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NAIROBI, Kenya Oct. 30, 2003 — In the vast land of the Samburu, Turkana and Rendille, far from the madding crowd, PSI/Kenya has teamed up with the Red Cross to bring health products to the nomads of the Northern Frontier. It is the home of Kenya's pastoral tribes, the cradle of mankind, where Richard Leakey unearthed some of the earliest hominid remains. The harsh climate here alternates between extremes of drought and floods. In this remote world of highland savannahs, filled with wildlife and semi-arid deserts, the tribes are detached from regular commerce and the benefits of health products. Collectively known as Cushites, the people of this region account for only 3-4% of the population despite covering about 25% of Kenya's land surface. The major Cushite tribes are the Borana, Gabbra, Samburu, Somali, Turkana and Rendille. They live almost exclusively by herding camels, although cattle are sometimes also kept where climatic conditions allow. The climate excludes any possibility of agriculture. The eastern border of Kenya with Somalia is a reflection of Somalia's internal conflicts, with heavily-armed raiders and bandits (known as shifta) a constant menace. They Rendille call themselves the "Holders of the Stick of God", and live in one of the most arid and unforgiving regions — the Kaisut Desert. Stock losses to armed raiders to the north and east, compounded by a severe drought in the 1970s and another in the 1980s, resulted in large sections of the Rendille population being deprived of their only means of subsistence, their herds. In the face of this, a few families are striving to have at least one child in school, with the hope that he — it is invariably a male child — would join the cash economy, and help lift the family out of the valley of poverty. So what can an organization like PSI — whose mission is to reach the unreached — do in these circumstances? The area has attracted the attention of a variety of NGOs, missionary societies and the government. Unfortunately any aid would require the tribes to abandon their nomadic ways; otherwise there is no way to reach them. Instead of trying to modernize the area before offering service, PSI/Kenya decided to join with the Red Cross, an organization whose main objective is to reach such disaster-prone areas to assist the people there. Now, in most consignments that the Red Cross takes to the residents of what was formerly known as the Northern Frontier District, one is likely to find both PSI's Supanet insecticide-treated mosquito nets and Trust condoms. And life for the nomads can thus be a lot more tolerable. — Bernard Muthaka, PSI/Kenya
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