When the rain fails, everything follows

Drought does not arrive suddenly. It arrives as one failed rainy season, then another, then a family with nothing left to sell.

For the poor who are restricted, whom the unaware would think self sufficient because of their restraint.

Qur’an 2:273

What is happening now

Somalia is living through the collision of three things: conflict, repeated drought and a food economy too fragile to absorb either. More than two and a half million people are displaced inside their own country, and many more have crossed into neighbouring states.

For a pastoralist family, losing the herd is not losing an asset. It is losing the income, the food and the savings at once. What follows is a walk to a camp that is already full, where water is queued for and healthcare is a long way off.

What we are doing

We have worked with Somali communities for years, and our teams are from those communities. That matters most in the places that are hardest to reach, where larger operations often cannot go.

• Emergency food and clean water for displaced families and those on the edge of survival.
• Medical care in camps and remote settlements.
• Water infrastructure, including hand pumps and wells, so the next drought is survivable.
• Longer term work on clinics, schooling and skills, so recovery does not depend on the next appeal.

Beyond the emergency

Relief alone leaves a community exactly where the next drought will find it. Where we can, we build the thing that outlasts us: a well that still works in the dry season, a clinic that stays open, a skill that earns. That is slower and less dramatic than an airlift, and it is what actually changes the outcome.

Where your money goes

Every amount below is a real cost. Choose the one you can manage.