From Dry Land Comes a Harvest

Since World Renew began working here in 1989, it has been responding to food shortages in this semi-arid area of the country. Tribal clashes in 2007-2008 led to the migration of more than 10,000 people from the soil-rich lands of the Rift Valley to the dry, unproductive land of their ancestors in the north.

World Renew, through its international disaster response team, provided emergency food supplies to those who were displaced for the next four years. While distributing food to meet people’s immediate needs, World Renew found that 600 determined, inventive women in the camp were working to grow food crops on a workable strip of land along a nearby seasonal river.

World Renew staff began to explore ways to reduce the vulnerability of these at-risk families to drought-induced hunger in a region where it sometimes takes two or three years to receive any significant rainfall. In this circumstance, the community loses most, if not all, of their livestock such as goats, cows, sheep, and at times even camels, when it is there is a very severe drought. Helping people survive and build sustainability in difficult, extreme situations like these is a challenge to World Renew, the government of Kenya, and other organizations working in this area of the country.

With a well-thought-out plan using the few resources available, World Renew began a trial project with 300 of the 600 women who were growing vegetables on the river bank. The goal of the trial project was to show the camp residents that they could grow food and earn income from selling it if they could find a consistent water source near the river.

“God sent you here for us to discover the resources we already have in this land,” says Nyadeng, mother of six. “We can grow food to eat and feed our families from this dry dirt. The soil is rich. All we needed was to know how to take care of it.”

The project activities involved re-opening nine bore holes that were installed in an earlier drought response. The participants then constructed three greenhouses using locally available materials, and after 12 months, the women in the project are growing enough fruits and vegetables to feed their families and sell for income. Each family in the project has been able to generate $10 in new income.

The women irrigate the crops using water from the riverside boreholes. It is available year-round. The project’s success is creating new hope among the families who are part of the project and the hundreds of other families who were displaced by drought with them. The families are requesting more greenhouses, agricultural training, and information about small business management.

“It is possible to produce food in this place,” one of the guests shouts after seeing how the greenhouses have improved the family’s lives.

This project was accomplished by women who were displaced by politically-motivated fighting and tried farming as a way to develop some food security for their families. Now their families are sure that there will be food on the table each day. They are also transforming two villages in Katilu, Turkana, where they are residing.

“It is possible,” the participants say. “God has provided us World Renew to help bring us out of poverty and dependency. We can use our hands and feed our families!”

“God sent you here for us to discover the resources we already have in this land,” says Nyadeng, mother of six. “We can grow food to eat and feed our families from this dry dirt. The soil is rich. All we needed was to know how to take care of it.”

Nyadeng is one of the women who have been involved in the growing project. She is also taking training from World Renew in small business development as a village savings and loan program (VSL) is being planned for the coming months.

Pray for Nyadeng, and women like her in this community, that God will provide the financial resources for World Renew to expand these projects. Pray that World Renew and CRWM can establish a mission station within this unreached group of people and introduce them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The local leadership has recognized World Renew’s work in Turkana and has donated an acre of land to build an office and start demonstration farm plots.

Thank you for joining World Renew Kenya in building the capacity of these communities in transformational development. Thanks for your prayers and support for the Omanyos in Kenya as we regularly visit these communities. On one recent visit, we were overjoyed with the success of the project with the 300 women. They work in their greenhouses each day. They are organized and have put good plans in place.

We plan to build ten more greenhouses, and each greenhouse will cost $1,000 USD to build. We are looking at $10,000 USD for these greenhouses and another $10,000 USD to train the women in livelihood skills. Pray with us, and if you have any donation to support this work, please send it to World Renew, designated “Turkana Project.”