can just tell whether its inhabitants are feeling generally perky…or whether they’ve just had a blazing row.

Wherever I travel for Catholic Relief Services, around West and Central Africa, I subconsciously seem to work out whether I like the “feel” of a place. So when I arrived in Mali last week, my antennae were twitching.

Three-year-old Saouda Keita. Photo by Helen Blakesley/CRS

Mali, a country nestled in the middle of West Africa, is a nation divided in two right now. Since a military coup destabilized the political landscape earlier this year, various rebel groups occupy (and are vying for control of) the north – an area the size of Texas. Reports of atrocities against the people living there abound – killings, maiming, rape, recruiting of children as soldiers. For all these reasons, over two hundred thousand people have left their homes and fled to neighboring countries. Another two hundred thousand have moved south, many to the capital, Bamako. These are some of the people CRS is helping and these were the people I had come to meet.

Resilience in simple terms/ La résilience en termes simples 

The Keyhole Garden – Everyday Resilience in Action  

    

By Michael Hill,  Senior Writer in Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

For many of us, a vegetable garden is a relaxing diversion as well as a welcome source of tasty, fresh produce for our dinner tables. But such a garden can transform the lives of those who struggle to get enough to eat. The Keyhole Garden, named for its shape, is grown on a raised bed made of locally available materials. Its waist-high design makes it easy for those too old to work the fields to maintain. Properly situated, it can provide crops year round – and a fantastic way to build a family's resilience.

For a family whose diet is dominated by a starchy staple crop -- corn or cassava or rice -- such vitamin and nutrient-rich additions to meals can mean the difference between sickness and health. The garden can also provide produce to sell, income that helps the family withstand a bad harvest. Catholic Relief Services has taught thousands of families around the world how to build these transformative gardens, and now we're bringing the idea to the Sahel. 

Watch how simple it is to make one:

For more information on CRS in the region, see http://crs.org/countries/senegal

Food Vouchers Help Feed Hungry in Chad

By Helen Blakesley,  Regional Information Officer in Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

 

In one of the most remote places on Earth, a woman bends down to hitch a sack of millet onto her back. Fatime is 65 years old. She’s at the market in Minekrate, a village in the Wadi Fira region of Eastern Chad.

She’s walked here today. The sun is unrelenting and the temperatures are in the 100s. Scrubby trees dot the sandy ground. The air is dry as donkeys nibble what they can find. Fatime’s husband died five years ago, after a long illness. She now has 9 children in her care. She’s here today to get them some food.

The harvests were bad last year because good rains didn’t come. The year before wasn’t great either. Some days Fatime and the children eat five and a half pounds of millet between them. They make porridge and bread from it. Some days it’s half that. Two pounds of cereal between ten people.

But today Fatime has brought to market the food vouchers that CRS has given her. It’s part of the US government-funded Food For Peace project that’s at work in her region and in neighboring Ouaddai. CRS works hand-in-hand with the Chadian Catholic charity SECADEV to reach around ten thousand of the most struggling households.

Fatime uses her vouchers to choose the food her family needs. It will more than double the amount of millet they have. She also takes some oil to cook with. She’s hoping rains this year will mean she can grow a few onions and tomatoes and some millet of her own.

Things are still not easy. It’s still not much to live off. But it’s better than before.

Fatime thanks God that she has the children around her and that she now has help with putting food on the table.

“My hope lies with my God, the Creator. May He keep safe those who help us.”

           CRS is helping around 60,000 of the poorest people in Eastern Chad through
                              its USAID funded Emergency Food for Peace project
                                                    Photo by Katie Price/CRS