Ms Rosamond Bennett:

It can feel overwhelming. Whenever I come back, Sunday is my mourning day. It is the day when I just wallow in it a bit. After that, it is a case of “Okay, what do we do next?” That is why the asks are in the Dóchas submission. One of the things we do is to support the community-led response. We do not work to tell people what they should do. We work with the communities and they tell us what they want to prioritise next and how they will move forward. That is what the Irish Government funds. That is what they are working towards. That means that whatever happens is sustainable and can continue to develop further into the future. It is not a one-off. That is where sustainable funding comes in. We are not going to get the support from the general public for refugees from the crisis in the Horn of Africa, they cannot fund that. That is why funding from government donors is absolutely crucial. We can work with those farmers to say “The climate is changing, so how are you going to farm differently? What are you going to do differently? What seeds will you grow that will be different?”

Christian Aid worked previously in India, with a Dalit community that continually suffered drought. By the end, what that community was doing became the state plan and a national plan for how farming should be undertaken. We work with communities and support them to change. That is where the farming comes in. People do what they have always done. I am from a farming family. My nephew tries to tell his father “I think we should do it differently”. It does not work. You have to work with people and they have to learn. That was the biggest barrier but now they know themselves that what they are doing cannot be continued, because of climate change. That is where the education comes in. They really want their children to learn how to farm this land when they do not know whether there will be drought or floods. It is about supporting those local communities to lead the response and develop their own responses. They can only have the education if they can grow crops that can pay the fees for school. That is why they need to have the cash transfers. They need that support. In order for that to happen they need support over a few years to help them to make that happen.