How a social media campaign is helping people survive the drought in Africa

This year, the drought in the Horn of Africa reached crisis level. It has impacted millions of people across regions like Somalia, South Sudan and Nigeria, with many facing the threat of famine. Although the drought has received some news coverage, the urgency of this matter has been largely ignored.

This crisis led to a group of well-known people on Instagram like Chakabars Clarke, Jerome Jarre and Juanpa Zurita and celebrities including Casey Neistat, Ben Stiller and athlete Colin Kaepernick to band together and create a campaign called #Lovearmyforsomalia.

The campaign started with them trying to get Turkish Airlines to fill one of their planes with emergency food supplies and go to Somalia. Through the hashtag #TurkishAirlineshelpSomalia they successfully got the airline to agree to send 60 tonnes of food over on one of their planes. The airline also vowed to ship food on their commercial flights to Somalia until the end of the famine. They managed to raise £2million in 1 week through their GoFundMe page and with this money, they had enough food to fill multiple planes and help even more people than they thought they could.

The next part of the journey saw Chakabar, Jerome and Juanpa go to Somalia and personally ensure food and water reached the people who need it most. So far, they have donated over 180 million tons of food and 1 million litres of water to the Somalian people, providing life-saving aid! Their mission is not only to provide emergency relief but they also want to provide long term solutions. To do this, they bought the food and water from Somalia to support the local markets and they are also exploring farming and irrigation systems that will sustain the Somalian people during periods of drought.

What has been so great about this campaign is not only its success but the transparency throughout the entire process. They regularly update their social media pages, showing where the money raised is going to. Lovearmy is also giving Somalian people a platform to tell their stories and show the world, the people who are being affected by this drought.

#LovearmyforSomalia demonstrates what can happen when people take matters into their own hands and work together for a common cause.

If you want to help, see their GoFundMe Page: https://www.gofundme.com/LOVEARMYFORSOMALIA