The need has never been greater in Africa says Offaly aid worker

BEFORE anything else, I want to say thank you. Thank you to the people of the Midlands, and to communities across Ireland, who stood with Self Help Africa throughout 2025. Thank you to those who donated, fundraised, prayed, organised events, attended charity events and quietly gave what they could, even when life at home felt uncertain. Sometimes we move forward so focused on the work that we don’t pause often enough to say thank you.
Today, I want to change that. Thank you for your unwavering support of Self Help Africa and for your compassion, generosity, and trust. What you give goes far beyond support, it brings hope and opportunity to communities across Africa. Recently, at one of our charity events, I looked around the room and felt both gratitude and urgency. Gratitude for your generosity. Urgency because the need I witnessed across Africa recently has never been greater. And yet, you did not look away.
A world on the brink
We are living through extraordinary times, a world marked by war, conflict, hate, instability, and a mounting planetary crisis. Climate change, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and widening inequality are colliding to form the greatest moral challenge of our generation. The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned just recently that “global warming is pushing the planet to the brink.” Every one of the last ten years has been the hottest on record. Oceans are overheating. Ecosystems are collapsing. Fires, floods, storms and droughts respect no borders. And yet, not all countries are equally responsible, and not all are equally endangered.
For Africa, the injustice is stark. Across East Africa, life hangs by a fragile thread, yet it is carried by astonishing courage. I have held children weakened by hunger, listened to mothers who skip meals so their sons and daughters might eat once, and walked through lands cracked by drought, conflict, and neglect. From Ethiopia and Somalia to Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, and Eritrea, families are uprooted, wells run dry, crops fail, and parents are forced into impossible choices, yet hope refuses to die.
Women smile with grace that defies despair, children sing with empty stomachs, and communities plant seeds in scorched earth, believing tomorrow can still come. I have seen what compassion makes possible: clean water restoring health, small gardens feeding families, dignity returning where despair once lived. These people are not statistics, they are love, resilience, and humanity itself. Aid cuts now threaten to erase this fragile progress, leaving millions feeling forgotten, asking only, “Does anyone remember us?” We must answer them. Compassion is not charity, it is justice. If we do not look away, if we act together, lives can be saved, hope can rise again, and to the one child helped, it will mean everything.
The poorest pay the highest price
Africa contributes less than four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it suffers some of the harshest consequences. The poorest of the poor are paying for a crisis they did not cause. Across Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, droughts parch wells that sustained generations. Floods wash away homes and harvests overnight. Seasons that once guided life have vanished. Farmers who planned by the rains now wait and wait and watch the sky remain silent. Climate change is no longer a distant threat.
It is a daily reality written on empty plates, dry riverbeds, and exhausted faces. Just as the crisis deepens, some wealthy nations have pulled back. Key donors have cut aid budgets, suspended life-saving programs, and left millions abandoned. Projects that were restoring hope have been canceled. Jobs for African development workers lost. Irrigation systems, community water schemes, livelihood programs frozen. It is devastating. And yet, amidst the heartbreak, I carry deep gratitude that Ireland has not walked away. Irish Aid continues to stand with the poorest families on Earth. Their support saves lives every day. It makes me profoundly proud to be Irish. As a Ugandan farmer said recently when I visited recently: “Ah, you’re from Ireland—the most caring country in our world.” It was in reference to the 30 Irish GAA stars led by the amazing Alan Kerins who joined forces with local communities in Uganda through the Plant the Planet initiative, planting over a million trees to provide livelihoods, restore soils, and bring hope to families and schools across East Africa. They also opened the country’s first one-wall handball alley, inspiring children, especially girls, to engage in sport and experience joy amid hardship. Through these efforts, Irish and African communities connected, showing how sport and environmental action can foster solidarity, opportunity, and shared humanity.

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Faces behind the crisis
For nearly four decades, I have walked the scorched roads of Ethiopia, waded through floodwaters in Malawi, and held the fragile hands of children who have never known a full belly. In northern Kenya, I met Caroline, a mother of five, carrying her youngest child on her back for miles to reach a temporary water point. Her eyes told a story words could barely capture, hunger, fear, and a quiet dignity under crushing strain. She did nothing to cause this crisis. And yet she pays for it with her body, her sleep, and her children’s future.
Tonight, as most of us go to bed in warmth and safety, 733 million people, the population of Europe, will go to bed hungry. Mothers skip meals so their children can eat. Fathers walk miles for unsafe water. Children are too hungry even to cry. Globally, 2.8 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet, even though the world produces more than enough food for everyone. Farmers face failed crops; children endure malnutrition; communities live on the brink of disaster. Nearly 61 million people in Eastern and Southern Africa are in need of food, over 21 million children acutely malnourished. The Global Hunger Index warns it could take 136 years to bring hunger to low levels at current pace. We should not wait 136 years for children to eat. These are not statistics. They are children with names. Families with dreams. Lives that matter. And still, too often, the world looks away.
Conflict makes hunger deadlier
Conflict compounds this suffering. In Sudan, families flee violence and famine. In Somalia, hunger stalks communities already shattered by war. In Ethiopia, northern Kenya, and parts of Uganda, pastoralists are trapped in endless cycles of drought, displacement and despair. I hear the same words again and again: “Please don’t look away. Please help. Our children are suffering. We feel forgotten.” No child should die because the world’s attention moved on.
To be human
There is a deep ache in our world, a hunger that goes beyond empty stomachs. It is a hunger for compassion. For eyes that still see. For hearts that still break. When we look upon the hungry and the thirsty, we are not looking at problems to be solved by someone else. We are looking into the very face of our shared humanity. This is not politics. It is not ideology. It is what it means to be human. Across Africa there is a word that explains this truth: Ubuntu — I am because we are. It reminds us that when one child goes hungry, something in all of us is diminished. Our lives are bound together, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. Ireland understands this, shaped as we are by our own history of hunger, resilience and solidarity.
Hope still grows
And yet amid despair, hope persists. At Self Help Africa, we believe in a hand up, not a hand-out. Farmers are learning to grow drought-resistant crops. Women are rebuilding local food systems. Communities are harvesting rainwater and restoring soil. In Ethiopia, a woman named Almaz once relied entirely on food aid. Today, she grows her own vegetables, feeds her children, and sells produce at the market. She told me quietly, “Now I can feed my children myself. I feel strong.” This is dignity. This is empowerment. This is what hope looks like. Thanks to Irish Aid and supporters across Ireland, Self Help Africa installs climate-smart boreholes, introduces drought-tolerant crops, supports women farmers, restores land, and rebuilds livelihoods. Families climbing out of poverty could fall back into hunger if funding is withdrawn. Pamela, a 25-year-old mother in Kenya, once walked 11 kilometres daily for unsafe water. Today, a nearby borehole keeps her children healthy. Your support makes such miracles possible.

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A code red moment
This is a code red moment. History warns us what happens when the world acts too late. In 2011, drought swept the Horn of Africa and 250,000 people died, many of them children. The warning signs were there. We promised it would never happen again. And yet, here we are. As needs rise, funding falls. Aid budgets are cut. Communities who were climbing out of poverty risk being pushed back into hunger. Climate Justice Is Not Charity. Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is a moral failure. The richest one percent emit more carbon than the poorest half of humanity combined. Methane leaks, among the fastest ways to slow warming, are ignored. Meanwhile, children dig for roots in dry riverbeds where water once flowed. Justice delayed here is measured in lives lost.
A call to conscience
World leaders recently gathered again at global climate talks. There were plenty of more speeches and promises. But will there be courage? History will judge us not by the wealth we accumulate, but by the lives we save, the dignity we protect, and the future we choose to defend. Compassion without action is hollow. Solidarity without accountability is meaningless.
Please stay with us
To everyone who has supported Self Help Africa, thank you. You are changing lives. You are saving futures. But please stay with us. Because we cannot wait for suffering children to eat.
Because no food means no future. Compassion is not charity; it is justice. Love is not sentimental, it is fierce, active, demanding, and courageous. Every life, every child, every family deserves to matter. Our shared humanity calls us to act. No food equals no future. No water equals no future. No education, healthcare, or funding equals no future. The time to act is now. Solidarity must translate into action. Every voice, every donation, every advocate matters. Together, we can help Africa rise, even when the world looks away. Because hope still lives and needs defending. If you can give, please give. If you can speak, please speak. If you can act, please act. We cannot save everyone. But we can save someone. And to that someone it means everything. Support Self Help Africa: www.selfhelpafrica.org or write to: ronan.scully@selfhelpafrica.org or post to Ronan Scully, c/o Self Help Africa, Westside Resource Centre, Seamus Quirke Road, Westside, Galway.