Sadaf Rahman, Safety and Security Officer, CARE Pakistan

"You cannot do it."

"Security is not for girls; go and find yourself some office job."

"Can you even spell security?"

"Oh; you wish to be a security manager; really?"

"Why don't you meet me over dinner and we will see what we can do."

"Thank you for your interest but we would rather hire a man."

All of the above statements actually happened when I tried to apply for a job in the men-dominated field of security. And I accepted to get discouraged but only for a little time or a maximum of a few days. Like the phoenix, I rose from these encounters with an even stronger will and firmer resolve to work in the security field. There was no reason not to believe that I couldn't do it and hence, I finally got the break with the International Organization for Migration when I was hired as Security Officer. Since then, I actually haven't looked back. Though, there does pop up a little desire occasionally to go to these six different people who said what they said and tell them: "Look, I made it".

I knew a job in security is tough, very tough. I also knew it would be demanding and meant to serve in inhospitable environments. But I persisted believing in the strength of human resolve, honestly. I am aware of the many odds that human beings have surmounted in the past and as the saying goes: "A dream of yesterday is a reality today." I couldn't put it any better than that.

My resolve to be among the best in the security industry is unflinching and I would always be looking forward to add value both in my professional dispensation and personal development. CARE is a non-political non-sectarian humanitarian organization and all that matters to us is improving lives of poor people, assisting them to overcome poverty. Today, humanitarian agencies such as CARE have to deal with emerging threats while doing their work. We can be targeted simply because of who we are and what we are perceived to represent

And a security officer has to be on her toes to always be a step ahead than those who wish us damage. Not many may know it but it is a perpetual struggle to keep our staff, our projects and premise protected. It also looks adventurous from the outset; but I as a security officer have learnt NOT to be adventurous. This, to me, is the basic definition and requirement to be in security business. Being brave does mean respecting security and safety rules.

I am grateful that CARE practices what their belief is: Gender Equality. I will, and am all geared up to, prove that CARE's decision to hire me was the right one. A woman can be as good as a man in security.

Today, as a CAS, a Certified Anti Terrorism Specialist, I stand with courage and strength and face whatever comes my way. I am a woman. But I am no less than anyone else. Period!

A Testament to Human Kindness

IDP Rachele in her home in DRC. Picture by Julie Edwards/CARE International/2012

The humanitarian situation in the DRC is one of the world's most complex and long-standing. This is due to continuing armed conflict and general insecurity. According to UNOCHA 1.7 million people remained displaced, mostly in eastern DRC, in 2011.

In one village, Kanii, according to locals there are around 200 displaced people living amongst the 450 households. Rachele, displaced by conflict on several occasions has, this time, been here for three years. She first came to the village as a teenager when she was pregnant and fleeing mass atrocities. You might wonder why she returns home but when you have nothing and your home was once somewhere you were able to earn a living perhaps it is more understandable. "I want to return home. I have a farm, livestock and a field of bananas and beans but I know, at the moment, I can't go back."

Rachele lives in a shelter, provided by CARE, next to the family that took her in when she first arrived. The two room shelter is home to her and the 11 children she shares it with – six biological children and the five she adopted when her sister died.

Sangatia, a 50 year old widow, currently supports 24 people, including Rachele, and when you ask her why she simply replies ‘love'. There is no financial benefit for Sangatia and it is hard to understand why this woman would help so many others but she never questions the assistance she gives. "When new people arrive we see them as brothers and sisters, our feeling is to welcome them. When they arrive we welcome them and think about how we can live together. When we have food we share it."

The story of a displaced woman and the widow that has taken her and her family in is a testament to how the Congolese people help each other in times of crisis. CARE is supporting host communities and villages like Kanii with the provision of shelter kits, seeds and tools so that people can grow crops and feed their families. Community crisis management committees are set up so that people can work together and avoid conflict.

Rebuilding Lives After War

An ex-combatant, Miroro and his wife Furaha. Picture by Julie Edwards/CARE International/2012

Miroro and Furaha married in 2002 and have five children. Miroro spent 13 years in the army, leaving in 2006. When he left the army he found himself living amongst a distrustful community. "The community's reaction towards me when I returned was that they couldn't believe I was a civilian and always asked to see my discharge papers. They weren't necessarily afraid but weren't sure how to act around me as they thought I might still be a soldier."

The reaction of the community was just one part of the family's problems as Miroro explains: "When I left the army there was nothing for me to do. I couldn't send my children to school because the fees were too expensive. We lived here on the charity of the community". But since joining a CARE project and receiving business training the family has seen their fortunes change with the opening of a small shop in front of their home that is well used and supported by the local community.

Miroro's wife, Furaha, has seen changes since their involvement in the project. "Everything he gets he shares. We now have food and clothes. Each time he gets money he brings it to me and we talk about how to use it."

Miroro is also happy that he is his own boss. "I don't have to take orders from anyone else. I can support myself for the first time and send my children to school. I have learned how to generate an income, keep track of the money and reinvest it."

The project is working with ex-combatants to find viable ways to earn a living, through hairdressing, mechanics, livestock rearing and small commerce. The participants are also given kits to start their business and we have worked with local authorities to get taxes waived for the first year so that the businesses are provided with the best start possible.

When a Husband and Soldier Returns

Ex-combatant Munyaneza and his wife Matipaka in their home in Goma. Picture by Julie Edwards/CARE International/2012

During these years Matipaka would survive by finding work where she could and eventually she had to sell the one asset the family owned. "We had 7 goats before he left but I sold them one by one just to survive."

The return of Matipka's husband didn't spell the end of their hardship. Not only did they have to adjust to life back together but they still didn't have a secure income. "When he was unemployed life was very difficult, we just sold a little flour here and there. There were times when he was difficult to manage, difficult to live with."

CARE's ‘Hope Tomorrow' project is working with ex-combatants and provided Munyaneza, Matipaka's husband, with training and equipment to start his own business. Munyaneza explains how the project has helped the whole family "The project gave me four months training which included mechanics. I now have a driving licence and can repair tyres. I have also been able to buy four goats and some chickens and ducks. I can now send my children to school and feed them"

Life is now improving for the family but it is also good to see that Matipka is no longer facing the daily struggles on her own: "now when problems arise we can work together to overcome them."

The project is working with ex-combatants to find viable ways to earn a living, through hairdressing, mechanics and livestock rearing. The participants are given kits to start their businesses and we have also worked with local authorities to get taxes waived for the first year so that the businesses are provided with the best start possible.

Life in an IDP Camp

IDP Cecile outside her shelter. Picture by Julie Edwards/CARE International/2012

Cecile, 37, arrived in the camp almost a year ago. "We fled because armed groups were raising villages on the other side of the hills and they were killing people and burning everything. I was so distressed when we fled. We didn't have anything to eat."

Arriving in the camp, Cecile and her five children were taken in by another family until they could build their own shelter. Cecile struggles on a daily basis. "I face many challenges each day – to get food, maintain our shelter, to keep clothed and to even find cooking utensils. On top of that my children can't go to school."

CARE provided Cecile, and families like hers, with vouchers that could be used to buy the things she most needed, these vouchers assist families with the goods they need, while helping local markets. "We received vouchers from CARE. No NGO had given us food until then. I was miserable with hunger and when CARE gave us the vouchers I was overjoyed. I thank CARE for that. I liked getting vouchers instead of simply receiving food directly. It meant I could choose what to get and how much."

This camp is now home to Cecile and she explained why returning home isn't an option. "I can't imagine going back – people from our village have gone back and have been killed or have returned here."

CARE's funding to support families like Cecile ran out in May 2011. It is often difficult to secure longer term funding but CARE hopes to resume activities in the coming months to support new arrivals like Judith, a 47 year old widow, who arrived in the camp at the end of January. "An armed group came two weeks ago and they chased us away and killed some of us. Women were raped and their limbs were cut off with machetes. I saw this with my own eyes. While we were fleeing my sister was killed and cut to pieces."

"I live in misery. I work here and there for the villagers and get paid with plants and salt. I have nine children, four are my own and the others are my sister's children. My hope is that I receive help. Before, I had a stable life and could educate my children – now I can't do that. My children aren't well – we can't eat or keep clean."

*To protect the identity of people in this story names have been changed

The farmers of Dan Maza Idi village in Niger have a saying: "Everybody depends on the Earth to survive." But climate change is making survival more difficult in Dan Maza Idi and villages like it across Niger. Years of erratic rains and longer-than-usual dry periods have made it increasingly difficult to grow millet, a staple of the local diet.

Dan Bouga, a 55-year-old farmer in the village, works hard to feed his six children. But no amount of hard work can produce rain. Traditional millet seeds used in the region take three months to grow. With some recent rainy seasons lasting less than two months, Dan's harvests have plummeted.

In 2009, CARE began working with Dan and other farmers in the village to help them devise sustainable ways to improve millet production. Dan was one of several people who, with CARE's help, switched to new millet seeds that produce crops in just two months and can be replanted the following year. Along with new seeds, CARE trains farmers on how to successfully cultivate their new crop.

As had been the case for years, the first time Dan planted the new millet seeds, the rainy season arrived late and lasted just two months. But because he was growing a newer, quicker variety of millet, his fields filled with strong, healthy-looking cobs. Dan grew enough millet to feed his family – and had enough leftover to store and sell, despite the shortened rainy season.

"This surplus will allow me to have money to look after my family," he said in 2009. "I can pay for health care and buy clothes for my children."

The severity of this year's drought has pushed the entire Sahel region into an enormous food emergency. More than 15 million people are in need of emergency food assistance, including 1 million children at risk of severe malnutrition.

The people in Dan Mazi Idi and thousands of villages in the Sahel need outside help to endure the lean months before the next harvest. It is a humanitarian imperative to help them now and avoid an even more severe crisis in the future.

In Chad, Mali, and Niger, CARE provides access to food, work, trains nurses to identify and treat malnutrition, improves water and sanitation and promotes hygiene. And CARE provides essential household items and supplies to people displaced by conflict in Mali, as well as to refugees who fled across the border into Niger.

With more support, CARE can maintain and expand programs like the one that has helped Dan Bouga and his family support themselves. But time is running out. Families in and around Dan Mazi Idi village are so hungry they have already begun eating their seed stock to survive. Dan and his family have managed to hold on to their seeds so far. Even if they plant the seeds, there's no guarantee there will be enough rain for them to grow anything at all. But unlike some of their neighbors, Dan and his family have a chance at a healthier, more prosperous future.

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In the United States, a woman’s lifetime risk of dying due to pregnancy or childbirth is about 1 in 2,100. In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman’s risk is close to an astonishing 1 in 30. This Mother's Day, nearly 1,000 mothers and 8,000 infants will die from almost entirely preventable causes, and most of these deaths will occur in the developing world. Sign to help us reach 9,000 signatures for 9,000 needless deaths.

http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/blog/2012/04/announcing-winners-1511

Congratulations to all the students who took part in the Tableau Student Data Challenge! We were thrilled by all the high-quality dashboards that were submitted. This challenge asked students to take real data from the humanitarian organization, CARE and help provide insight and meaning. A panel of three judges: Dan Hom, Tableau Data Analyst; Robert Kosara, PhD, Visual Analytics Researcher; and CARE’s Access Africa MIS Manager, Abdoul-Karim Coulibaly carefully vetted the submissions based on 1. data analysis (50%), 2. telling a compelling story (25%), and 3. design elements/overall appeal (25%).

And now the drum rolls please…

Our first place ($1,250) goes to Team UW Pro-Track. The dashboard submission can be found in the blog article, Family Economics in Lesotho: A Tableau Data Challenge. The judges were particularly impressed by the team’s ability to present data in a meaningful, but simple and clear way. The visualization made good use of multiple types of views and interactive functionality to present a big picture of Lesotho and its residents. The team comprises three Journalism graduate students at the University of Wisconsin, Kate Prengaman, Amy Karon, and Emily Eggleston.

The second place ($750) winner goes to Alden Denny’s one-person team, Orogeny and Phylogeny. Alden’s dashboard can be found as part of the blog, Lesotho: A Landlocked Country. Our judges especially enjoyed the thoughtful introduction, study description, and interpretation of the findings. Alden is a graduate student at the University of Washington studying Marine Geology.

Last, but not least, our crowd-favorite ($500) goes to Ariel Anaya’s one-person team, Correlize, with 260 ‘likes’. Not only did Ariel score the most ‘likes’, but his view provides a well balanced and easy to understand dashboard on loan usage of the data set. Ariel is an undergraduate student studying Finance at the University of Central Florida.

In addition, we have several honorable mentions. First, we will be sending a special Tableau care package to Michael Peck of the Parachuting Khertakers. Michael was in close competition behind Correlize, with 256 ‘likes’. His dashboard uses a wide array of different visualizations, giving the reader a dynamic understanding of the local economy. Michael studies Information Systems at the Indiana University Kelly School of Business.

Other honorable mentions go to teams:

Filtrix: Connor Gray and Garrett Lambert, Information Systems and Finance studies at the University of Washington

Helen Yezeretz: Helen Yezeretz, Computer Information Technology studies at Indiana University – PUI

Inquisitive Hedgehog: April Hoy, Public Administration studies at Boise State University

Purple Team: Arturo Catellanos, Management and Information Systems studies at Florida International University

TeamKiwiFruit: Chim Lau, Economics at the University of California, San Diego

Tequlia Mockingbird: Daniel Yerelian and Sunil Shah, MBA students at Loyola Marymount University

Once again, congratulations to everyone!

Text is courtesy of Tableau Software: http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/blog/2012/04/announcing-winners-1511

I work with members of the US Congress and their constituents to improve our foreign assistance program. While much of CARE's advocacy work involves the US government, our country office colleagues also engage in advocacy with foreign governments. I got a taste of CARE's global advocacy work last week when I was asked to join meetings between CARE, Emory University (a research partner), and the Kenyan Ministries of Education and Public Health and Sanitation in Kisumu, Kenya. The goal of the meeting was to increase the government's investment in successful hygiene and sanitation programs in rural schools.

For the last six years, CARE and Emory University have worked on a program called SWASH +, which builds latrines and hand washing stations in schools. At the moment, the program is only in the Nyganza province, in southwestern Kenya, but CARE hopes that the government will provide the resources to replicate it across the country.

Studies have found that having clean latrines has positive impacts on health and reduces absenteeism, particularly for girls. CARE hopes that future research will prove that adequate sanitation also improves school performance.

In US advocacy, we generally work toward one of three goals: passing legislation, securing funding, or working with the administration to support policies. Once the law is on the books or the budget is completed, we take implementation for granted. We assume that the legislation will be carried out; the funding will arrive.

In Kenya, the end goal of advocacy work is another matter entirely. Here, the formal policies are comprehensive and support many development programs. Education is legally free; all citizens have the right to water and sanitation. But in reality, schools are not always functional; sanitation facilities are inadequate or absent.

The Kenyan ministry officials who joined us in Kisumu were supportive of SWASH +, but Kenya is changing rapidly, and the future of social programs is uncertain. The country has a new constitution. National elections will take place in the next year. After the post-election violence in 2007-2008, Kenyans are unclear as to what will come next.

Yet after debriefing on our advocacy strategy, my CARE Kenya colleagues realized that the tools we need to advocate for effective programs are similar across cultural contexts. Before starting a program like SWASH +, we need to determine key stakeholders in the community and the government. We need to conduct research that determines the effectiveness of programs, and we need to package that research in a way that is clear, succinct, and useful to policy makers. Finally, we need to engage stakeholders throughout the process and to consider them as critical partners.

To find out more about SWASH +, go to www.swashplus.org.

To support programs like SWASH +, call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121, ask to speak to your member of Congress, and tell him/her to support the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act (H.R. 3658).

Siaya is a town twenty miles from Lake Victoria, in Western Kenya. I am in town to visit community groups that my CARE Kenya colleagues (Alex, Lucy, and Margaret) have been working with in the last six months. The first group we visit named themselves Twelve Sisters, but they are quick to tell me they have fifteen members, as they have been growing. Six months ago, these women started working together as a community savings and loans group. The women meet twice a month, and at every meeting they contribute money to the group. They are required to contribute 20 Kenyan shillings (about 30 cents) to the group's social fund, and then they can choose the amount of money they want to contribute to the group's pooled funds. The pooled funds are lumped into shares, which cost 100 Kenyan shillings (about $1.50).

At any meeting, group members can take out loans from the group's pooled funds. In April, Dada started an embroidery business. Frances improved her poultry farm. Alice paid the secondary school fees for her children. The women repay their loans a month after they take them out, along with 10% interest.

The social fund, however, is a different matter altogether. The social fund grows every month, and if one of the women has a problem, the group votes on whether or not to use their social fund to help her. Two months ago, Frances' house caught on fire, and she lost many of her possessions. Twelve Sisters voted to nearly deplete their social fund, giving Frances a way to start over. Unlike the loan system, the social fund does not need to be repaid.

Beatrice, the group's president, tells me, "this box is a painkiller…before when we had problems we had nowhere to turn, but now we have a resource." While we only spent a day together, it was clear to see that Beatrice was a force to be reckoned with. In addition to leading Twelve Sisters, Beatrice is a community educator on clean water. Trained by CARE, Beatrice goes into rural villages armed with PUR water packets. Donated by Proctor and Gamble, these packets purify 10 liters of water. The packets cost 15 Kenyan shillings (20 cents), but thanks to Proctor and Gamble, Beatrice and other health workers can distribute samples for free when they conduct community trainings.

Beatrice shows me how she demonstrates the packets. She empties the packet into a bucket of brown water that she collected from the nearby river. As she sings a song about the process, Beatrice stirs the bucket for five minutes. Then we wait. Twenty minutes later, the water is miraculously clear. Beatrice ties a white cloth around a second bucket and uses it as a filter for the sediment that floats on top of the translucent bucket. "Now it is safe," she says. I must admit, I'm impressed.

Alex and Margaret, who run CARE's water and sanitation programs in Siaya, tell me that the funding from Proctor and Gamble will last two more years, and their clients are always asking for more PUR packets. The mortality rate from water-borne diseases has dropped significantly in Siaya since CARE started the Safe Water System Project, and families are eager to use the PUR packets because the water looks and tastes better, and they see immediate improvements in their health.

Beatrice asked me what I was going to do when I got back to the United States. I explained that my job is to tell stories to members of Congress, so they will support programs like Twelve Sisters and the Clean Water Project. I hope to make good on my promise.

There are two bills in Congress right now that could help women like Beatrice and groups like the Twelve Sisters. The Microenterprise Empowerment and Job Creation Act (H.R. 2524), and the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act (H.R. 3658). Please call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121, ask for the office of your member of Congress, orclick here to send him/her an e-mail in support of these life-saving pieces of legislation.

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By Kent Alexander
March 24, 2012

A girl holds a sign with the word 'Charité' (charity) during a function to welcome visitors to the village of Ayyawane (Tahoua region, Niger).

Driving from Niger's capital Niamey to the town of Konni for five hours through the sand-swept, arid Sahel region, I listened to the audio book The Hunger Games. The novel opens with a scene of bleak poverty in a post-apocalyptic town called District 12. Dirt, grime, threadbare clothing, scarce food.

Looking out the window at the mud-and-thatch structures and the gaunt, colorfully dressed women floating by my window, I couldn't help but think Niger was District 12 on steroids. Here, people are experiencing ‘the hungry season', and it is certainly neither a novel nor a movie. It's very real.

Still, I couldn't help but smile about the difference people here are making in partnership with CARE.

Having joined CARE as general counsel just last April, this is my first trip to a region deep in the throes of crisis. This is poverty as I've never seen.

The facts? Niger ranks 186th out of 187 countries on the UN's Human Development Index, putting it in a dead heat with the Democratic Republic of Congo as the least developed country on earth. Most adults over 25 have precious little formal education, and an overwhelming majority are illiterate. Particularly hard hit are Niger's women and children, always the most vulnerable to poverty. Conflicts simmer on three bordering countries. And among many other challenges facing Niger, a catastrophic drought is underway.

A girl rides a donkey carrying water in the village of Maijanjaré (Tahoua region, Niger).

According to a recent report over 10 million of Niger's 16 million citizens will run out of food stocks well before the next harvest, expected around October. All families have cut back on their food consumption. Most who I met are down to one meal a day.

The country is on the proverbial brink. Without help, many will suffer irreparable physical harm; many will lose their lives.

How economically poor are the villages we visited in western Niger? Mind bogglingly poor.

When we arrived at Ayyawane hundreds of people gathered for a welcoming ceremony. During the program, young children presented formal requests in envelopes to the group of visitors from CARE. Their number one request? Not toys, not new clothes, and certainly not a trip to Disney World. Drinking water. Water! This was especially striking because Ayyawane was by far the most ‘affluent' of the villages we visited.

We toured Ayyawane and spoke with the mayor and other people about their lives and their very modest dreams.

CARE USA's General Counsel, Kent Alexander (bottom-right), CARE USA's Deputy Director of Major Gifts, Tom Hanschman (top-right, background) and CARE Niger's Project Manager, Nouroudine Pereira (center), listen to salutations during a function to welcome visitors to the village of Ayyawane (Tahoua region, Niger)

Then, at the end of our visit, I saw something that gave me a small but jolting idea of what poverty is like. As we headed to the car for our departure, dozens of young children crowded behind the Toyota and were uncharacteristically pushing and shoving each other. The tail gate was open, and the driver stood beside our cooler containing a few leftover cold drinks from lunch earlier in the day. Philippe Leveque, the National Director of CARE France said, "Kent, this is the face of poverty." Frankly, I thought he was overreacting a bit and said as much. After all, the day was broiling – over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course the kids were elbowing in for a shot at a cold drink.

Then I took a closer look. The cooler was shut tight, and the driver was not handing out drinks at all. He was handing out a few of our empty cans and plastic bottles. The cans were fodder for tin toy planes and cars to use or sell. The bottles were to be used as receptacles for months down the road when the rains finally come. The throng of children only dispersed after a man swatted at them with a stick.
Our trash was their treasure.

So the uplifting parts of the visits? There were certainly many.

While in Ayyawane, we visited a garden made possible by five wells that CARE had dug through the years. Outside the garden stood a huge grove of trees, greenery rarely seen in most of Niger. The mayor told us they planted all those trees with support from CARE more than thirty years ago, when he was just 11. The grove now serves as a ready source of wood for energy and construction, which villagers maintain, planting new trees as they log.

In another village, Bangoukoirey (please don't ask me to pronounce it!), I saw one of CARE's savings and loan groups in action. Each of the three dozen or so women members stepped forward to contribute their week's savings of 500 CFA (1 U.S. dollar) or less into a pooled fund, which they could later use to make and collect small development loans. The president of the group, colorfully dressed in a green, black and blue striped robe with a purple scarf, told me she had been saving for six years. During that time she had used the loans to buy poultry, two oxen and a cart, and had repaid all the money with interest. But life was still hard. With the drought underway there is no longer money for the future, and not enough for food and water now.

Women line up in the village of Maijanjaré (Tahoua region, Niger) to collect a payment for their participation in a cash-for-work project run by CARE. With funding from ECHO/WFP, CARE is providing income to vulnerable families so they can buy food and repay their debts ahead of the lean season. People receive cash in exchange for part-time work in projects identified by their communities, or as a handout in the cases where nobody in the family is able to perform manual labour.

Back on the road, in the village of Maijanjaré (again, no pronunciation requests please), we went to a rock-hard, barren field with hundreds of three-meter-wide half-moon craters that stretched as far as the eye could see. It reminded me of some television special featuring landscapes pocked with mysterious patterns allegedly left by some ancient culture or extraterrestrials. But in this case there was no mystery.

CARE's Project Manager Nouroudine Pereira told us that the villagers, ingeniously, dug the craters on a gently sloping plain so that when the rains finally do come the water will not simply wash over the baked terra cotta landscape and flood the southernmost point. Each crescent captures the rainwater and becomes a garden, and the villagers harvest millet and other crops to sell and to store for the next hungry season. But they cannot do this without money to buy tools and without food to sustain them. And unfortunately food prices have soared since last fall.

Enter CARE.

Nouroudine explained the details of CARE's ‘cash-for-work' program, and after showing us the field brought us over to the line of villagers collecting their payments. CARE pays each villager a very modest sum to dig 2 craters per day into the concrete-like soil and provides the tools. This injects money into the economy, which people can use as they see fit. A 36-year-old mother standing in line spoke of how critical the payments are to support her and her four children. Her husband is in the somewhat more prosperous Nigeria (though still a lowly #156 out of 187 countries on UNDP's Human Development Index), scavenging for work to send remittances home, although finding work is never guaranteed. On the other hand, the lack of food and water in Niger is very real.

A man poses for a photograph in the village of Maijanjaré (Tahoua region, Niger).

On the long drive back to the capital city of Niamey, I listened to the rest of The Hunger Games and watched more villages roll by. My mind wandered to the real life hungry season and the onset of a food crisis in Niger. Suzanne Collins's book, compelling to most, seemed almost trite by comparison as I thought – and continue to think – about how to make the crisis in the Sahel compelling to all those who will never see it firsthand. How to avoid a severe crisis like what we are now seeing in the Horn of Africa. How to preserve the development progress made to date through the efforts of CARE, other NGO's, the UN, the government and the people. How to help the adults and children of the Sahel with such strong spirits and determination avoid going beyond the tipping point, when no amount of aid can bring them back.

Kent Alexander is CARE USA's General Counsel.

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