While many people spent their Christmas holiday surrounded by food, gifts and family, Canmore resident and humanitarian Amanda Lindhout spent it delivering aid to the people of Somalia who are suffering one of the worst droughts in 60 years.
It is the fourth time the Convoy For Hope has delivered much-needed food aid and that Lindhout has entered the country in which she spent 460 days held hostage.
“Every time I travel to Somalia I am confronted with captivity memories and fear,” said Lindhout. “I have a tremendous amount of security, as well as measures in place that I did not in 2008 – such as kidnap and ransom insurance.
“But, I know innately that my foundation is my life’s purpose. That knowing is a gift that came from captivity.
“I am driven by the vision of a better world as a result of these programs.”
Since August, the Canmore-based Global Enrichment Foundation started by Lindhout has fed over 100,000 Somali people affected by famine through the Convoy For Hope program.
The foundation has raised a total of $1.5 million for famine relief, which will feed over 300,000 people.
She said the convoy that went to Mogadishu, Somalia on Dec. 24-25 fed 25,000 people with a special truck of food delivered to 5,000 children orphaned by the famine.
According to the United Nations, 250,000 Somali people are still at risk of starvation today. Lindhout said the famine is a global disaster and Canadians need to not only be aware, but actively engaged in helping and supporting.
“Thinking of those little babies with emaciated bellies taking their last breaths, as I witnessed in Somalia, is what gets me up and moving every day right now,” she said.
The GEF’s Convoy For Hope program targets those who are en route to the camps, in the hundreds of thousands, providing them with food baskets to last two weeks.
When they arrive they are provided regular food rations, however, many do not make it and die on the journey by foot of up to 45 days.
In 2008, Lindhout was kidnapped along with 37-year-old freelance Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan on Aug. 23 near Mogadishu. By mid-September her kidnappers had demanded $2.5 million U.S. in ransom be paid by Oct. 28, but later lowered the ransom to $1 million U.S. On Nov. 25, 2009, 15 months after being kidnapped, Lindhout’s kidnappers released both she and Brennan after their families paid $600,000 U.S.
For more information visit: www.convoyforhope.com, or www.globalenrichmentfoundation.com
