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I've been following the drought in Somalia causing horrible famine and mass migration into neighboring refugee camps.  While learning about what's happening there, I began thinking about how to help these people both in the short and the long term.  In the short term it is obvious that they need the 3 basic human needs taken care of, food, water, and shelter.  To try to help in this effort, I have been looking into organizations that I can donate to that are helping in the region.  

 

I found a good list of organizations supporting the efforts in Somalia at TakePart, and I have donated to the World Food Programme because it seemed the most aligned with how I wanted to help.  However, after thinking about some of the comments I read in the CNN story posted above, I began thinking about some of the problems they were bringing up with regards to things like stolen aide by pirates.

 

In the long term, how do you help in a situation where the government can not keep order in the country, there are violent groups trying to leverage their power to steal what they want, and another portion of the population that is starving?  I think the migration out of Somalia is probably a wise move by many of the people that made it, but should the Somali government just give up and move too?  Should the world try to support this struggling government in what appears to be a stalemate or even a losing battle?

 

 

Views: 21

Tags: famine, somalia

Nicholas Nagao Comment by Nicholas Nagao on August 4, 2011 at 2:12pm
According to this article, the World Food Programme is not being allowed into rebel controlled areas.  It mentions Islamic Relief, Unicef, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as organizations that the rebels are allowing in.

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