KENYA: Kenyans and Somalis in Kenya collect aid during Ramadan for needy in Somalia

Record ID: 361422

  • Title: KENYA: Kenyans and Somalis in Kenya collect aid during Ramadan for needy in Somalia
  • Date: 3rd August 2011
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF YOUNG BOY SINGING INTO MEGAPHONE ASKING FOR DONATIONS
  • Embargoed: 18th August 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya, Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: International Relations,Disasters,Religion,Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVA40YB7W4TXZXCW7R3QP183CTAU
  • Story Text: At a busy street corner in Nairobi, Mohammed Hassan calls for people to donate clothes or money for a needy community - that of neighbouring Somalia.
    A convoy of trucks is due to leave the Kenyan capital later this week carrying 50 tonnes of food, water and clothes donated by the Somali community and generous Kenyans.
    The donated goods - the bulk of which has already been donated by residents of Nairobi's Somali-dominated suburb of Eastleigh - will be the first aid to be delivered by road into southern Somalia.
    Hassan's pleas for people to provide donations over the holy month of Ramadan seem to be striking a chord with local residents.
    "These people are affected by the drought and I am calling on my brothers and sisters to come and help these people who have nothing. They are there at the camps and it is the first day of the Holy Month and traditionally when it starts you have to open with food but they have nothing," said Hassan, standing at a tent plastered with images of starving Somali children.
    Close to 30 million Kenyan Shillings (320,000 US dollars) has also been collected through mosques and donations from the Somali business community. The money has been used to buy more food, water, clothes and medical supplies to be driven to refugee camps in northern Kenya and over the border into Somalia.
    Omar Yussuf, chair of the Somali Business Association has been in charge of the collection.
    "We will not wait for the international community, we will donate what we can. These are our brothers who cannot wait, who cannot wait for something to be delivered by the internationals. They have their own programme, their own budget, but us, we will have no other programme, we will have no other budget so that we can donate whatever small thing we have to them," he said.
    According to Yussef, one of the aims of the collection is to show international charities that Somalis are doing something to help themselves.
    Eastleigh, or Little Mogadishu as it has come to be known has had bad press in the past for being a recruitment ground for the militant group Al Shabaab.
    Last week a report by the U.N. monitoring group for Somalia and Eritrea claimed the rebels have extensive funding, recruiting and training networks within Kenya, including places in Eastleigh where people can donate so called 'jihad money' to help fund Islamists in Somalia.
    It's a problem, says Somali poet Abdul Rashid, that goes to the heart of why there's still no sign of an end to the country's 20-year civil war.
    He says money in the community all too easilyup in the wrong hands and while some people are digging into their pockets to help the hungry, their neighbours could be funding terrorism.
    "You will find a person, you might be sitting in the same restaurant, eating from the same plate, laughing, you may even be friends. But when it comes to religion, he maybe giving his money to recruit young men. He will be contributing it without feeling anything about it," he said.
    According to Rashid, international donations are also part of the problem.
    "NGOs are never a solution because for a person to get out of a problem, the solution must come from within, from the person themselves. When an NGO comes to help, it should only be for a season, more than a season I think it will not help. It will just make you dependent on aid and at the end of the day you will not even solve your household problems," said Rashid.
    As many as 12.4 million people are said to be affected by the drought in the Horn of Africa with six areas in Somalia now bordering on famine according to the United Nations (U.N.) refugee agency.
    The crisis has intensified in Mogadishu with a fresh onset of fighting between government troops and Islamist al-Shabaab militias who have been preventing some aid agencies bringing in supplies.
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