As some of you may know, the Horn of Africa (a collection of countries on the east of the continent including Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti and Uganda) are currently suffering from the worst drought to hit that part of the continent for 60 years. 

Rising grain prices, dying livestock and internal civil war has pushed the food shortage to its limits and thousands are going hungry. The UN estimates that over 10 million people could be affected by the shortage of both rain and water and people are walking hundreds of miles across deserts to reach relief camps in countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia. The largest relief camp in the world, the Dadaab camp, is struggling with a population of 350,000 refugees that is increasing by 1300 people a day. People are dying of dehydration and malnourishment and even once they reach the relief camps, there is still not enough food or water to ensure that everyone survives.

Many charities have already launched emergency campaigns to raise money to help with this crisis and we’ve decided to do what we can to help and you can get involved too.

You can get involved in two ways:

The first is to make a donation to any charity which is campaigning for aid for the Horn of Africa crisis and in return you will receive a compilation of great fiction from awesome authors. All we ask is that you make a donation and forward the receipt to our email address. As a website, we have highlighted the Horn of Africa campaigns run by UNICEF and the Disasters Emergency Committee, but we will accept donations to any charity as long as they are for East Africa famine relief. We haven’t stated a minimum donation amount because different websites and charities have different minimum donations. 

The second way to donate, is to donate a piece of fiction to the compilation. The stories can be from any fandom – Twilight, Hunger Games, Harry Potter – or can even be a piece of original fiction and can be of any length. We’d love to have your work donated as part of this fundraising effort.

If you’d like to sign up to write for the compilation please fill out our sign up form so we can list you on our contributing authors page.

Our due date for both donation receipts if you would like to receive the compilation and if you wish to submit a work of fiction is Sunday 9th October.

Thank you so much for all and any help you can give, we really appreciate it and would love it if you helped to spread the word. If you have any questions you can either email us or @ on twitter.

The Fandom Against Famine Team