Seven Children, One Mother, and No Food Left: Lokolita’s story from drought-affected Turkana, where families are preparing to receive cash assistance to meet urgent food needs
Under the hot Turkana sun, families stand in a long queue waiting for their names to be called out for verification, hoping this process will finally bring some relief after months of hunger and uncertainty caused by the prolonged drought. Among them is Lokolita, a mother of seven from Turkana Central, quietly waiting for her turn in the validation exercise, one of the final steps before cash assistance reaches vulnerable families struggling to survive the drought.
At 42, Lokolita is raising seven children on her own, a responsibility she never expected to carry alone, before the drought changed everything for her family. As the dry spells worsened, their livestock, which was once their main source of food and income, slowly died one after another, leaving the family with no reliable way to survive. Food became harder to find, and with nothing left to depend on. In the middle of the crisis, her husband left to look for work elsewhere, hoping he would support the family from afar, but he never returned, and communication eventually stopped completely. Since then, Lokolita has been left to care for the children alone, taking on the full responsibility of providing for the family without any stable source of income or support.
In Turkana, drought has become a harsh reality that continues to wear families down year after year, leaving many without food, income, or reliable ways to survive. Across the region, repeated dry spells have pushed households deeper into hunger, with children among the most affected. For Lokolita, this has meant waking up every day unsure of whether her children will have enough to eat, often walking long distances in search of wild fruits, which have become one of the few ways her family survives. “We survive on wild fruits,” she says quietly. The effects of the prolonged hunger are visible in her children, two of whom have been diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition.
“As a mother, it is very hard. You see your child becoming weak, and you do not have food to help them. You want them to continue with school, but hunger makes everything difficult,” she says. Like many women in drought-affected communities, Lokolita now carries the full burden of holding her family together, stretching whatever little is available to ensure her children survive each day.
The validation exercise takes on deeper meaning and serves as a gateway to support for families who have endured prolonged hardship. Lokolita is among the households being verified under the Cash Assistance for the Drought-Affected families across the four sub-counties of Turkana County, implemented by World Vision Kenya with support from Kenya Humanitarian Fund, under the regional humanitarian fund (ESAHF), a project designed to provide unconditional cash transfers to vulnerable families through mobile money, enabling them to meet their most urgent needs in a way that reflects their specific circumstances. Before any assistance is disbursed, households go through a structured process of identification, registration, and validation, during which field teams work closely with communities to confirm household details and prioritise those facing the highest levels of vulnerability, including families with malnourished children and limited or no income.
‘This Money Will Bring Food’
For Lokolita, the cash transfer means her children may finally have enough food to eat again. She says the first thing she will do once she receives the money is buy food for the household, especially for her two children who are malnourished, hoping that regular meals will help improve their health and give them strength again. “When I receive the money, I will buy food for my children so they can eat well and become strong again,” she says. According to Lokolita and most of the families, cash assistance also gives her the freedom to buy what her family needs most at that moment, depending on what is lacking at home. “I am anticipating the cash, as I can choose and prioritise what to buy. It depends on what we are lacking,” she explains. Beyond food, Lokolita hopes to slowly rebuild her life after losing all her livestock to the drought, and says she would like to use part of the money to buy a few goats and start again, even if it is on a small scale.
“If I can start again, even small, it will help us sustain ourselves. I am happy because now I know some cash is coming,” she says.
By Mirriam Mwikali Kioko, Communications Specialist (Emergency Response), World Vision Kenya