The Weyburn Rotary Club made a donation on Thursday evening of $5,200 to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank for relief in East Africa. Another donation from Weyburn, from the community worship service during the Wheat Festival on Aug. 7, totalled $9,521, also went to the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
The Foodgrains Bank has a reputation for doing excellent work and both of these donations are multiplied by five by the Canadian Government, noted Doug Loden, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church and a former missionary to Africa. As a member of the Rotary Club, he indicated he worked hard to get that donation put together to help provide food and aid to the starving in Africa.
"The situation in East Africa, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Uganda, at this time is terrible. It is the worst drought and famine in 60 years. Over 10 million people are in serious danger. Many of them will not survive unless help arrives quickly.," explained Loden.
"I lived in East Africa for 12 years and I know something of the struggle people have to stay alive. I have also seen projects of the Foodgrains Bank in Northern Ethiopia. What I saw was absolutely astonishing," said Loden, going on to explain how their work helps the people they help.
The people who needed food had to work and they were paid with food for their family. The work they did was to build terraces of stone on the bare mountain side. Then, they would plant trees in the soil that collected above the terrace. They also built a dam in the valley. In 10 years the bare rock mountain would be a forest and the dry valley would have a dam, a lake and the entire valley below the dam would be green because of the water seeping into the ground.
"What I saw was the start of the project, but I could visualize the end because I visited other places where they had done the same thing 10 years previous. What a wonderful project, giving the food needed at the moment, but also arranging for the work that would provide water and food for all the years to come. In the dry regions of East Africa, water is life," said Loden.
Some of the Foodgrains projects in East Africa are to build sand dams. The region doesn't get much rain but it sometimes comes in a flash flood and then is gone. A way to keep some of this water is to build a low dam of rock and concrete about five feet high in the creek bed. The rushing water carries lots of sand and after some time, above the dam is filled with sand. But this is great because all the space, between the grains of sand, fills with water. Because the water is under the sand it doesn't evaporate and can be used for drinking for people and animals and for watering crops.
"This type of project gives immediate assistance where it is needed but also provides water and food for the future. I am very confident that donations from Weyburn will be used very well," Loden said. With CIDA's multiplication, the total amount works out to $73,600.
If you want more information e-mail: cfgb@foodgrainsbank.ca or you might send a donation to Canadian Foodgrains Bank, East Africa Drought, P.O. Box 767, Winnipeg, Man., R3C 2L4
