Can These Dry Lands Live: a poem by Stevie Wills

Stories | Published: April 4, 2023 | Author: Stevie Wills, Community Education Officer, CBM Australia

After campaigning late last year alongside 40 fellow passionate Christian women as part of Micah Australia’s Women Leaders delegation at Parliament House, I wanted to do more. We were asking our Government to #HelpFightFamine. I wanted to use my gift of poetry and performance to add to the campaign.

Fifty million people are on the brink of famine throughout the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen. This is unprecedented, and caused by intersecting crises – the three Cs:

• Climate change: consecutive droughts have seen crops destroyed and lands become infertile. 
• COVID-19: has disrupted supply chains.
• Conflict: the war in Ukraine has resulted in soaring prices for food and agricultural supplies. The Horn of Africa relies heavily on wheat exports from Russia and Ukraine, but exports have diminished. 

In the months following my trip to Canberra I crafted this poem, Can These Dry Lands Live.

Full transcript

And check out the #HelpFightFamine campaign here. Please add your voice to mine and thousands of others.

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