Slices of Hope — Save a child from starvation
By Vincent Muli Kituku
Saturday, November 28, 2009 10:06 PM PST
As a young boy growing up in Kangundo, Kenya, chapati (fried tasty wheat bread) was Christmas. My family, like many others, could only afford it on Christmas.
This Christmas, many Kenyan children and their parents will not have anything to eat, and some will die as a result of a famine brought about by three consecutive years of drought.
My earliest recollection of the hurtful experience of hunger was in the mid 1960s. We ate one meal a day at night. It was ngima ya muvya, dough made of millet flour. It tasted like soil. But we had “food.” In 1972, there was another famine that again relegated my family to one solid meal at night and porridge for lunch.
This 2007-2009 famine has reached a new, devastating height. It’s killing my neighbors. I was born and raised in an area with average to above average rainfall; I have never heard of anyone dying of hunger like in drier parts of the country. My father just informed me a neighbor I knew died. I went to school with his children. By a developing nation’s standards, his family was middle class.
In some parts of the country, schools have had to close to allow pupils to scavenge for food. Johnston Kiseve, a pastor I have known for 25 years, talked of how hunger has forced women, even churchgoers, to unthinkable acts of prostitution to save their children. It is heartbreaking to think of the repercussions of these low acts in areas where deaths from AIDS are more common than births.
What, however, is humbling is to know how possible it is to save lives. The congregation of the Boise-based Faith Evangelical Church has donated about $4,000 this year. People have given $5, $10 or whatever their heart feels moved to give. That has fed over 1,000 people. Mothers are spared the agony of watching their children die or becoming prostitutes.
Not a single penny is sent to the corrupt officials or used for administrative costs. All 100 percent of the contribution is used to help mothers feed their children. We require and get the names of all recipients, the number of members in their families and the quantity of corn and beans they receive.
To help, mail a check to Caring Hearts and Hands of Hope, Idaho United Credit Union, P.O Box 2268, Boise, ID 83701, or to any group that is already helping with the situation. To learn more about the situation, just Google Kenya famine or call (208) 376-8734.
Dr. Vincent Muli Kituku is a motivational speaker and adjunct professor at Boise State University. He can be contacted at (208) 376-8724 or www.Kituku.com. The views and opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the Argus Observer.
