Gifts
Cassandra Nelson is Mercy Corps' Director of Multimedia Projects.
Recent Posts
Niger March 22, 2012 3:26PM
Update from the field: Food crisis is just beginning
Cassandra Nelson
Director, Multimedia Projects
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After a failed harvest and severe drought in 2011, more than 5.5 million people in Niger are already without enough to eat — and the next harvest isn't until October. Mercy Corps' Cassandra Nelson saw how families are coping with a food crisis that is worsening everyday.
Click here for details on Mercy Corps' latest efforts to provide cash-for-work and therapeutic food to hungry families.
Video
Niger March 15, 2012 10:34AM
"There is nothing to eat"
Cassandra Nelson
Director, Multimedia Projects
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In the midst of Niger's food crisis, Zeynabou, just 17, struggles to breastfeed her two-year-old son with no nutritional food to eat herself. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps
During the two weeks I recently spent with in Niger with our emergency response teams, I kept hearing the same thing over and over: There is nothing to eat.
On the surface, this situation isn't as evident as the other crises I've worked on, but when I traveled into the small villages in the hard-hit southwestern Filingue and Ouallam regions, I saw how bad this deepening food crisis really is. With a severe drought and a failed harvest last October, there is simply no food. Women like Zeynabou Hama told me how their families are eating tree leaves just to kill the hunger pains.
Zeynabou is just 17 and has a two-year-old son, Salman, who is suffering from severe malnutrition. She told me how after she married at 15, her husband left to work in the Ivory Coast. He was supposed to send money home to help the family, but in the past two years he has sent the equivalent of just $4 USD.
When we spoke, she was trying to breastfeed her baby, but with no nutritious food to eat herself, she's had trouble producing enough milk to keep him nourished. Now she spends her days out in the 100-degree heat, foraging for wild seeds and grass, with Salman strapped to her back.
Somalia September 15, 2011 10:00AM
Delivering clean water in Mogadishu
Cassandra Nelson
Director, Multimedia Projects
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Mercy Corps is trucking desperately needed water to camps for the displaced in Mogadishu. In response to the outbreak of water-borne diseases, such as cholera, we will also be starting hygiene and sanitation programs in the camps.
Somalia August 30, 2011 12:47PM
Mogadishu: Conditions in Camps
Cassandra Nelson
Director, Multimedia Projects
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There are over half a million people living in displacement camps in Mogadishu as a result of the famine and years of civil war. Most do not have access to clean water and basic sanitation services. Children, already weakened by malnutrition, are succumbing to cholera and other infectious diseases that spread easily in the overcrowded camps.
Our team is on the ground in Mogadishu, concentrating on water, sanitation and other humanitarian solutions to address the crisis and save thousands of lives.
Somalia August 23, 2011 12:43PM
Heartbreaking visit to Mogadishu hospital
Cassandra Nelson
Director, Multimedia Projects
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I visited a Mogadishu hospital last week and found overcrowded conditions, children with measles and cholera — but also some signs of hope.
