OPINION:I WORK for Trócaire in southern Africa, among some of the poorest people in the world, writes CAOIMHE DE BARRA
I have sometimes seen callous disregard for the poor in this region, but I am shocked by the treatment of the poor in Ireland’s recent budget. Children, both in Ireland and in countries such as Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, will bear the brunt of this budget. I am left with two questions: What are our values as a nation? And what do I do now?
The Irish Aid budget has been cut five times and by a total of €249 million in 18 months. As a result of these cuts I have already had to close down work in Angola which was helping 6,000 families to feed their children. One in four children in Angola do not live to see their fifth birthday, partly as a result of poor nutrition. These families have lived through a brutal war and recently returned to rebuild their lives. Now, once again, they are being abandoned.
I have had to tell people in Zambia that Trócaire can no longer support them to get basic services such as clean water, health care and primary education. Some of the people that we help there consume only 50 per cent of their daily calorific needs. In explaining why Trócaire can no longer fund this work, I have had to talk about the financial crisis in Ireland to people for whom poverty means one meal a day, rather than two. I have worked in Zambia on and off for 11 years. To say it pains me to leave now does not begin to capture my feelings.
I met a woman in Zimbabwe recently who told me of her life: she has four children, three fields and two goats. To plough a field she has to sell a goat. If she sells both her goats and the rains fail, she will have no food for her family in the next harvest. She is bartering clothes for food. Her children go to school, where they get a bowl of porridge every day, funded by Trócaire. This might be the only food they eat. Trócaire is all that stands between her and absolute poverty.
I often hear talk in Ireland of the corruption in Africa. People sometimes assume this means that aid is wasted, and that these cuts don’t matter, but this could not be further from our reality in Trócaire. We have had to cut four projects in Zambia that involve local people fighting corruption and demanding better services. This is the long-term solution to poverty. Cutting aid is brutally unfair to poor people and to future generations who won’t benefit from changes these projects could have made.
Another cut of €25 million in aid has been announced, and I hope it will be reversed. If not, I will have to make ever more difficult decisions.
In Mozambique, we help over 4,000 children who are heads of households – both parents are dead and they are responsible for younger brothers and sisters – to get job training and healthcare. We help 10,000 pregnant women to get a HIV test and medication to prevent them transmitting the virus to their baby. We provide bicycle ambulances so seriously ill people in remote areas can be brought to a clinic.
In Zimbabwe we feed 22,900 children every day. We provide extremely poor households with seeds for the next harvest and training in agricultural methods. We help victims of political violence to rebuild burnt-out homes and get justice for crimes against them. We are helping them build a future, after 10 years of a political and economic crisis which has seen life expectancy fall to a mere 34 years.
Cuts mean I will have to choose between these projects and others like them. Every euro we cut has an impact on someone.
If I have to make more cuts, I must ask the Minister for Finance to stand in my shoes and tell me: what will I do now?
Caoimhe de Barra is based in Maputo, capital of Mozambique