SW News: The prolonged drought in Africa’s Senegal has forced a community of nuns to seek financial help and food donations. Pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has revealed that the Poor Clare nuns in the country are in need of support.

Five nuns of the congregation arrived in the nation in December 2020 and they are based in Ndollor. They came from Cote d’Ivoire upon the invitation of Archbishop Benjamin Ndiaye of Dakar so that by their prayers, the Gospel penetrates deeper into the Muslim-majority country. The sisters supported themselves and those who came seeking help by growing peanuts, millet and maize. But the lack of rain has emptied their larders forcing them to seek help from outside.

In a statement issued on December 10, the sisters said, “Rainfall is scarce and it only rains three months a year, while the dry season here lasts nine months. Thus, we have to trust in divine providence, hoping that the next season will be better. The Poor Clares are seeking monetary support to buy food items for themselves and for the impoverished who knock on their doors.

ACN has said that the nuns often are bereft of power and they are forced to pray using lantern light. In their missive sent to the charity, the Poor Clares depend on the support of the Church for their survival.  “Here, poverty and the struggle for survival are part of everyday life, ours and others'. As a mendicant Order, we live largely on the donations we receive from various sources, but the farmers in the region are also poor, so we share with them the little we have,” they said in the letter.

More than 90 percent of Senegal’s 71 million people adhere to Islam and the rest are Christians. Despite being a minority, the Church is at the forefront of running schools, orphanages and dispensaries.