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West Africa food crisis: you can save lives

Please give today, to help people survive this food crisis and avert a humanitarian disaster. Dear St Andrew’s, I work in Tearfund’s West Africa Team, and I’m emailing to ask for your help: more than 10 million people in West Africa are desperate for food. This is one of the worst situations I’ve seen in the 13 years I’ve been involved with Tearfund. The number of people facing hunger is more than the entire populations of Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland combined. I believe that with your help we can avert this crisis and help stop it from turning into a humanitarian disaster, but we must act quickly. The Sahel region of West Africa is one of the world’s hardest places to live. With our partners, Tearfund has been working there for more than 20 years, equipping people to fight poverty and drought. But current circumstances are beyond desperate: across Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali, families are in a deep crisis. I’ve seen with my own eyes the effects of food crises. After two years of erratic rains and failed harvests - food stores are empty, and food prices are sky high. Desperate for food, people are now selling their cattle - their livelihoods - to try and make money to buy food. But the market is flooded and the value of cows has plummeted. To make things worse, people are running out of animal fodder, and their cattle are dying. The thing that really gets to me is the uncertainty in people’s eyes as they ask, ‘What do we do, how do we support our families?’ Which is why I’m asking for your help. People here are determined to survive, but they’re weary. You can help bring hope With our church partners, we’re bringing hope into these seemingly hopeless situations. But we can’t do it without you. Please join with us in praying for the many families who are vulnerable and please give what you can by clicking here. Yours in Christ, Mark Butler

Posted on 24 Jun 2010

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