'Children a couple of years old can weigh less than at birth' says Cork aid worker in Kenya

There is an “enormous responsibility to deliver” improvements for people in developing countries, a Cork woman working with Concern Worldwide has said.

Nellie Kingston, from Clonakilty, joined Concern in 2004, as a volunteer teacher in Zimbabwe. “I become more aware of humanitarian aid development at that time. I really wanted to contribute,” she told The Echo

Ms Kingston is country director for Concern’s operations in Kenya, and has worked in Sudan, Jordan, Gaza, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Bangladesh.

She said: “I am deployed 10 months of 12 each year. When I started off this type of work, in 1991, I was young, idealistic, single, and without children. My husband and children are great supporters of what I do now, but you feel a certain amount of guilt for missing the small moments.”

Of her current role in Kenya, she said: “People are at severe levels of malnutrition; we’re seeing recurrent droughts and then rain washing away parched land. It’s a vicious cycle. We’re talking about children who can be a couple of years old and weigh less than their birth weight; children who are persistently hungry; families having to make impossible decisions.”

Ms Kingston said there is a huge amount of pressure to make a difference.

“We’ve made commitments and it’s about delivering those commitments in time, within budget, appropriately and safely.

“I stay awake every night wondering: ‘Why am I awake?’ By participating in this type of work, we have an enormous responsibility to deliver. When I imagine the faces behind the numbers, sometimes that really keeps me awake.”

In South Sudan, she met a five-year-old boy, named Chowak, who had fled a massacre and lost both his parents.

“I just looked at him and he was around the same age as my own child and it broke my heart. I think about him occasionally and there’s so many other faces that I’ve seen in various places and I won’t ever forget them. They represent huge numbers of people and forgetting them would be a dishonour to what they have gone through.”

• See Monday’s edition of The Echo for Amy Campbell’s full report from her visit to Kenya. To learn more about Concern Worldwide’s work and how to help, visit www.concern.net.