784,000 CHILDREN ARE STARVING WHILE THE WORLD LOOKS AWAY

Kenya’s Climate Catastrophe Is Destroying Children’s Futures Right Now—Not in 2050, But Today. And the World’s Silence Is Deafening.

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I am writing this with urgency because while you read these words, children in Kenya’s northern territories are making a choice no child should ever face: searching for water to survive or going to school to build a future. Over 784,000 children are losing that battle right now.

This is not a prediction about climate change. This is not a warning about what might happen. This is happening. Today. In my country. To children who have done nothing to deserve this fate except be born in the wrong place at the wrong time in human history.

The Standard’s Josphat Thiong’o has been on the ground in Isiolo, documenting what international climate conferences refuse to see: empty classrooms with broken windows, communities torn apart by resource wars, and parents forced to choose between their children’s education and their children’s survival.

The Brutal Reality: Schools That Look Like War Zones

Let me paint you a picture from Thiong’o’s reporting, because the world needs to see what climate change actually looks like when it destroys a community:

“The school is now absolutely empty, with derelict structures once used as classrooms. Shards of glass from broken windows lay strewn on the corridors, while an iron sheet structure used to house a water tank was destroyed. Missing doors lead you into the empty classrooms, where goat and bird fecal matter litter the floors where damaged desks lay.”

This is Merti school in Isiolo South. Not a war zone. Not a conflict area. A school. Destroyed by drought. Abandoned because families had to flee to find water. This is what climate change looks like when it hits the most vulnerable.

And the international community? Nowhere to be found.

The Numbers That Should Shame Us All

Gregory Macharia, Kenya Red Cross County Coordinator, has quantified the catastrophe in terms that should make every person with a conscience stop and take notice:

“More than 2 million people in the ASAL region are at risk of acute food insecurity, with about 784,000 malnourished children in dire situation.”

Read that again. 784,000 malnourished children. Not 784,000 children at risk of malnutrition. 784,000 children already malnourished. Already suffering. Already having their development stunted, their cognitive abilities compromised, their futures stolen.

These are not statistics. These are children. They have names. They have dreams. They had futures—until drought, amplified by climate change that rich nations caused, destroyed everything.

When Food Is the Only Thing Between School and Collapse

At Hifow Primary School, reached after a punishing four-and-a-half-hour trek from Isiolo town, head teacher Abdulahi Hama told Thiong’o something that should haunt every policy maker who talks about education as a human right:

“The increase in student’s overtime can be attributed to the school feeding program because whenever there’s food, you notice an improved enrollment rate. We have students from grade one to eight.”

Think about what that means. Children only come to school when there’s food. When the food runs out—and it’s running out now—they disappear. Back to searching for water. Back to helping their families survive. Back to a future of illiteracy and poverty.

And here’s the part that should enrage you: these school feeding programs are working. They’re keeping children in school. They’re proving that with basic support, education can survive even climate shocks. But they’re running out of funding.

“The food we have is over but we are hopeful that another consignment will arrive at any time. Whenever we have a break in the school feeding program, the children, especially those in the early childhood and education centres, do not show up for school and only do so once normal supply resumes.”

—Abdulahi Hama, speaking to Josphat Thiong’o

We Have Three Weeks Before Total Collapse

According to the Kenya Red Cross Short Rains Food and Nutrition Security Assessment report cited by Thiong’o, the school meals program in Isiolo “can only be sustained for the next three weeks.”

Three weeks.

That’s the margin between functioning schools and complete educational collapse in one county. That’s how close we are to losing another generation of children to climate change.

While the international community debates carbon credits and holds conferences in air-conditioned halls, children in Isiolo have 21 days before their last connection to education is severed.

The Climate Violence No One Talks About

Climate change doesn’t just bring drought. It brings violence. Resource competition. Community conflict. Banditry. All consequences of water scarcity that force entire populations to flee.

Abdulahi Koricha, an elder from the now-abandoned Merti school community, explained to Thiong’o why his entire community had to leave:

“The main reason why the population migrated was the due to intensified water shortage and attacks by other pastoralists from Samburu County who wanted to take the little resources we had. As a community, we have now been displaced and education for our children destabilized despite our efforts to ensure that our children are educated.”

Listen to the pain in those words. “Despite our efforts.” These communities are doing everything they can. They built schools. They sent their children to learn. They invested in the future. And climate change is destroying it all.

“It hurts me that a school which was well performing is now closed. I’m appealing to our leaders to restore this school by providing ample security especially in the border towns and digging boreholes as sources of water to the suffering families.”

Koricha’s appeal is simple, reasonable, and entirely achievable. Security. Water. Basic infrastructure. These are not impossible asks. These are the bare minimum requirements for human dignity.

And yet, the help isn’t coming.

The Heroes Fighting With Insufficient Resources

The Kenya Red Cross isn’t sitting idle. Macharia reported to Thiong’o that the organization has mobilized massive relief efforts:

• Supporting over 100,000 families with nutrition aid
• Providing cash assistance to thousands
• Working to repair 126 water systems across the region

This is heroic work. But it’s emergency response to a permanent crisis. It’s humanitarian band-aids on systemic wounds. The Red Cross shouldn’t have to be the only lifeline keeping children in school.

Where is the international climate finance that was promised? Where are the adaptation funds? Where is the global community that acknowledges its role in creating this crisis?

The International Community’s Spectacular Failure

Here’s what infuriates me: this crisis is entirely preventable. The solutions aren’t complex. They’re not expensive compared to what wealthy nations spend on far less urgent priorities.

What’s needed:

• Sustainable funding for school feeding programs that doesn’t run out every three weeks
• Water infrastructure—boreholes, drought-resistant systems—that communities like Merti desperately need
• Security frameworks to prevent resource conflicts from destroying communities
• Climate adaptation funding that reaches the communities facing the crisis, not stuck in bureaucratic channels
• Economic diversification programs so pastoralist communities aren’t entirely dependent on climate-vulnerable livelihoods

None of this is rocket science. All of it is achievable. What’s missing is political will and international accountability.

The nations that caused climate change—through centuries of industrialization, through current refusal to adequately cut emissions—bear responsibility for what’s happening in Kenya’s ASAL regions. Yet they’re treating it as someone else’s problem.

Why This Should Terrify Everyone, Everywhere

If you think this is just a Kenyan problem, you’re dangerously wrong. What’s happening in Isiolo is a preview of what’s coming to climate-vulnerable regions across the planet.

The pattern is clear: climate-induced drought leads to water scarcity, triggers resource conflicts, forces mass displacement, destroys educational infrastructure, creates long-term poverty, and destabilizes entire regions. This isn’t theoretical. Thiong’o has documented it happening right now.

The Horn of Africa. The Sahel. Parts of South Asia. Central America. All facing similar climate stress. All heading toward similar crises. Kenya’s northern territories are the canary in the coal mine, and the canary is dying.

If the international community can’t mobilize to save 784,000 children in Kenya, what hope is there when these crises multiply? When tens of millions face the same choice between survival and education? When entire regions become uninhabitable?

The Staggering Cost of Our Inaction

Let’s talk about what we’re losing while the world stays silent:

Every year a child spends out of school reduces their lifetime earning potential by 10%. Multiply that by 784,000 children. Compound it over decades. You’re looking at billions of dollars in lost human capital. Engineers who will never design infrastructure. Doctors who will never treat patients. Teachers who will never educate others. Leaders who will never govern.

But the economic calculation, staggering as it is, pales beside the human cost. These are childhoods being destroyed. Dreams being killed. Potential being wasted. All because the world won’t act.

The empty classrooms Thiong’o documented—with their broken windows and bird droppings—are monuments to global failure. Each abandoned school is a testament to our collective decision to let climate change destroy vulnerable communities.

What Must Happen Now—Not Next Year, Not Next Month, Now

I am calling on the international community—governments, NGOs, multilateral organizations, climate funds, private donors—to act with the urgency this crisis demands:

IMMEDIATE (Within Days):

• Emergency funding to extend school feeding programs beyond the three-week window
• Food aid sufficient for 784,000 malnourished children for at least six months
• Medical supplies and nutrition support for communities in crisis
• Emergency water deliveries to affected communities

SHORT-TERM (Within Months):

• Rapid deployment of borehole drilling teams to restore water access in affected areas
• Repair and reinforcement of the 126 water systems identified by Red Cross
• Security interventions to prevent resource conflicts and enable displaced families to return
• Rehabilitation of abandoned schools like Merti and Lakole Primary
• Mobile education units for displaced communities

LONG-TERM (Committed Now, Implemented Over Years):

• Permanent, sustainable funding for school feeding programs not dependent on emergency appeals
• Climate-resilient water infrastructure across all 23 affected ASAL counties
• Economic diversification programs to reduce dependence on climate-vulnerable pastoralism
• Educational systems with built-in climate adaptation—distance learning, flexible schedules, drought-resistant infrastructure
• Direct climate adaptation financing that reaches communities, not bureaucracies

My Personal Plea: Don’t Let These Children Become Statistics

I work at the intersection of agricultural development and communications across East Africa. I’ve seen climate change impact farming communities. I’ve watched as drought destroys livelihoods. But what Thiong’o has documented in Kenya’s ASAL regions represents a level of crisis that should shake the conscience of humanity.

These 784,000 children didn’t cause climate change. They didn’t emit the greenhouse gases. They didn’t benefit from the industrialization. They’re suffering the consequences of decisions made by generations and nations that have never known thirst desperate enough to close schools.

This is a test of international solidarity. A test of climate justice. A test of whether the global community actually means anything when we say we’re committed to sustainable development, climate action, and protecting vulnerable populations.

So far, we’re failing that test spectacularly.

The Bottom Line: This Is Preventable

Everything I’ve described—the abandoned schools, the malnourished children, the displaced communities, the three-week window before total collapse—is preventable.

We have the resources. We have the technology. We have the knowledge. What we lack is political will and moral courage.

Thiong’o’s reporting has given us the evidence. The Kenya Red Cross has quantified the need. Communities like Merti and Hifow have shown us exactly what’s required.

Now it’s up to the international community to prove that climate justice is more than empty rhetoric. That adaptation finance is more than accounting tricks. That when we say every child deserves education, we actually mean it.

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