A day in the life of pilot Christine Brown underscores UNHAS's vital role in reaching the country's hungry
A day in the life of pilot Christine Brown underscores UNHAS's vital role in reaching the country's hungry
Rising before dawn and returning at sunset to her base in the capital, Ouagadougou, Brown counts among the dozens of contractors and staff responsible for our airlifts and the broader WFP-managed On any given day, pilots like Brown transport roughly six metric tons of food - the weight equivalent of an African elephant - to northern and eastern Burkina Faso, where hunger numbers are the most alarming. The airlifted goods - accounting for one-sixth of total monthly food and nutritional assistance that WFP delivers to food-insecure communities countrywide - reached more than half a million people in 2023.
The food Brown delivers to Fada N'gourma - bags of grain and boxes of nutritional supplement - is transported to a nearby distribution center for the waiting communities. By that time, the pilot is already on her way to her next stop. She has a busy day ahead. "My first flight was scary," Brown recalls."I was not exactly sure what I was doing. But once you are up there, nothing beats the feeling. You feel like a small part of the world. There is nothing else to think about except flying."Early last year she began working for the WFP airlifts and the broader UNHAS air operation in Burkina Faso, as the only female UNHAS pilot in that country. But she's part of a growing roster of women involved in such missions.
On this day, Brown heads to four different eastern towns, reaching all the way to the country's border with Niger. The flight provides stunning vistas of Burkina Faso's arid landscape, punctuated by trees and mud-brick villages. The sun is starting to set by the time she finally gets back to Ouagadougou. The trip has been worth it.
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