Thank you message from Kenyan mission as emergency appeal reaches target

first truckload of hay to arrive

About two weeks ago we published an emergency appeal from a mission in Kenya for funds to to save the lives of a group of Dassanech families who have been severely affected by drought. About 40 of their animals were dying of starvation each day for the past two weeks.

Fr Steven Ochieng, who works with the St Paul's Missionary Community on the Kenya-Ethiopia border, supported by the charity New Ways was concerned that the situation could quickly escalate to famine and violence. He appealed for £5,000 to buy hay for the animals.

See: ICN 8 November 2013 Emergency appeal from mission in Kenya
www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=23546

The appeal has very quickly reached its first target. This morning Fr Steven wrote a message of thanks to New Ways chief executive Angela Docherty. Fr Steven writes:

Dear Angela,

As I had mentioned to you last week, this has been more than what we had anticipated and we are very grateful for it will go a long way. We have already distributed grass twice and we are yet to do so again this week. We have also given out food to the community. We had done this as we were aware that the money was coming. What we did was to spend the December food for the four nutrition units we run. We will have to refund this food next week, as we will need also to buy more food for the emergency. I will keep you informed on how this is going on. Enclosed find some photos of the hay.

Best wishes,

Steven

New Ways is run entirely by unpaid volunteers. If you would like to make a donation to this onging projects, please see: http://mydonate.bt.com/events/emergencyaid/107158