Plight of war babies sparks Sarah’s major career change

Sarah Martin has been working in Communications for 15 years and has taken up a post with Concern Worldwide, Ireland’s largest humanitarian aid agency.

The daughter of Michael and Helen Hegarty from Clooniffe, Sarah previously worked at RTE before taking up a post as Communications Manager at Aras An Uachtaráin and it was there, where Sarah’s interest in humanitarian issues sparked.

“In November 2014, I travelled on a three week trip to Africa with President Higgins and we visited Ethiopia, Malawi and South Africa and it was a real St Paul on the Road to Damascus moment for me,” she said.

“We went to a refugee camp in Ethiopia for South Sudanese refugees and visited a number of Concern programmes and I was overwhelmed by their remarkable work in terms of nutrition. I watched dozens of little babies, who were so malnourished, get weighed and it made me really want to help and work in the humanitarian sector and I was delighted when a role came up with Concern.”

Sarah joined Concern last October as Communications Director and ironically, one of her first assignments was to visit the agency’s programmes in South Sudan.

“I was very eager to see the work of Concern in South Sudan particularly as the UN announced that over 40,000 people are at risk of famine. I spent most of my time up in Bentiu, which is north of the country. We are working in camps based in a UN compound and protected by United Nations peacekeepers, called a Protection of Civilians site (PoC).

“It was originally built for 50,000 people now it’s overflowing and there is about 120,000 living in the camp. It is extremely shocking and sad to hear stories from people who saw family members killed in front of them. As they walked to the civilian camps, they literally saw bodies littering the road side. What people have been through in terms of trauma has been incredible,” she said.

South Sudan is the youngest country in the world having gained independence in 2011 after a 20-year-long civil war that claimed the lives of thousands.

“South Sudan has been embroiled in its own civil war for the last two years, some people are calling in the forgotten crisis because it isn’t getting that much media attention,” she explained.

Sarah revealed the African country, which has a population of 12m and is as big as France, has virtually no infrastructure.

“In the entire country there is only about 100kms of tarmac roads. Vehicles have to resort to driving in long, dusty dirt tracks, which can make delivering aid really difficult.”

Sarah also explained how South Sudan is seriously affected by El Nino, a disrupted weather pattern that is causing weather chaos such as droughts and floods to many parts of the world, including Ireland.

“As we saw over the winter, Galway and the West were impacted by storms which caused flooding. South Sudan is on the other end of the scale and is suffering from drought so there is a major food security crisis there currently. When you think of the people that were evacuated from their homes in Galway and then there are over two million who had to flee their homes in South Sudan, half the population of Ireland, it’s a shocking contrast,” she said.

As a result of the conflict, and, more recently food insecurity, thousands of people, arrive at Bentiu camp every month for help. Many of the women and children are malnourished and are admitted to Concern’s nutrition centres for treatment.

“We focus on babies and mothers who are pregnant or breastfeeding. When they come in with their infants we measure their upper arm. If it measures less than 11.5 cm then we know then they are malnourished. You can see a marked difference from the children that are receiving nutritional treatment compared to the children, who are just arriving.

“I was lucky to talk to a lot of the mothers and I was chatting to a mum named Maria, she came to the camp when her baby was just two months old. He was brought to the nutrition camps straight away and Concern identified immediately that he had malaria. He was taken to hospital and was able to feed from the high nutrition packs Concern provides while receiving treatment,” she said.

According to Sarah, Concern is solely responsible for all the shelters in the camps in Bentiu, but due to increased numbers arriving, camps are becoming over-crowded.

“There has been a huge influx of people coming into the camp because of food insecurity and they are staying with relatives so the over-crowding is becoming a problem. The one room in a shelter can see up to six people living there at one time. Concern is very anxious to build more of these shelters. Thanks to donations, Concern is able to facilitate sanitation and water and has also installed showers and toilets. We have installed 80 rubbish bins around the camp and providing supplies so people can keep the camps clean and this is working very well.”

Poignantly, Sarah recalls a conversation she had with a group of women, who, when asked did they have dreams, replied: ‘We have no dreams.’

“There is no such thing as dreams for them and their children. That’s what they told me. They just pray to God their children won’t die. It’s purely about survival. Thankfully in terms of the conflict there has been a peace agreement between the president and his former vice president but even if peace comes, the food insecurity situation is still drastic,” she said.

“I have a six-year-old and a four-year-old and they are privileged just by virtue of where they are born. There is so much inequality in the world but through the generosity of donations, Concern is helping to combat that. We are forever thankful to the Irish public for helping us combat food insecurity in vulnerable countries like South Sudan,” Sarah added.