What will your legacy be? We would all like to leave the world a better place than we found it. Unfortunately, because of climate change, that’s a challenge.
By providing a legacy gift to Concern, however, you can empower those communities who are most vulnerable to climate change to not just survive but to adapt and thrive.
This includes those living in the Horn of Africa, a region that extends across Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, as well as parts of Kenya.
Concern’s regional director for the Horn of Africa, Kenyan woman Amina Abdulla, has been working with people in the region for two decades.
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These are not always the easiest countries to work in, she admits, given the range of challenges they face, from conflicts and political crises to droughts and floods.
Through all of this Concern’s mission is always “to stand by the poorest, the most vulnerable”, she explains.
Drought destroys lives and livelihoods
Families living in the Horn of Africa region are on front line of the climate crisis. The worst drought in 40 years is currently destroying livelihoods, leaving millions of families on the brink of starvation.
“As people in this region will tell you, drought is not new to our lives. But what has changed is the frequency and intensity,” says Amina.
“One hundred years ago, drought took place every 20 years. That became every 10 years, then every five years. Now it is every 18 months.”
For a largely pastoralist community, which depends on livestock for food and income, this shift has been devastating.
“Most countries in this region are now looking at their fifth consecutive failed rainy season. This is 100 per cent attributable to climate change and the situation is being exacerbated by the diminished capacity of communities to withstand these shocks,” she says.
“After all, over 20 years you can recoup, restock, build savings and put measures in place to cushion you. But within an 18-month cycle there is very little you can do. You lose all your livestock, you are left destitute and you are forced to start again from a negative position.”
Concern’s climate smart agricultural methods can make a lasting difference.
If you choose to leave a donation in your will to Concern, your legacy can have a generational impact on communities fighting climate change. Funding these new farming practices and methodologies this allows residents to stay in the homesteads that they grew up in rather than having to migrate. By offering families a way to become self-sufficient and to sell excess crops to buy other necessities, it helps guard against starvation.
Working with communities
Concern works within communities, providing immediate relief in the form of food aid but also provides long-term sustainable solutions so that families can grow their own food, even in times of drought.
“Our strategy is to help people employ these climate-smart agricultural technologies, both for food and livestock production. Sensitive to the environment, they are not heavily dependent on seasonal rainfall. It is not about asking people to abandon what they are accustomed to as pastoralists but to say: you can do something else as well,” Amina says.
Concern is helping communities to harvest rainwater, by collecting and storing it when it falls. It is also demonstrating techniques that make use of existing natural resources to produce food in new ways. These include the introduction of micro-irrigation techniques and planting drought-resistant seeds to provide nutritious sources of food.
Seeds of hope
The realities of climate change have severely impacted communities in eastern Kenya. A village in Tana river lost all its livestock but there are green shoots thanks to the implementation of the new agricultural methods.
Local farmer Mumina Mohamed had cultivated on a small plot of land next to the river that was reliant on floodwater, something that became increasingly unpredictable in recent years, making farming less viable and pushing families further into poverty.
But through Concern she has adopted climate-smart and resilient farming methods in the face of a changing environment, and has learned how to grow maize, green grams and cowpeas, using climate-smart farming techniques.
With an increased harvest, her children no longer have to go without food. She’s able to provide her children with three meals a day and pay their school fees. In the coming years she hopes to diversify into higher-value crops such as watermelon, kale and spinach. This diversification will increase her household’s income and allow her family to access healthcare and education.
She is not alone. “Over the course of two crop seasons the families in this village are no longer getting food aid. They can now produce enough crops to feed themselves and to sell excess to neighbouring villages,” says Amina.
Intergenerational giving
These are all long-term strategies, and gifts in wills allow Concern to continue to provide sustainable solutions to communities, like Mumina’s, who are suffering from severe malnutrition.
“These precious gifts help fund a future that can fight back against climate change. It allows us to plan over time, to demonstrate progress and to then build on that progress so that the benefits, the skills and the techniques we impart are transferred from one generation to the next,” says Amina.
Climate change might be inevitable for future generations but, with your legacy, hunger doesn’t have to be.
“It is encouraged across all faiths and is also innate in our human nature to want to give something that lasts beyond our lifetime. It might not suit everyone to support a charity with a cash donation today, but a legacy gift is a wonderful way to support families who are also hoping for a better future,” explains Amina.
“With a legacy to Concern you are making a conscious decision to make a lasting change to the lives of future generations.”
Please contact Siobhán O’Connor, legacy manager at Concern Worldwide on 01 417 8020 or email siobhan.oconnor@concern.net to find out more