Kenya
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Photo: Joy Portella/Mercy Corps
Our strategy
Work with youth to address the root of conflict and empower them to champion peace. Help families survive the drought and hunger crisis that hit the Horn of Africa, while building their ability to cope with future challenges.
The context
The underlying causes of Kenya’s 2007 post-election crisis remain. These include competition over land, deep poverty, widespread unemployment, youth alienation, and political manipulation of grievances. Millions of families are also still recovering from the region’s worst drought in 60 years, which began in 2011.
Our work
- Children & Youth: Connecting young people through new mobile technologies to pursue community development, new economic opportunities, and a peaceful political process
- Conflict & Governance: Strengthening local, district, and provincial structures to promote sustainable peace and reconciliation
- Emergency response: Providing clean water and access to food for drought-affected families
- Agriculture & Food: Helping affected populations rebuild their assets including livestock
All stories about Kenya
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Kenya: Quick thoughts from our emergency team leader in Kenya July 28, 2011
Our emergency response teams across the Horn of Africa — in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya — are working hard, long hours every day to assess needs and speed relief to hungry and struggling families. Often, our staff is traveling in remote areas, out of the range of any communications at all.
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Kenya: Lifesaving relief for families in northeastern Kenya July 26, 2011
“People here are falling down in masses ... it will be too late to do anything if we don't act now,” our emergency response leader in northeastern Kenya just told me on a phone call.
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Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya: Situation worsens in the Horn of Africa, our response increases July 20, 2011
Today, the United Nations officially declared a famine in parts of Somalia. What does this alarming news mean? Technically, it refers to conditions that include 30 percent acute malnutrition among the population of a specific place.
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Kenya: Chronicles of a "drought widow" July 16, 2011
One of the saddest things about the current drought in the Horn of Africa is that it’s destroying families. Men go off with livestock to find water — often traveling hundreds of miles for months at a time — or they drop out of pastoral life and flow into towns to look for odd jobs.
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Kenya: Ten-year-old Hindiya Roble outside of Hadado, Kenya July 15, 2011
Hindiya Roble, 10, and her family have been walking for 17 days in search of water.
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Kenya: Walking for 17 days July 15, 2011
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Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia: Not just hunger, but fear July 14, 2011
Nearly everyone in the world experiences hunger at some point during their day. That said, it's different for all of us.
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Kenya: Chatting with the richest man in town July 14, 2011
Today the Mercy Corps team visited Elwak, a small town in the northeast corner of Kenya that lies only about eight kilometers from Somalia. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to the poorest of the poor about how their lives are impacted by the drought that’s plaguing this region.
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Kenya: Animal market in Garissa, Kenya July 13, 2011
A buyer checks out the merchandise at Garissa Livestock Market.
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Kenya: The plight of a “pastoralist drop-out” July 13, 2011
I’m a big fan of visiting markets, especially during Mercy Corps trips. It seems that even in the bleakest parts of the world, markets are vibrant, dynamic and often colorful places.