Courtney McGrailÉamonn Meehan
Over the coming weeks, over one million Trócaire boxes will be distributed the length and breadth of the island of Ireland. The face of Mahlet, the young Ethiopian girl on the front of this year’s box, will beam from homes, parishes, schools and businesses, as people join the annual campaign to support marginalised and vulnerable families in some of the poorest places in the world.
Mahlet is 13-years-old and lives in a small village in northern Ethiopia, close to the border with Eritrea, with her parents and five siblings. The family has two small plots of land on which they grow vegetables and grain. For Mahlet and her family, these two small plots are crucial – without the crops that grow there, the family would have no means of producing food or earning money.
Life in this region has never been easy, but Mahlet and her family have had enough to get by and to ensure the children can attend school.
Recently, however, the challenge of surviving off the land has been getting more difficult due to climate change. Throughout the region, rainfall has been decreasing. The traditional rainy periods were once reliable but are now erratic. Almost constant drought is threatening their ability to grow crops.
“We are always in drought,” says Ali, Mahlet’s father. “There is a scarcity of rainfall, a scarcity of water. As a result of the drought there isn’t much crop production.”
Faith is important in this region. The Ark of the Covenant is said to have been brought here by King Menelik I, the child of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon of Israel. The Solomon lineage reigned until Emperor Haile Selaisse died after a coup d’état by the oppressive Derg regime, beginning years of civil war.
The civil war, which lasted from 1974 until 1991, devastated Ethiopia. In the middle of the conflict the drought of 1984/85 led to an appalling famine, while immediately after the civil war people in northern Ethiopia were affected by a war with Eritrea.
Recently history has not been kind to people of this region. However, just when the country is beginning to recover, climate change is now the major threat to communities here.
This region wasn’t always dry. People remember a time when the mountain tops were green and covered in vegetation.
“Climate change is attacking here,” says Fr Solomon Beyene Tesfayohannes, parish priest of Holy Trinity parish. “Years ago it was very green and swampy. Now it’s dry. There’s no water at all. Before we got crops from the land. Now, we get none. But the land is very fertile. If people had irrigation, it would change their life.”
This story is replicated beyond northern Ethiopia and throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
The changing climate is increasing temperatures, decreasing rain and leading to extreme weather events, including floods, droughts and storms.
Tragically, it is the people who have done least to cause this problem who are suffering the most. Mahlet and her family have not contributed to climate change – they have no car, no factories – yet they are the people suffering from hunger as a direct consequence of global carbon emissions.
This Lent, Trócaire is highlighting the challenges facing farmers living in drought. Donations we receive will construct irrigation pipes and bring water to communities such as Mahlet’s. These projects are an absolutely vital life-line to people whose natural water supply has been switched off by climate change.
This Lent, let us stand with these people and do what we can to support them.
Éamonn Meehan is the Executive Director of Trócaire. Trócaire boxes are available from parishes or can be ordered at www.trocaire.org. A free Trócaire box app can also be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Playstore.