Kenya firms launch food aid initiative

An initiative to raise Sh500 million to buy and distribute food aid to Kenyans faced with hunger has been launched.

Dubbed Kenyans for Kenya, the effort brings together Safaricom Foundation and the Kenya Commercial Bank together with the Media Owners Association.

The exercise will run initially for four weeks with the hopes of meeting the half a billion target.

“These are our people and it is our problem. We have to come together as country and help our brothers and sisters faced with hunger,” explained Safaricom chief executive officer Mr Bob Collymore at the launch Wednesday.

Currently, it is estimated that close to three million Kenyans are in dire need of food aid, with the situation projected to get worse.

Refugees fleeing famine from Somalia into Kenya have further worsened the situation, especially in the North Eastern province.

According to the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), the most affected areas include Turkana, Marsabit, Wajir and Mandera.

“It is unacceptable that in the 21 century and almost 50 years of independence Kenyans are still dying of hunger. But it is real and it is happening,” noted Mr Abbas Gullet, Secretary general of the Kenya Red Cross.

The Kenyans for Kenya initiative is expected to rope in both corporate and individual citizens into pulling funds.

Media Owners Association has pledged to support the initiative through publicity on the various platforms and channel to help save Kenyans.

Already, an M-Pesa pay bill number (111111) has been set by Safaricom to accept donations as little as Sh10.

KCB too has set up an account number-1133333338 for ease of collection of the money.

A weekly update will be given to the public on the progress of the funds and food distributions out of it.

The first of these announcements will be made next week on Friday at the Serena hotel in Nairobi.

While similar initiatives have been made before by corporates, the Kenyans for Kenya is taking a two-throng approach in its endeavour.

It will be based on both short and long term interventions to curb recurrent hunger situations.

“We will work on providing solutions that will call for policy harmonisation to ensure that we deal with the issue of hunger in a long term way. All of us should invest in such solutions,” said Mr Linus Gitahi, chief executive officer, Nation Media Group.

The recurrent hunger problem in the country has largely been attributed to lack of sound policies.

Although blessed with a number of water sources, a majority of the population still rely on rain fed agriculture.

This has however recorded poor harvest over the years, coupled with the effects of global climatic changes.

It is from this that the Kenyans for Kenya initiative will also be putting in place medium term measures to provide green house and bore holes.

“We must do something, the writing is on the wall both in the short term by providing emergency food and long term by providing safe and clean water to our people,” explained Mr Martin Oduor Otieno, chief executive officer of KCB.

The initial alert for hunger was issued by the Kenya Red Cross in January this year but was not taken seriously especially by the Kenyan government.

The situation is today threatening to get out of hand as the meteorological department has also predicted scarce rains for the rest of the year.