Drought
I am Sharon Owino, a student pursuing law and passionate about youth programs. I am volunteering with the Organization of African Youth (OAY) and currently doing the Jiactivate program which aims identifying programs affecting youths, and addressing it the issues after which we shall make a national declaration on the same.
Through Jiactivate program we have identified four major problems which youths identified as affecting them and they include corruption, unemployment, healthcare, and famine and drought and we have provided forums for discussing these issues with an aim of creating national change. This article is on famine and drought which is inspired by Dr. Shah (A lecturer at the University of Nairobi) when she gave a speech on ‘how the current drought affect us as a community and how I would stop the effects of drought in my community?’, the question never crossed my mind, maybe because drought has been a common experience for me until I no longer see it as a problem. It will come and go anyway. Today I have asked myself these questions and subsequently created answers for them.
Drought is the prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall which results to shortage of water. The impact of drought are so visible that one cannot ignore, from the economic impacts e.g. lack of money by farmers because they have no produce to sell environmental impacts, e.g. wildlife migration and social impacts e.g. loss of human life.
Various way of reducing the effects of drought in my community includes;
Educating pluralists. Kenya is a diverse country which embraces various cultures including pastoral culture. They should get education on pre drought measures that they can take in order for them not to be victims of drought.
Educate the farmers on various crops to plant on different seasons in order to utilize each weather as it comes in order to have sustainable farm products for each season.
Technological innovations which will help in improve the farm inputs and outputs. For example Israel which is located in the sub-Saharan region but produce a large amount of farm products
Tapping of rain waters which lead to flooding so that they may be used on dry seasons in farms instead of letting the water affect us during the flooding period and then it is followed by a dry season.
Implement the good policies which we have in Kenya in order to get the best regulations which will ensure we have products from our farms which will be used during the dry season.