Trócaire Blogs

This week in Trócaire we were shocked to learn about the murder of Matias Valle, an outspoken human rights leader from La Confianza, the community featured in our Lenten campaign last year. Matias was waiting at a bus stop on route to his community on Friday 20th January when he was gunned down by two hooded men.

The brave father, husband and community leader was a key figure in the struggle for land being undertaken by poor farmers in north Honduras, where corrupt businessmen hold a violent monopoly on agricultural land. Despite regular death threats Matias was outspoken on the need for poor farmers to have the right to peacefully own land on which to live and grow food.

Photos: 

Top Left: Community leader Matías Valle was shot  dead on January 20, 2012. Photo: Giorgio Trucchi.

Top right:  A daughter holds a photo of her father who was murdered for legally challenging a large landowner's right to land in Honduras.

Bottom Left: Martha Julia Lopez holds a picture of her dead husband, Seriseo Munoz, close to her heart. Seriseo (50), was shot dead last year when gunmen, hired by a rich landowner, opened fire on a group of farmers as they worked. This community is one of thousands throughout Honduras whose legal challenge for land has been met with the murder of innocent farmers. Seriseo is mourned by Martha and their four children.

Bottom Right: Pedro Serrano and his daughter, Reina  (3), live in the community of La Confianza. Every day here parents worry about the safety of their children because of the violence and intimidation they have endured. Families are risking everything for the right to own enough land, earn a decent living and give their children a better future. Photos: David Stephenson.
 

Last year when I met Matias he told me that he slept in a different house every night as he knew he was being watched and that there was a very real chance he would be killed. Despite this, he selflessly and publically sought justice for his community. Sadly his time ran out last Friday.

It is outrageous that yet another life has been brutally brought to an end over land in north Honduras. So much blood has been needlessly shed in this small region; in the last two years 45 people involved in the land movement have been murdered and no one has been brought to justice.

We send our thoughts and prayers to Matias’ family and community at this heartbreaking time.
 

Here in Haiti, everybody has a story to tell about the day of the January 2010 earthquake.  Everybody lost somebody. 

One day over lunch we started talking about the earthquake with our Haitian colleagues; they were exchanging stories of where they were when at 4.53pm on the 12th January the ground began to shake. A girl told of how her mum went out in the morning and never came back, of the fear that set in as the setting sun was suddenly obscured by a cloud of black dust and flames.  Rumours in the capital started circulating that the whole of the Caribbean had been wiped out by a huge tsunami.

Photos:

Top: Florestale Darling (6)

Middle right. Rony Cypriene with his wife, Soignese, at their new home. "I call this house Patience," he says. "If you don't have patience in life you will achieve nothing, but if you have patience you can achieve.

Bottom right: Mercilia Cyprien at the new home of her daughter Marie Lourde and her husband Nestor Lorne. "You would have to split my heart open to see how happy I am," she said. "I never thought my children could live like this."  Photos: Eoghan Rice.

Bottom left: People pray as they remember lost loved ones at a memorial service on the one year Anniversary of Earthquake 12th January 2011. Photo:  Fiona Cook.

One man explained the chaos and confusion that followed the earthquake, of how people were shouting for help with cries of “help me” or “I’m not dead yet”. He took a torch and with his neighbours set about trying to rescue people. They discovered a man trapped under a slab of concrete – amazingly still alive but desperately dehydrated.  They gave him a bottle of water to quench his thirst but this caused his body to go into shock, and tragically the man collapsed and died minutes later.If in an average western population one in four people will suffer in their lives with some kind of mental health problem, it is difficult to imagine what these levels are like in Haiti, where people have suffered not only the trauma of a large scale earthquake but also a cholera epidemic which killed 7000 people, several significant cyclones, and years of political instability, not to mention high levels of food insecurity and chronic poverty. 

I am guessing the figure here is much higher than one in four: one Haitian psychologist claims that since the earthquake 60% of the population suffers with post-traumatic stress syndrome. Sadly, most of those affected are not lucky enough to receive the specialist attention they require due to a severe lack of trained mental health professionals and services on offer.  Others may be misunderstood, and their symptoms interpreted as madness.

This is one of the reasons that Trócaire has chosen to support initiatives which strengthen mental health provision in Haiti. These initiatives target some of Haiti’s most vulnerable communities such as those living in camps in Port au Prince and Leogan (the epicentre of the 2010 earthquake). Some projects educate community leaders to recognise early signs of mental health problems and to refer people on for treatment, and train primary health care providers to treat these problems. Others focus on simple self-help and healing techniques so that those affected by trauma can cope better with everyday life.

These initiatives are more important than ever now, given that around 100 international NGOs were active in mental health and psychosocial support after the earthquake, but today there are only 20. 

We are helping to rebuild people’s lives physically – through building and repairing houses and livelihoods – but also to help them heal the emotional scars caused by events of 12th January 2010 which, undoubtedly, will take longer to heal.
 

Caption: Trócaire has used Irish donations to fund vital agriculture programmes in regions such as Ishiara in Kenya. Photo: Eoghan Rice.

What a difference the rain can make. When I visited Tharaka, a four hour drive north of Nairobi, in April, the land was brown and dry. The shrivelled corpses of burnt trees lined the hard and dusty tracks.

The crops were dead, the animals were dying, and the people were scared.

In a blog on the Trócaire website, I wrote: ‘The lush green fields that surround Nairobi mask Kenya’s emerging crisis: a food shortage in the northern regions of the country that is rapidly descending into famine.’

You didn’t need an early warning system to see that hunger was coming to east Africa; you just needed a pair of eyes.

Two months later, the United Nations issued a massive international appeal for the people of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. Thirteen million people – among them the people I had met in Tharaka – unable to survive without outside aid.

It’s November and we are back in Tharaka. The trees are green; grass and crops spring from the ground; goats happily munch on plentiful bushes. It is like a different world.

The change has been brought about by rain – so often the missing ingredient in east Africa’s attempts to feed itself. After going a year and a half without any rainfall, the Tharaka soil has finally felt moisture over the last number of weeks, bringing life back to the earth.

Captions: Tharaka in Kenya in April 2011 during the drought and again in November after the first rain in the area for 18 months. Photos: Eoghan Rice.

The rain has allowed crops to grow and animals to live. Those crops and animals will keep the people of Tharaka alive and healthy.

But where did these crops and animals come from? The answer is simple: you.

You gave to Trócaire, and Trócaire used your donations to purchase food, crops and animals for people in Tharaka and throughout east Africa.

Across the fields and homes of Tharaka, evidence of Irish generosity is everywhere. Ireland is known around the world for a variety of reasons – our music, our books, our scenery, to name but a few. In Tharaka, the people we spoke with knew just two snippets of information about this far away land: the first that it is very cold, the second that the people of Ireland saved their lives.

 Captions:

Top right: Bishop Kieran O'Reilly of Killaloe with Beatrice Wanjiru, who has received goats, crops and food through Trócaire's east Africa appeal.

Top left: this Trócaire-funded water pipe, which stretches for 27km, will bring water directly to 9,000 people in the Tharaka District of Kenya.

Bottom:  Trócaire's Up to Us climate change campaign t-shirt makes its way to a Kenyan village. Photos: Eoghan Rice.

The crisis in east Africa is far from over, but in places such as Tharaka the people have been kept alive through the drought by outside aid. If the rains continue for the next month, soon they will be able to harvest their crops and will be once again able to provide for themselves.

The rain has made a massive difference to the lives of people in Tharaka, but so have you.

Kenya's Green shoots

We responded to the crisis in East Africa as part of Caritas, the worldwide Catholic network of humanitarian aid agencies. Together Caritas agencies helped over one million people during the crisis.  See how we helped here.

As Christmas approaches and the weather gets colder, it is difficult to picture that in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, in the heart of the West Bank, the sun is still shining brightly as the olive harvest comes to an end.

This year’s olive harvest has been particularly tough for Palestinian farmers living under military occupation. Violent attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have escalated by over 50 per cent in 2011 compared to 2010. Settlers have also destroyed or damaged nearly 10,000 Palestinian crops, including olive trees, during this year, undermining the livelihoods of hundreds of families. The perpetrators act with virtual impunity, with over 90 per cent of complaints of settler violence closed by the Israeli police without indictment in 2005-2010.

Photo Captions:
Top: Pilgrim lighting a candle in the church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Middle: left, Umm Fathi an olive grove farmer from Sinjil and right, Palestinian women chat in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Bottom: Fathi Shabaneh and Rebhi Hosen standing in front of their olive groves. Many olive trees were destroyed by settlers.
All Photos: Mark Condren.

According to Trócaire’s partner organisation, Rabbis for Human Rights, “for Palestinian farmers, settler violence against them or their property is a practically a daily occurrence”. Rabbis for Human Rights is a human rights organisation which challenges aggression from Israeli settlers and the Israeli military, taking individual cases to the Israeli military and courts.

Trócaire supporters have also provided much needed assistance to Palestinian olive farmers through the Global Gift of an olive tree. Gamiel Hassan Hader, an 87-year-old Palestinian farmer had a field of 1000 olive trees destroyed by Israeli settlers.

“The settlers uprooted and burned all the olive trees,” said Gamiel. He complained to the Israeli authorities “but they didn't do anything, even though the land is just below the standing security cameras of the Army”.

Gamiel has received 500 olive tree saplings through Rabbis for Human Rights, and they have made a huge difference to his family.

“If they had not helped me replant there the settlers would have stolen my land and they would have continued expanding into other neighboring lots,” he said. “This action helps me survive on a daily basis. Olive trees live a long time and can give fruit for a long time. This will eventually help me live off the sale of oil and the olives.”

This year you can buy the gift of fruit trees for famers in Guatemala. The gift of a small orchard will supply a family in Guatemala with nutritious avocados, lemons, oranges and papaws to eat for many years to come.

 See what happened when we visited a busy marketplace in Jerusalem and asked 50 ordinary people 1 extraordinary question.