This summer, I travelled to Niger and Mali to report on the food crisis that was gripping the Sahel region of West Africa, as well as the impact that political instability in Mali was having on the population. Accompanying me for the Niger part, was a crew from Salt and Light Television, who we had invited to come to document how the population was coping and our response. Together, we visited villages where the threat of hunger was a daily struggle. We also visited a refugee camp for Malians fleeing the violence in their own country. We could see the despondency of the people in the camp, having been completely uprooted from their homes and without any real idea as to when they would be able to return, if ever. It was a journey of discovery for all of us, and I was anxious to see how this story would be told in the documentary.

According to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 7,500 Malians have fled their country in the last two weeks. The intensification of fighting has compelled entire families, some of them in car or truck, others on foot or on the backs of donkeys, to seek refuge in neighbouring countries (mainly in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania).

Apparently, it is never too early to teach the concept of solidarity, nor does it have to be difficult. When the Director of our 3-year-old boy’s daycare informed me that she intended to put together an awareness-building project on Africa for the 2-5 year-olds and that the exercise would culminate in a fundraising activity in support of our West Africa appeal, I was both moved and surprised.

Over 18 million people are suffering from food shortages in the Sahel region of West Africa and Development and Peace is helping. To learn more about our response with our partners in the region, watch On the Brink: Hunger in the Sahel, a new video produced in collaboration with Salt+Light TV.

In the early morning Malian sun, members of Caritas Mali are getting organized for the first food distribution to take place in the Diocese of Sikasso. They are setting up rows of chairs, scales to measure out the beans, maize and oil that will be distributed to 93 households in the region and even some speakers to play music. Already, people are beginning to arrive with their carts pulled by donkeys, parking them one next to the other. Even the mayor has come to help launch the distribution.

Karya Sagare’s granddaughter is sticking close to the skirt of her grandmother. Despite the heat, she is wearing a sweater with a hood that covers her head. Her eyes are listless as she quietly follows her grandmother through a church courtyard Karya explains that her granddaughter is not feeling well. She brought her to the doctor once, but can’t afford to bring her again. The trip to the doctor also ate into what little money Karya had put aside to purchase food for her family, which includes four children and two grandchildren.

One of the main questions I had when I left for Niger, was why the country has been experiencing food crises more frequently. After a near famine in 2005, serious peaks in food insecurity have occurred in 2008, 2010 and now 2012. Professor Alpha Gado, a specialist in food crises in the Sahel at the University of Niamey, helped me to understand the complexities of a food crisis in a country like Niger.

Niger, like most of the countries in the Sahel, only has one rainy season, which means that the harvest that is cultivated from that rain is crucial to survive through the coming year. The time to plant the harvest, however, comes at a time when last year’s crop is nearly depleted and there is little, if anything, left to eat. It is a time when there is not enough food when it is needed most. To plant a field and work the soil requires energy, energy that is hard to find when there is nothing to eat.

We are in the Sae Saboua commune, in the Maradi Diocese. Today, 234 households from four villages are each receiving 80 kg of millet, 21 kg of "niébé" (dried beans) and 5 litres of cooking oil. This ration is intended to feed a family of seven for a month. As the men are in the fields, it is largely the women that gather at the distribution points. It is now the rainy season in this part of Niger and the millet that was planted with the initial rains in June is already well along and needs to be weeded. If all goes well, that is if the rainy season does not bring floods, if the crop doesn't dry up from lack of rain, or if caterpillars don't ravage the crop as was the case last year, the harvest is due at the end of September.

The village of Garbeygourou is found off an uneven dirt road that stretches over red sandy earth that has turned even brighter after a recent rainfall. The village itself only seems to be formed of a small cluster of huts, yet when we arrive and the village chief comes out to greet us, people begin to trickle out, slowly grouping in the middle of the village. Before we know it, there are at least 100 men, women, children and babies milling about behind us, with more arriving by the second. The village is receiving support from Caritas Niger because of food insecurity. Many families do not have enough to eat, and a there have been a few cases of severe malnutrition in some children.

Caritas Internationalis has just released Niger: On the Hunger Frontline, a new video about the current situation in Niger, where over 6 million people are touched by food shortages and at risk of suffering from malnutrition. It shows how Caritas Niger, who is supported by Development and Peace, is making a difference with its program to help communities cope with this hunger crisis.

The drought and food shortages currently affecting 18 million people in six countries in West Africa are signs of a growing humanitarian crisis in the region. Although this situation is receiving little media attention, Catholics are not waiting for the crisis to worsen in order to start acting. Most Rev.

Since the month of May, we at Development and Peace have joined our voice with those of our sister agencies within the Caritas Internationalis confederation to sound the alarm on the situation in West Africa.

Today, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) announced their full support for this campaign, by appealing to all Canadian Catholics to show solidarity with the communities threatened by a major food crisis in the coming months.

I am writing my last blog post from home in Montreal. With the airport in Bamako closed, I was driven by our friends at Caritas Mali to neighbouring Burkina Faso (14 hours) so that I could fly back to Montreal from Ougadougou.

I spent my first day in Bamako with Gaston Goro, the Emergencies Coordinator at Caritas Mali, and Mamadou Diakité, an accountant with the organization. Caritas Mali was the first Caritas in the region to launch an appeal for aid to go towards the current food crisis here, but the response of the Caritas network – and the international community  -  has been slow.

Since this past January, over 200,000 people have fled their homes in Mali, mainly due to rebel offenses in the north of the country. Of this number, 107,000 have taken refuge in other parts of the country, while the rest have fled to neighbouring Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Algeria.