Food shortages + conflict + drought + cholera outbreaks = moms and babies dying
Your caring donations go towards life-saving food, water and medical care…
Because no mom should spend her last hours on earth bleeding to death from childbirth…
“They helped Ayana deliver her stillborn baby but they couldn’t stop the blood that followed…”
– Valerie Browning, Project Manager caring for Ethiopians, Afar region
If Ayana were your daughter, I’m sure you would have been proud of her. She was a lovely young woman. In fact, her name means “beautiful flower”.
Caring and kind, Ayana put herself before others. You could see it in the way she allowed others in the family to eat and drink first… even though food was scarce… and she was pregnant and hungry.
Also, Ayana had courage. When she went into labour, she fought to bring her baby into the world. Even though she was weakened by malnutrition.
Even though she had no doctor or midwife to help her through an agonizing seven days of obstructed labour.
Your gift will help stop brave moms like Ayana and their babies from dying. Because in the midst of hunger, conflict and drought, your generosity is an incredible act of caring and compassion.
You’ll help bring food to starving moms and children. You’ll help stop preventable deaths with urgently needed medical care. You’ll help bring clean water to desperate families in conflict-ravaged parts of Ethiopia where diseases like cholera are breaking out.
You’ll give a woman like Ayana the chance to live… instead of dying.
Imagine what it would have been like for this expectant mother, who comes from the Afar region. You’re pregnant with a child you already love… so of course, you want to eat well to nourish the life within you…
But Ayana had only one small meal a day. Because of severe food shortages due to civil conflict, drought and locusts. So when Ayana went without, so did the tiny life within her.
And what if you had spent a day struggling to give birth? You’d expect to have a doctor or midwife to care for you safely in hospital…
But for Ayana, it was seven days of obstructed labour. Seven days of pain. Seven days before her family managed to bring home two health workers through the steep mountains where she lived.
If it was obvious you or your baby were getting too distressed… you’d be sent off for an emergency caesarian. You’d get the medical intervention you needed before either of you died…
But despite fighting hard, Ayana was left exhausted and weak. Her baby had to be delivered using force. Tragically, it was stillborn.
Ayana was only 18 when she died. Married just the year before. Watching drought and conflict whittle away her family’s source of income and food. Ayana should have had her whole life ahead of her. Instead, this “beautiful flower” of Ethiopia died before she had a chance to bloom.
Because poverty led to malnutrition. Civil conflict ravaged local markets with soaring inflation. Locusts have wiped out grain supplies. Roads were destroyed. Hospitals looted and burned.
And it’s innocent, caring moms like Ayana who couldn’t get the maternal health
care they needed.
No mom should spend her last hours on earth bleeding to death from childbirth. How terrible when it could have been prevented!
But just knowing I have caring supporters like you is a great encouragement to me. Your commitment helps me to keep going each day.
Each day Valerie sees hundreds of mothers who don’t have enough to eat. It could be moms in Obno isolated on the Djibouti border. It could be mothers stuck between drought-affected Gala’alu in southern Afar and the Issa/ Somali conflict.
It could be moms with no support at all in Bidu on the Eritrean border or those facing catastrophe in Teeru.
Some live in remote areas where other aid agencies don’t go (but we do). Others, forced from home by conflict or drought, now survive in makeshift camps.
All of them need supplementary food packs for two months to keep malnutrition at bay. They need clean water to drink and keep diseases like cholera away. And they need medical care to save their lives.
Moms and babies are dying… that’s why your compassion and generosity are vital.
Here’s what your gift can do:
1. Much-needed life-saving food for a pregnant woman like Ayana and her family. You’ll help stop malnutrition in her and her unborn child…
It’s heartbreaking that Ayana didn’t make it. Because proper food would have kept Ayana and her baby stronger and healthier to survive childbirth. She would not have been so weak.
She and her baby would have had a better chance of living… instead of dying.
2. Provide life-giving clean water for moms like Ayana.
You’ll help provide community water trucks at a time when conflict and drought have led to unpredictable water supplies and poor sanitation. This is so vital to keep expectant moms like Ayana hydrated and healthy.
And to stop infections, illnesses and waterborne diseases that could affect their
unborn children.
3. Pay for a healthcare worker to reach 30 people – even in conflict zones. You’ll help care for women like Ayana who need life-saving check-ups and medical support.
From the field: Valerie Browning
Only 20% of the need is being met in Ethiopia.
First I want to thank you for everything you’re doing for the people of Afar. My name is Valerie Browning, Project Manager in Ethiopia. Sharon Elliott has asked me to write to you about the work you’re supporting through the Afar Pastoralist Development Association (APDA).
Because of you, there is hope. I see firsthand what your generosity does.
Even though the situation is heartbreaking, I want to share with you my latest report about what’s happening to moms, babies, and children here. It outlines the effects of conflict, drought and cholera. Extreme food shortages mean extreme distress as mothers listen to their children cry for food they can’t provide. What rations we we get have to be transported by truck followed by days on camels. Already children and families have died from hunger.
Every day we have to make hard choices about who is worst affected, and who we can help.
Right now, the reality is that we are only meeting 20% of the need.
So every donation you give is vital. Please don’t think it doesn’t make a difference because it could mean an extra food pack for a pregnant mom who is hungry. It helps us get clean water to areas with contaminated water supplies. It could mean a child gets the medical care that is the difference between living and dying.
I wish you could see the joy and gratitude in the eyes of the people we reach. They didn’t ask to live in a conflict zone. They didn’t want to leave everything behind and flee their homes. They didn’t expect to get hit with multiple disasters like drought and locusts and the outbreaks of cholera.
Your compassion saves lives. The lives of people I meet and talk to each day. For their sake, please give as generously as you can.
Thank you on behalf of the Ethiopian people,
Valerie Browning
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