Sending charity overseas, 'If we don't help them, they die'

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. -- On 11Alive News Wednesday night, a Stone Mountain woman, Esther Ngumbi, described how a starving child anywhere is, to her, a starving child in her own arms.

She is taking action.

Ngumbi signed up with World Food Program USA and started her own, personalized fundraising campaign on the program's website to help at least some of the 12 million people in the Horn of Africa who are barely clinging to life due to drought, famine and war.

She and her friends have posted the link to that fundraising website on their Facebook pages, and the link is spreading to other Facebook pages. As of Wednesday night, after less than a week, they had raised nearly $500.

They're only just beginning.

"Americans who care really are passionate about it," Ngumbi said, "They say, 'How can we help you? What can we do?' I'm seeing that Americans have the heart to help... Charity begins at home. However, we can also not put a blind eye on people who are dying [overseas]."

"It is important for us to also help the people who are suffering here [in the U.S.]," she added. "But that heart of compassion will compel us to also think about them [in East Africa], because if we don't help them, they die."

World Food Program USA has received approval ratings from both Better Business Bureau and Charity Navigator.

Here is a link to the website:

World Food Program USA

And here is a link to Ms. Ngumbi's fundraising page on that website:

https://usa.wfp.org/campaign/help-save-lives-and-feed-worlds-hungriest-families

Excerpts from an interview with Esther Ngumbi, a native of Kenya, in her Stone Mountain home:

I've been sitting watching the pictures of women who are starving, and the children, and it's painful to see. I simply cannot sit here and watch and not do anything.

Even if they're not my people, they belong to the human society. It could be my mother; it could be my sister. It could be my own family. So that's the connection I have with them.

They're begging, when you see skeletons, almost skeletons, walking. They're begging. But I feel we're living in a world where we have plenty. And that should not go on... We have to rise above asking for food and donations every other year.

This Saturday I get to graduate, I get to become the first woman in my community to get a Ph.D. Degree. (She earned her doctorate, from Auburn University, in entomology, a branch of zoology dealing with the study of insects). And I'm not taking that as something to be proud of; I take it as a challenge. I have to go back and work with the communities, I have to work with students... to try and help solve hunger issues... trying to work to help farmers not to lose their crops.

(Her life's goal is to work in Kenya establishing a system of sustainable agriculture in order to rise above these repeated droughts (not to mention the wars). First she will do post-doctoral work at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. One project she is planning would recruit students to work in Kenya as part of a mini-Peace-Corps type of mission.)

[It would be] a kind of a spring break where they go to the affected communities and help dig dams, help go to the fields and plant crops, so that in four months these people have food. We can't accept donations, and can't keep going with donations, for the next four months. We have to go down there, get the water, create the water, grow the food they need and help them get over.

Americans who care really are passionate about [her current fundraising efforts] and they say, "How can we help you, what can we do?"

I'm seeing that Americans have the heart to help.

Charity begins at home. However, you can also not put a blind eye on people who are dying [overseas]. But it is important for us to also help the people who are suffering here [in the U.S.]  But that heart of compassion will compel us to also think about them [overseas], because if we don't help them, they die. And dead people don't need any more help.

It's personal.

It's in my heart. And I'm trying any way, and I'm calling anybody to really do something.

Anything that you have helps save that life.

Why should we care?

Just seeing the pictures of dying mothers, dying children, it's heart-rending. And anybody who watches those pictures truly will be moved to care. Because if it [were] right next to your door, you wouldn't even eat; you wouldn't even sleep.   

It will save a life. And you don't know who that person is bound to be tomorrow. These are children who might grow up to be the next doctor, the next lawyer. We cannot afford to lose them.