Feature article written while a freelancer for Action by Churches Together (ACT) International on violence following presidential election in Kenya
Not just a short, quick response: ACT members in Kenya address deeper challenges
By Stephen H. Padre for Church World Service (ACT International member)
Kisumu, Kenya, January 28, 2008--In a major emergency, such as a natural disaster or civil conflict, there is human suffering that is visible and obvious – hunger, injuries, and people forced from their homes by destruction or violence. But often there are hidden and less visible needs of people who are among the most vulnerable in an emergency situation.
Such is the case in Kenya’s current situation, a political crisis that has created a humanitarian emergency. On one level, there are basic physical needs to be met for the 250,000 people who have been forced from their homes by the violence that has followed in the weeks since the disputed presidential election in late December 2007. But on a deeper level, there are more serious physical needs, such as medical care – as well as psychological needs – that require attention.
Sellah Opiyo has been caught up in the violence in her home of Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city. Situated in the extreme west of Kenya, on Lake Victoria, Kisumu is a stronghold of the country’s main opposition leader, who says that he is the real winner of the presidential election over President Mwai Kibaki, who was declared the official winner. The dispute over the election results turned into some of the country’s worst unrest in Kisumu. Stores in the shopping areas have been looted and burned, scores of people have been killed, and thousands have been forced from their homes or have had their lives severely disrupted.
As an HIV-positive woman and caregiver for her family and others, Sellah cannot afford to have her life disrupted. To maintain her health, she needs to visit a nearby clinic regularly to receive anti-retroviral drugs and to eat a healthy diet in order for the drugs to be effective, requiring her to have a regular supply of nutritious food on hand.
Sellah spoke on a recent Saturday morning after emerging from her house, where she had been trapped for the previous three days in the latest episode of violence, which spread throughout the city. On the weekend, the city’s streets were calm, although burned-out trucks still stood in the middle of roads and the number of shoppers in the business areas was still way down.
Feeling it was relatively safe to go outside, Sellah was also forced to venture out by a lack of food and to seek treatment for a severe headache. Since revealing her HIV-positive status several years ago, she started an HIV support group that now includes around 100 members. Many of them, knowing her as a leader in the HIV-positive community, had been coming to Sellah’s house during the latest round of violence to ask for food.
But Sellah said they were all in the same dire situation with hardly anything to eat. “I gave the last bit of what I had in my house,” she said, describing how several people a day came to her door. She turned many away. “The most painful ones are children,” she added.
Early on the morning she was able to leave her house, Sellah had visited the district hospital for her headache. She was told she needed tests for malaria and other infectious diseases, but she didn’t have any money for them, so she moved on to address her other urgent need for food for herself and her household – her three children, ages 15 to 21, and the three children of her husband’s second wife. Her husband and his second wife both died in 1996.
As a regular church-goer, Sellah decided to drop by the church where she is a member, which is situated on the grounds of the regional headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya (ELCK). ELCK is an implementing partner of Church World Service and other members of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International in Kenya.
From its compound, ELCK has been responding to the immediate needs of displaced people. Besides offering Sellah a bit of corn flour to get her through the next few days, ELCK staff have been distributing corn flour and rice to other neighbors in the city’s slum areas and in towns that have had their food supplies restricted by the violence. Before Sellah had arrived at the compound, a large truck hauled away large sacks of corn flour for distribution through another ELCK facility in Kisii, about 80 km (about 50 miles) away. The truckload was enough to sustain more than 500 people for a week. Funding for this food distribution came from ACT member Norwegian Church Aid.
The Anglican Church of Kenya (with funding assistance from ACT member Christian Aid) and the National Council of Churches of Kenya (with funding assistance from Diakonie Sweden), two other ACT members who are present in the Kisumu area, have also been responding to the immediate physical needs of people displaced by the violence. Following the first phase of providing immediate relief, these and the other ACT members in Kenya will expand their response as part of an ACT appeal to address some of the deeper needs of affected people, such as trauma counseling, peace-building and reconciliation, and assisting those like Sellah who are HIV-positive.
While Sellah took a respite away from her house for a few hours and chatted with some ELCK staff over a soda, she was still feeling overwhelmed by the mounting and critical needs of her own and those close to her. She could not think about a larger political solution that could end the country’s crisis and begin to restore order.
“This is a government thing,” she said, “but down here, I need food. The violence is beyond me. I don’t know how to talk about it. We need food first.”
