International Save the Children Alliance
The Urban Food Crisis in Addis Ababa: A Tale of Two Families
The Tedesse Family
Down a steep and narrow alleyway, inside a dark, two-room mud hut live the four members of the Tedesse family: two children, Debora, 1 year and 8 months and her sister Ferahewit 2 years and 9 months, their mother, Terefech and their father.
Both of the children struggle with malnutrition and have already undergone a full round of treatment (8 to 12 weeks of vitamin and nutrition rich Plumpy Nut) at the Save the Children supported Kolfe Health Center. Nevertheless, today, their condition is not good. Both children are border line for severe acute malnutrition.
Terefech discusses her family’s situation. Her husband is a daily labourer, earning only 12 birr ($1.20) per day doing construction work in Addis. Three years ago, shortly after they were married, she and her husband, moved from Oromiya to Addis in search of a better life. Her husband was a farmer and land in rural areas was in short supply, so Addis appeared to hold much promise in comparison.
"But," Terefech said, "the reality [in Addis] is much different." The daily 12 birr is not enough to buy food for the family and properly feed the children, especially when their biggest expense is the rental of their hut – 200 birr ($20) per month, for which they pay their landlord 60 birr ($6) per week.
Terefech estimates that aside from the rental fees of their home, their average household consumption is 10 birr ($1) per week. It is almost all spent on food, as the prices, even in two months time, have soared. Since June, one kilogram container of maize has jumped from five birr ($0.50) to 6.50 birr ($0.65). So each week, Terefech rations the maize as long as she can, preparing two meals a day of only bread and maize powder. If she had more money, she would prepare the traditional and vitamin-rich injera and shero, but it is just too expensive.
Despite the struggle to make ends meet, Terefech tells me that it is good to live in Addis because health services are much better and more accessible in the city than they were in the countryside. However, the services are also more expensive and often she is unable to take advantage of them because she does not have the money.
