Kenya  >  Notre action · Situation humanitaire · Témoignage· Historique

Witness account from Bérengère Tripon, our headquarters' regional manager for the Horn of Africa , who has just returned from Kenya

Journey to the North Horr region

“Even though it has been 9 years since I have been doing this job and I have been to Darfur, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti etc., this is my first humanitarian mission in Kenya.

Like most people, I thought that in Africa, Kenya was not a country in the greatest need of help, and so I often asked myself the question: should we get involved over there? When you arrive there you no longer need to ask yourself that question, the needs of the country are glaringly obvious. The question you now ask yourself is: what can we do to help these people in a sustainable way and taking into consideration climatic changes?  We need to get involved urgently because these people are in need of immediate help.

But, at the same time, they are in need of help on the long term so that sustainable solutions can be put into place to deal with future droughts. We must not wait to reach a state of emergency, a critical state for the survival of these people. We need to limit the impact of what is undoubtedly going to happen: there will always be long periods of drought, which will happen more and more frequently. Water is like gold to them. These pastoral communities need to adapt to their new living conditions, because the mechanisms passed down from their ancestors are no longer efficient. They need to do this whilst still upholding their way of life, and their traditions and habits. We are working with this in mind, so as to enable them to reinforce their livelihoods and their adapting mechanisms. It is really important that they don’t immigrate towards the shantytowns, for example, where the living conditions are also catastrophic”.

Witness account taken in June 2011