Mothers and fathers, having literally run out of options when it comes to providing the basics for their children, are burying them instead of being able to nurture them. As a parent myself, I could imagine the despair to which parents were driven in this terrible struggle to survive.
This week I got to meet some of those parents during a visit to Kenya and Somalia with former Irish President Mary Robinson, who is now the president of Oxfam International.
We saw firsthand the trauma experienced by exhausted people who were pouring into Kenya across the Somali border. They had been walking for days in some cases, supporting elderly parents, coaxing young children along, and carrying young babies. Every single coping mechanism they might have had is gone. They have typically sold their livestock, eaten or sold any crops, and run out of money to buy food if it was available.
When families were lucky enough to reach the safety of the Dadaab refugee camp, they were able to get food, water, and shelter, along with medical attention for the severely malnourished. Thousands of people are now arriving in this camp each day.
In Somalia itself, people are also desperate. Our first stop was on the side of the road where a large group of exhausted women and children were settled under some trees. We spoke with Sadia Abdul, who had walked most of the way from Birbwell – 200 km (around 125 miles) away. She had left behind conflict, and any means of earning an income was gone. The group was hungry and in desperate need of food and water. Many had the listless look of people who have gone through so much and were nearly too weak to travel farther.
As we entered the village of Dollow, there was a reception party of boys and girls singing a welcome to Mary Robinson, and signs saying how much they appreciated the Irish focus on their plight and hoping that we can make a difference for them. Many locals remembered Mary Robinson from 1992, when she visited the country.
At the clinic there, we saw babies being weighed, measured, and checked for malnutrition. Too many babies were small and underweight for their age. The real worry now is that this is still early in the "hunger season." Hunger won’t peak until around October, and the head of the clinic believed that it could be worse this time around than it was in 1992.
The clinic is overwhelmed. Staff work from early in the morning until late at night, and people are already queuing when they open. The staff members give out a high-nutrition food known as Plumpy’nut to the children who are most malnourished. But because families have nothing else, they share this among themselves and no one gets the proper nutrition.
Sodo Abdulahi Nuh, 25, was having her 14-month-old malnourished baby boy weighed. He registered just 7 kg (15 pounds) on the scale. She has three other children to care for, too. Around six children die each week at this very clinic – because they have no food.
I spoke with a woman named Sofia, who had walked 40 km (around 25 miles) from Beladlow with her eight children. Her husband was killed in Mogadishu, and she is now staying with a host family that must be struggling desperately from this additional burden. She didn’t know what she was going to do next, but her priority was to try and get food for her family.
Amina had walked 50 km (around 30 miles) from Luk with three-year-old daughter, Asha. She had already lost two children. All of her cattle died, too.
In Kenya, too, families are running out of options. Karagi village in Turkana has buried 40 of its people in the past six months - most of them children, and all due to hunger.
The most striking thing about Karagi is that we didn’t see one man of working age. These men have travelled very long distances to try and find water for their livestock – the only source of income they have. They send back money when they can. The village is entirely composed of women, children, and elderly men who are on the brink of disaster. The sense of foreboding there was palpable.
In Marsabit, we heard from a 65-year-old from Tabich Galgal. He simply said that they have no food. Some members of the community are receiving food aid, but they share what they have with others, so everyone is trying to survive on rations.
The frustration in Tabich’s voice was evident as he described how they had tried everything. It’s not that they are not doing all they can to eke out a living - it’s just that the drought has placed such a huge burden on them, he said.
Then Elena Boru explained how the lack of water is having a devastating effect on women, who have to spend most of the day collecting it. She explained that there are plenty of people in the village who are more than willing to work, to do anything to help provide for their families, and she stressed that the elderly must be taken care of.
Along our travels we saw very feeble and clearly malnourished older people – a shocking sight, considering all they have contributed to their communities during their lives.
Famine has now gripped parts of Somalia. This is the consequence of drought, climate change, conflict, entrenched poverty, and lack of investment in development. All those issues must be addressed, but first we have to deal with this humanitarian crisis. Twelve million lives are on the line, but if we act right now we can prevent further large-scale loss of life.
Oxfam is working throughout the region, providing food, clean water, and shelter, and helping people to earn a living again. We intend to reach three million people.
At the moment, Oxfam is implementing the single largest nutrition program in Mogadishu, the capital city, treating more than 12,000 severely malnourished children and pregnant and breastfeeding women. We are also providing water and sanitation for 300,000 internally displaced people and giving life-saving equipment to Somalia’s only functioning children’s hospital.
In Kenya and Ethiopia, we are giving people money through cash-for-work projects to build water tanks and reservoirs. We are trucking in water supplies for 32,000 people in Ethiopia and treating the water for drinking, cooking, washing, and keeping animals alive. We are helping people keep their livestock healthy and vaccinated. We are digging and repairing wells and boreholes, and providing sanitation and latrines.
But we can’t do it alone. We need the help of governments and the public to stop this human catastrophe from spreading and claiming greater numbers of lives.
Otherwise we are condemning countless thousands of people to a needless death.
Jim Clarken is the executive director of Oxfam Ireland.
]]>
The mega floods of last year would have challenged any government, but the emergency response led by Pakistani authorities saved thousands of lives. However, Oxfam has expressed concern about the pace of recovery and reconstruction, which has left millions of people unnecessarily exposed to another disaster.
Husna La Shari is one survivor who is struggling to rebuild her life in Khawand La Shari in Shikapur, Sindh. Her family and community were hit hard by the flooding last July. Husna has 7 children and an elderly husband. She is responsible for providing for her entire family as her husband is too old to work. Before the floods last July, she worked on fields farming and harvesting. But after the floods, the fields are no longer fertile and Husna is struggling to feed her family. Oxfam is working in Husna’s village providing latrines and rehabilitating water pumps. Husna took part in Oxfam’s Cash for Work program in her village, clearing rubble and cleaning irrigation channels in the fields.
“It was difficult for me before the flood and it is now more difficult for me as there is no farming or harvesting. We cannot cultivate the land here this year… PDI (Oxfam’s partner) came and gave us money for doing labor. We collected whatever remained of our houses and we put it all in one place and together we cleaned the village. My husband was not capable, so I did it, I earned the money. PDI gave us kitchen pots, blankets, quilts and buckets and we are thankful as they helped us a lot. I am still in trouble to get food. How will I feed my family?”
Around 37,000 people affected by the 2010 floods are still living in camps in Sindh alone; and across the country, many of those who have returned to their villages have inadequate housing, with some still living in tents. More than 800,000 families are still without proper homes and many flood defenses, such as river embankments, destroyed in last year’s floods, have not yet been properly repaired. This increases the likelihood of breaches in future floods. For example, embankments in Sindh province have reportedly been increased by only two or three feet rather than the recommended six feet.
Neva Khan, Head of Oxfam in Pakistan, said:
“Pakistan needs to act now. Investing in measures today that reduce the impact of disasters is essential to save lives and safeguard development gains in the future. It will ensure schools built with aid funds are not washed away and that farmers can keep the crops they have toiled over. A year after Pakistan’s mega floods it’s time we learned this lesson.”
For children in the Shikapur district of Sindh, playing an interactive game is one way to avoid the risk of illness which often comes in the wake of a natural disaster. Julia Moore, a hygiene promotor for Oxfam, teaches children basic hygiene activities such as washing their hands and faces and showing them how to use a latrine.
“Pakistan is a disaster-prone country and has been flooded 67 times since 1947. Climate change will only increase the threat of floods. But while floods and earthquakes are inevitable, widespread devastation is not. For years, not enough has been done to protect ordinary Pakistani men, women, and children from disasters before they strike.” Says Kahn.
Lives and scarce resources could be saved in the future if the Pakistan government, with support from international donors, invests more in measures to reduce the impact of disasters. This could include flood resistant housing, and effective early warning systems – especially at the village level. In order to implement these programs, more funding is needed for local authorities and organizations that play a frontline role in preparing for and responding to emergencies.
]]>But, as of May 2011, a new addition is about to bring change to Hindeysa. For the last five months, Oxfam and members of the community have been drilling a well. When the finishing touches are completed, local people will finally have a reliable source of abundant water—five liters of it per second.
Shamsedin Afen, 20, says the drought has affected his entire family: his parents, sister and three brothers. “We cultivate the land, growing maize and sorghum, and keep livestock. We have 40 sheep, goats and cows.” But, their crops failing without rain, the family is relying on the food they stored from last year to see them through. Their animals are not so lucky. “We couldn’t cultivate enough forage this year to feed them--we’ve lost 13 sheep and goats.”
For Hawa Abdulayi, the situation is even worse: “I only had 20 sheep and goats, and it’s killed 10.” Because households run by women tend to be poorer and have fewer animals, drought can hit them especially hard.
There are other, routine losses, too. “Every day we lose six hours,” says Afen. That’s how long it takes to fetch water from the nearest source, the town of Dembel. “We don’t have a storage system, so we have to go each day.” What’s more, this water is only enough for people to drink. “The situation for the animals is very different--we can’t provide for them too, so we just leave them and return in the afternoon.”
When the well is completed, “a better life will come," says Afen confidently. “This will benefit both the people and the animals—not only here, but also in the surrounding communities.” He estimates that the well will improve the lives of 8,000 people in total.
Afen anticipates not just that he and his animals will have enough to drink, and that the daily trek will be over, but that irrigation could bring long-term benefits for the local food supply. “We have a lot of resources that, without water, we can’t use. With water … we can grow vegetables like potato and tomato, and fruits like watermelon, papaya, and guava.”
For Abdulayi, the well is most of all a lifeline. “I was planning to migrate to another place,” she says, “but this has revived my hope of staying here.”
The community has helped in the construction however they can: cooking for the workers who built the well, fetching water from Dembel for them, and cutting trees and clearing an area to make them a shelter out of branches. When the pump’s finished, local people plan to contribute money to help maintain it and to form a committee to make sure it’s kept clean and hygienic.
When the pump was tested and water came out, “we had a huge ceremony,” says Afen. “We did all this because we have great expectations that the well will better our lives.”
Support Oxfam's response to the current food and drought crisis in the region.
]]>The macroeconomics of the rising price of staples are complex, but its effect on the lives of three women interviewed by Oxfam America is simple: they feel it every day.
For María Antonia León, or “Toñita”, life has never been easy. She remembers a time when she earned $3 to $4 a day selling tamales, pastries and snacks from her food cart and was able to buy weekly staples to feed her family of five. With this income, she could get six pounds of beans, half a pound of cheese, half a pound of cream, four pounds of rice, eggs, a chicken, and other basics.
“Before, with $20, I was able to fill a shopping cart. Now I can’t… I spend $40 and it’s not enough. I can’t even fill a shopping basket because everything is so expensive. Beans are $2.50, and cooking oil for 15 days is $2. We just can’t manage. This current crisis is really tough,” says Toñita. She doesn’t know how she will find the money to buy shoes or clothes.
But Toñita has now found a way to provide her family with nourishing food: Inspired by Saving for Change, she has started a garden and is raising chickens for their eggs. Saving for Change is an Oxfam program that encourages women to use the capital generated through their savings groups to participate in projects that help them achieve a sustainable livelihood. One such project seeks to promote women’s production capacity, entrepreneurial, and self-reliance skills by helping them establish vegetable gardens.
With her garden, Toñita has a new means to feed her family and avoid paying the high prices at the market. The cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, and mustard greens she is growing are providing her family with the vitamins and proteins they weren’t getting before. And now she is teaching other women in her community how to do the same thing. The best part is she sells her extra produce at below market prices to her neighbors facing similar difficulties.
Ana Elizabeth Barrera works at a market in the city of Santa Tecla. She cooks and sells prepared foods, and therefore intimately knows the issue of rising food prices. Ana Elizabeth has seen the price of staples climb steadily over the past five years, but notes an accelerated rise of 60 to 70 percent in the past year, most notably with oil, rice, beans and sugar.
“Six to eight months ago I would invest $100 for oil, rice and other basics, and today I am spending between $150-160 which buys the same amount. Consequently, I have to raise my prices, which means that sales have gone down,” says Ana Elizabeth. She has lost 40 percent of her clientele and has had to let go one of her two employees.
Iris Madrid finds herself in a vulnerable position after losing her job a few weeks ago. Although her income was modest, it was stable and allowed her to buy basic items for her home and support her three children. Now, without a salary and facing rising food costs, she depends on her mother who sells beauty products via catalog.
“If there is detergent, then there is no soap. Or if we have soap, then we have no detergent. If we have beans, then we won’t be eating cheese. If we have cheese, we won’t be eating beans… It hurts because when you have children and they ask you for something, you can’t give it to them,” explains Iris. There are days when all they eat are the mangos from the tree outside her house.
Saving for Change is a program that is growing every day. Since its launch in 2005, it has grown to more than 488,000 members in five countries. The hope is that it will continue to grow and reach people like Ana Elizabeth and Iris, like it has reached Toñita.
]]>Awalay, who has nine children, has lived here her whole life. Since the death of one of her sons, she has single-handedly raised five of her grandchildren---a task made all the more difficult by an increasingly punishing climate.
“Here we are agro-pastoralists – farmers who also keep livestock. We depend on rain-fed crops but in the last few years drought has come frequently and led to crop failure,” said Awalay. “I used to have 100 sheep and goats, but now I have less than 30.”
This year, a climate phenomenon known as La Nina has made the situation worse, causing drought across East Africa, which in turn has depleted the remaining pasture. For Awalay, whose livelihood has been wrecked by the last few years, this is the final straw.
“Livestock are our capital, but they are dying.,” she said. “There’s no forage, no grain, nothing for them to eat during the dry season. Because of the drought, everything is scarce. We don’t know what to do. We are waiting for Allah from the sky.”
The small ponds which usually provide Gobablay with water have dried up, so people leave at 5 a.m., and again in the evening, to traipse dirt roads to get water.
All around the Shinile zone, the story is the same.
“I have more children than animals now,” said Muuse Xoosh, joking before he grew more serious. “Now, even if I went to market and sold my animals, the money wouldn’t cover my living costs.”
A father of eight children, Xoosh currently depends on day labor for an income.
“I have no other means of surviving,” he said.
But this work is not reliable, as Abdi Bille, a father of seven, knows. When he doesn’t get work, he cuts down on meals, eating just once or twice a day--- a far cry from the days when he could depend on his cattle for milk, meat, and income for other food.
But in the last few months, Awalay, Xoosh, and Bille and thousands like them have at least been able to rely on one source of income: Oxfam’s cash-for-work projects. By helping construct fences, trenches, dams, and other structures that protect and improve the pasture and farmland, they earn a steady income for weeks at a time.
“The money has absolutely changed the lives of me and my family”, says Xoosh, who earned $75 from two months of employment. “I used it to pay for my family’s daily expenses including food and clothes. Since we’re poor, the children lacked clothes”.
Awalay put her $91 towards food and clothes too, and her grandchildren’s education.
“In the past when my grandson asked me for school supplies, I couldn’t give him anything," she said. "But now when he says ‘I lost my pen’ or ‘I need a book’, I can get him one”.
The income isnnot just keeping people going it also means they don’t have to migrate to seek better conditions elsewhere.
Support Oxfam's response to the current food and drought crisis in the region.
]]>Unfortunately, that’s just what happened in September and October 2010. Abdoulaye N’Dao, a gregarious retired electrician with grey dread locks says the flooding in 2010 “was the most difficult compared to earlier ones… there was a lot more water.” He says his house had water up to his ankles in some of the rooms; he and his extended family of 25 people were bailing water out of the house and its courtyard for days. “Maybe crocodiles and frogs can live like that,” he says months later sitting in his now drier courtyard, “but not people.”
The heavy rains of 2010 triggered the fifth year in a row of serious flooding in Pikine, and capped off one of the rainiest years for Senegal since 1971. Dakar got a total of 20 inches, more than twice the normal amount of annual rainfall. Oxfam already was working with an organization in Pikine called Eau-Vie-Environnement (Water-Life-Environment, or EVE for short), and deployed $295,000 from Oxfam’s “Saving Lives 24/7 Fund” to help EVE respond.
The needs were urgent in Pikine: Oxfam and EVE estimated that 150,000 people in 3,600 families were badly affected, either completely displaced or living in flooded homes. With help from Oxfam, EVE planned an aggressive response, which included:
A fast survey of the worst-affected areas of Pikine, to identify families in the most need: EVE and Oxfam decided to focus its assistance on 2,812 families (roughly 30,000 people) primarily in seven of Pikine’s 16 districts.
Supporting 116 pumps, to remove water from 643 homes, 7 schools, and 18 mosques: EVE supplied fuel for pumps that moved more than a million cubic meters of water, which is something like 264 million gallons, enough to fill more than 400 Olympic swimming pools. This took 15,000 liters (about 4,000 gallons) of fuel. EVE worked with local authorities to help remove water from 228 roads in Pikine.
Removing waste: household garbage and other waste pose a severe health threat, so EVE supported the removal of 3,000 cubic meters (roughly 105,000 cubic feet) of garbage.
Delivering sand: to build up low-lying areas and shore up buildings at risk of being submerged, EVE delivered 10 truckloads of sand to each of seven districts in the city.
Promoting good hygiene: EVE distributed 2,806 hygiene kits with soap, bleach, clean buckets for storing water, mosquito nets, and water purification tablets. In follow-up visits, EVE estimated that 93.8 percent of the households it visited were using adequate methods to treat water, and that these and other measures likely helped reduce diarrhea cases from 3.12 percent of the households to 1.48 percent.
Direct financial support: With funds from Oxfam, EVE allocated 40, 000 CFA francs (about US$80) to more than 1,500 of the most severely affected households, so they could buy food, medicine, and clothing.
Abdou Diouf, the executive secretary of EVE, says Oxfam did not just provide some assistance during the crisis and then withdraw along with the flood water. “This is the first time since Pikine has experienced these floods, that an [international] organization has intervened during the flooding and has decided to continue intervening after the flooding,” he says during an interview in his office in Pikine in April. Diouf says EVE was able to use a small amount of money left over from a grant from Oxfam to deal with floods in 2009 to prepare for the 2010 rainy season. When the heavy rains hit in 2010, volunteer assessment teams were already in place and trained to take action.
Oxfam also is supporting EVE’s work in 2010 to help local governments to lobby for funding they can use to improve drainage systems, and keep the pumps running in chronically flooded areas of the city.
Diouf also says the cash transfers represented “… a revolution in our intervention this year. People really appreciated this; I had people coming to the office here to specifically thank EVE and Oxfam for the money.”
Each recipient got about 40,000 CFA francs, which is about US$85. It’s unusual for an aid organization to provide money instead of food, clothing, water, and other assistance. But it allows those affected by the flood to spend the money on what they need the most, rather than what an aid organization decides is best for them.
When Assiatou Niang got her cash, she immediately thought about food. “We had no food, so I bought a bag of rice,” she says. With 30 people living in the household, including most of her nine children as well as those of her injured sister, food was a priority. “I also needed cement to repair the house, and I needed money for daily expenses around the household.” Niang is 58, and recently widowed. The cash helped her feed her family and cover other expenses for about a month over the winter.
Distributing cash is also economically efficient, according to Isaac Massaga, Oxfam’s program officer based in Dakar. “If you distribute rice in a community, you are preventing the local dealers from selling their own stock,” he says. “By helping people access food in the local market, we also help suppliers, and at the same time it helps maintain the market.”
EVE and Oxfam found a credit union that supervised the distribution of the funds to only those with vouchers provided by EVE according to the results of its household surveys. EVE transferred more than US$130,000 to families in Pikine.
]]>The tragedy at Bagua marked the beginning of a dialogue between indigenous peoples and the Peruvian government, but Peru still does not have a progressive means of achieving community consent for oil, gas, and mining projects, according to a study supported by Oxfam and carried out by the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF).
After the Bagua tragedy, Peru’s national congress passed a prior consultation law -- but it was not signed by President Alan García. He returned the law to congress with modifications, which indigenous rights leaders say decrease opportunities for indigenous peoples to participate in decisions that directly affect their lives.
Felipe Cortez Zevallos, National Director of the National Confederation of Peruvian Communities Affected by Mining (known by its Spanish initials as CONACAMI), is not very optimistic about the process. Zevallos believes there is no political will to define and enact a prior consultation law. “It is fundamental that the law include consultation but also our consent over the use of our lands,” he says. For Zevallos, the recent conflict in Islay, Arequipa, over the Tía María mining project as well as the conflict over the Río Blanco mining project in Piura, are due to the lack of a prior consultation process.
The stalled process in Peru is what led Oxfam and DPLF to study the Andean region, which according to the director of DPLF, Katya Salazar, includes at least 15 million indigenous people and almost 6 million people of African descent. In the case of Colombia, the DPLF/Oxfam report reveals a gap between laws on paper and in practice.. Currently, the 1991 constitution permits the incorporation of international human rights laws which protect the rights of indigenous populations and people of African descent.
The laws not only protect cultural identity, but also allow for collective ownership of ancestral lands, and self-governance. In addition to many others, DPLF highlights one main obstacle which must be overcome in order to advance human rights issues in Colombia: Indigenous populations must know and understand their rights.
Ecuador faces similar challenges. In 1998, a new constitution outlined a multicultural state where international laws prevailed over local laws while honoring rights to consultation. In practice, the application of these rights is on hold. Scarce public interest along with lack of dialogue between parties remains two of the biggest obstacles.
In Peru, the DPLF/Oxfam report outlines problems stemming from large scale gold and copper mining projects. The report draws attention to communities in Junin, Ecuador, where the Cotacachi-Cayapas ecological reserve and pre-Incan archeological sites are being affected.
In late March 2011, a group of representatives from Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia publicly outlined the current lack of a consultation process to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IAHCR). Katya Salazar, Director of DPLF, explained that while the economic growth of the Andean countries is based on the extraction of natural resources and is contributing income to the national budget, it is also provoking fundamental human rights violations.
The participants requested that the IAHCR urge governments to revise current legislation, and deny any concessions that have not been reviewed by the native population.
]]>The film screening was part of an effort led by Oxfam and its partners in Chalatenango to help the women participants in Saving for Change groups to improve their entrepreneurial skills and ability to manage small businesses, as well as small-scale agricultural activities and ability to advocate for better policies to address major economic issues related to agriculture and food.
Other activities during the week included cultural acts, such as theater and folklore dances, organized by the women themselves. This is a remarkable accomplishment. For the first time, women felt empowered enough to organize community activities by themselves and for themselves. It’s an example of how teaching women to save and manage their own funds in a Saving for Change group also builds self-esteem.
The documentary, titled Vamos al Grano, described the food price crisis in 2009. The women in the audience noted that the prices in Latin America have not dropped much since then. “The price of a 20 pound sack of beans has gone up to $30, $35; before, it was $10,” says Juana Morales, one of the participants. “This year [2010-2011] the prices have gone up more than ever.” She explains that the high prices are caused by heavy rainfall, which ruined the crops.
All the women who came to view the film are experiencing similar challenges in providing adequate nutrition to their families. The Saving for Change program is helping women to go beyond saving and small investments to improve their small-scale agricultural production through water management, improving soil through organic fertilizer and other means, and better seed selection. Oxfam’s partners in Chalatenango are training women leaders who are then passing on their knowledge to a wider group of Saving for Change members. Discussing the larger economic issues related to food production and supply will help the women to push for better policies at the local and national level that will help small-scale food producers like them to get the help they need to adequately feed their families, and improve their incomes.
Oxfam is currently funding partner organizations CORDES, CCR, and ADEPROCCA to work with 575 women from Saving for Change groups in Chalatengango to improve their food production capacity, start small businesses, and learn to project their concerns and needs on to local and regional government.
“Saving for Change goes beyond just saving and lending money,” says Milagro Maravilla, Oxfam’s Program Coordinator for Saving for Change in Central America. “It’s a perfect way to start organizing women, and that’s what we’ve been doing alongside the savings activity for three years now. It was inspiring to see how they took the lead in organizing these activities, instead of just participating in events organized by national or local organizations. And now that there is such a force of empowered women, Oxfam is helping them with the necessary skills to take themselves a step ahead economically, and to advocate for their rights.”
]]>We are providing funds to organizations in Japan that can assist people who might otherwise have difficulty accessing government aid. Migrant workers and immigrants, for example, who don’t speak Japanese. We’re also funding a partner focused on assisting nursing mothers and their babies. As the disaster response evolves, we'll continue to identify Japanese partners who can address unmet needs on the ground.
The Japanese government is a world leader in humanitarian preparedness and response, and it is carrying out a huge aid effort involving its armed forces, police, firefighters, and local authorities. We’d like to complement that work in whatever ways we can. But our particular expertise involves delivering clean water and sanitation facilities, and in Japan—where there are good water and sewage systems and enough water engineers to repair those that are damaged—it is unlikely that our help will be needed. There are clearly serious obstacles to getting supplies to people in need, but the government is in a better position to handle those difficulties than most outside agencies would be.
Oxfam doesn’t have a role in a nuclear catastrophe. The corporate and government authorities who are responsible for the power plants need to take full responsibility for preventing and responding to radiation releases.
When the earthquake struck, there were systems in place to warn people and protect them from what was coming, but the power of the events that followed went beyond everyone’s imagination.
What really amazes me is that a 9.0-magnitude earthquake has struck a densely populated island country, and people are not even talking about it. Clearly it triggered a tsunami and a nuclear crisis that have had far-reaching effects, but there’s very little mention of direct damage from the earthquake itself. I think that when all is said and done, Japan’s earthquake preparedness—such as its strict building codes—will turn out to have had a very positive effect.
There is no time when poverty, vulnerability, and exclusion become so apparent as at the moment of an emergency. So often, the people who suffer the deepest losses in an event like an earthquake or cyclone are the ones who couldn’t afford to live in a safe house in a safe location. When Oxfam sets out to help a community recover from a disaster, we look for opportunities to help its most vulnerable members make long-term improvements in their social and economic conditions.
When the world is hurting, you want to do something. In this case, Oxfam won’t mount a major humanitarian response, but I’m glad we’re able to offer our solidarity and support to the people of Japan.
]]>For the hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors Oxfam has been working with in camps scattered across the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, now is a time of transition. For more than a year, Oxfam has been providing free chlorinated water—up to 79 million gallons a month—to help prevent the spread of disease by ensuring people had a clean and reliable source for drinking and cooking.
But since mid-February, the organization has begun to hand over that responsibility—along with the collection of solid wastes—to camp committees trained in overseeing water sales, chlorination, and solid waste management. The goal is to empower people to take control of the resource, which also means paying for its use.
Before the January 2010 earthquake, many people paid for their water. The average cost of a five-gallon jug was about 12 cents. In June of last year, the national water authority—DINEPA, or Direction Nationale de l”Eau Potable et de l”Assainissement—asked aid groups like Oxfam to try and find a more sustainable solution to the water supply than trucking it in for free. DINEPA maintains that if aid organizations continue to provide free water, the authority will not be able to build a permanent system.
In supporting DINEPA’s request, Oxfam is also going a step further and ensuring that this transition includes extra benefits for residents: The 12 cents charged for every five-gallon jug includes a fee that will cover the collection of solid waste twice a week in the camps where Oxfam works.
Oxfam is not leaving the camps. As communities assume responsibility for their water and sanitation services, Oxfam will deploy a mobile team of water experts whose job will be to monitor and maintain the infrastructure—the water lines, the taps—and guarantee the quality of services in the camps. Oxfam will also continue to de-sludge the latrines.
And the mobile team will have the ability to intervene if there are new outbreaks of disease in the areas in which Oxfam works. During the recent cholera outbreak, there have been few cases of the deadly waterborne disease in the camps where Oxfam has been present—an indication that its hygiene promotion efforts have been effective.
]]>Sorn says she spends less time weeding her fields than she used to since she started using a mechanical weeding device she helped create with assistance from Oxfam’s partner in Cambodia, RACHANA, an organization based in the southern Takeo province. When farmers use this new tool, they can accomplish in a few hours what used to take them many days.
Oxfam supported RACHANA in designing and testing the mechanical weeders that help farmers grow more rice. Switching to innovative rice-growing systems and using a mechanical weeder can create more than 100 percent gains in production—a huge improvement for small-scale rice growers like Sorn and her sister.
Sorn is among 100 families in the area growing rice using an array of special methods called the System of Rice Intensification, or SRI. SRI represents an accessible form of innovation for small-scale farmers like Sorn: it boosts yields through different ways of plowing fields and improving soil fertility, and of planting and transplanting rice. SRI helps the plants grow stronger and more resistant to pests and diseases. It doesn't require special seed varieties. And because the plants are healthier, the farmers need less fertilizer and pesticides, which saves them money and preserves the environment.
One of SRI’s techniques involves transplanting single seedlings farther apart, instead of transplanting them in bunches. The distance helps seedlings grow stronger roots. SRI farmers plant their seedlings in rows, so they can weed around the plants more easily. A mechanical weeder helps them speed up the process.
In Sorn’s village of Prey Pa’e, RACHANA found a metalworker named Ben Pen who was willing to work with the local farmers to develop the weeders. With RACHANA’s help, in 2009 he began to adapt designs from India and other countries; he optimized them based on feedback from women farmers. Sorn and about 20 others tested five prototypes. With Pen, they developed one- and two-wheel weeders, which farmers use for different soil and weed conditions. The weeders weigh between 4 and 12 pounds. Each of them has a long handle with which the farmers push narrow wheels with steel spikes, churning the earth and tearing up the weeds.
Most of the farmers responsible for testing the weeders were women. Though men help prepare the soil and assist with the harvest, women do most of the work in the fields. Pen and RACHANA wanted to make sure that the weeder designs are suitable for them. “These weeders are helping women avoid back pain, and neck pain,” Pen says. “They can stand up, and it’s a lot faster.”
Sorn moves down the rows between the rice plants pushing the weeder in front of her like a lawn mower. The tool splashes through a thin layer of water, cutting up clumps of grass and mud.
“There’s quite a difference when you use the weeding tools,” Sorn says. “If you weed by hand you only get the top of the weed, you don’t get the root, and it grows again. When you use the weeding tool, it destroys the root and churns the weed into the soil—it’s better for the soil.”
Sorn farms a little less than two acres. Having the weeder helps Sorn and her sister get their weeding done faster. She says saving this time and labor is particularly important for her now: her husband passed away and her six children are all grown and have left the village to work and study. She’s 55, alone, and needs the help.
RACHANA’s research showed that by combining weeders with SRI, farmers could increase their production to average 5.6 tons per hectare, up from an average of 2.2 tons using traditional techniques. (A hectare is about 2.45 acres.) The organization ordered 900 of the three most popular weeders from Pen; it is selling them to farmers across the country. The tools cost about $20—a significant investment, prompting groups of two or three neighbors to buy the tools together and share them.
The investment is worth the time saved: the women in Prey Pa’e say it takes three people two weeks to weed a hectare, and by the time they finish, the weeds are already growing again. “With the weeder, three people can finish in one morning,” says Pen Rat, who was part of the prototype testing team.
Sorn says she helped test the one-wheel weeder, and suggested that Pen lower the angle of the handle, so women would be pushing at waist level. “I thought women would have more strength to push and pull,” she says.
Simple forms of innovation, like these mechanical weeders, encourage farmers to come together, share their ideas, and play a role in developing technological improvements for their farming. This type of endeavor is just a small part of Oxfam’s work to transform agriculture for the poorest farmers in Cambodia.
Farmers like Sorn Ken confirm this: “Having this weeder is like having another person,” she says.
]]>But in the shadow of conflict and danger, a better future is unfolding for farmers like Abdallah.
Two Sudanese partners of Oxfam – the Sudan Development Association (SDA) and the Voluntary Network for Rural Helping and Development (VNRHD)– have joined forces to grow a network of small, community-based organizations in farming villages near El Fasher. Network members can qualify for plows, horse and donkey carts, livestock, workshops, and small business loans, as well as new varieties of seed for watermelon, sorghum, cucumbers, and okra. And the organizations are helping farmers build carefully engineered reservoirs to capture the scarce rainwater their crops depend on. The result: great strides in the efficiency and productivity of farms, and the emergence of safer small businesses to supplement rural incomes.
“Before we had high-quality seeds, I grew one and a half sacks of sorghum,” says farmer Gameila Ismail, a member of the network. “Now I’m able to produce four.”
Ibrahim Isa Ibrahim’s gains have been even more impressive. He won a horse in the network lottery, which allows him to cultivate more land than before. The seeds he’s planting are three times as productive as the old varieties, and the network-funded reservoir in his village helps ensure good crops. Now, he says, his harvest is five times what it was.
In the midst of a meeting at the network headquarters, farmer Hawa’a Ismail receives a welcome phone call: her goat has given birth to its first kid. Ismail lives in a village 80 kilometers from El Fasher. In 2009, she received a loan of around $200 from the network to develop a small enterprise. “I bought a sack of sugar and a big can of oil,” she says. “That was the beginning.” After she sold them for a profit, she bought two sacks of sugar and a can and a half of oil. The business progressed, and soon she was able to replace her house of straw with one of mud brick, increase her savings fivefold – and buy a goat kid.
But the women agree that participating in the network has brought them more than financial gains. Their voices and experience are valued in the organization, and their financial successes have helped build their confidence.
“Previously, I didn’t have the courage to speak in front of people,” says Abdallah. “I felt I didn’t have much to say. Now I have experience and something to tell. People can benefit from that. Now, I can speak loudly; not only that, but people are listening to me.”
“It used to be that in meetings, I only listened - particularly when men talked,” says Gameila Ismail. Now, she says, “I fight for women’s rights.”
This, she explains, is the result of education.
Every month in the camps near El Fasher town, a team of health workers—elected by their community and trained by Oxfam—fans out to bring messages about health and hygiene to thousands of residents. The workers go house to house, teaching newcomers about disease vectors, hand washing, and the use of latrines, and they organize community-wide campaigns to clean everything from streets to latrines to household water cans.
You might think people would resent unsolicited advice about their personal habits, but the health workers generally get a warm welcome. Women, who have the primary responsibility for the care of children and homes, are happy to receive this information, say the workers. And for the most part they take the advice.
"If they don’t want to accept what we are saying, we don't go harsh on them," says health worker Halima Nasur "We just communicate the information peacefully." But the cost of not heeding hygiene messages could be outbreaks of deadly disease, so the health workers sometimes ask community leaders to intervene. "They nicely teach a woman the importance of our work to her family. Then she listens."
For the health workers, their job is a labor of love. "I believe that all the people in the camp are my sisters and brothers," says Nasur. "We are never going to let our people down."
When it came to guarding the health of her family and community, Gado needed no coaxing. "From the public health women, I learned to cover food to keep away flies because they transmit diseases. I also learned about keeping things clean—our jerry cans, kitchen utensils, latrines, and my children's hands," she says. "Previously, my children didn’t wash their hands before they ate. They were often weak and not healthy. Now, they wash their hands before eating. They don't suffer from diarrhea, and if they happen to get sick, it isn't something serious."
Once learned, it is hard to forget the life-and-death importance of good hygiene practices, and according to Gado, the work of Oxfam and the community health workers is likely to have a lasting impact. "I learned these values, and I'm going to apply them throughout my life," she says. "I would like to thank all of the people who have supported us," says Gado, "and I wish them good health."
]]>“The biggest problem is the land,” said Clairin Webert, a sea of white tents billowing behind him. “Some people wake up at night crying because they don’t know what they’re going to do, where they’ll go.”
As more than a million people remain homeless a year after the seven magnitude earthquake ravaged the capital and surrounding communities, access to land on which families can build new homes and start new lives—or even continue to camp in makeshift shelters—has become one of the most difficult challenges they face.
The Haitian government has been slow to develop a resettlement plan and to allocate land for survivors, many of whom were renters and now have nothing to return to. In early December, one of the results of that inaction was the knot of tents in Gressier, staked flank to flank, where about 375 people clung to the hope that help would come before they were kicked out of here, too.The man who owns the land allowed the families to set up camp for a few months, but wanted it back and the case was before a judge in a local court.
“If there was a word stronger than discouraged, that would be the word to describe how I feel,” said Webert. He was sitting in the shade under a tarp covering the shell of a ruined building. In the distance, the water—Caribbean blue—sparkled through the trees. But there was little sparkle here as Webert and fellow camp resident Frederic Bonny talked about all this band of families from Mariani has been through.
They numbered just over 600 in the beginning when they sought shelter on the grounds of New Hope Ministry back in January. But when that landowner wanted the space back, they moved to a place called Morne Bateau, near a beach where the winds were dangerously strong. So in early September, the families moved again—to this slice of land in the neighborhood of Merger. With each move their ranks thinned: some families returned to their ruined homes; others went to live with relatives and friends.
But for people like Yolande Chery, options were few. In early December, she had no way of making a living—and many mouths to feed, including the four-month-old baby she was nursing outside a tent. Chery lost the mattress repair business that supported her and her other children when the quake hit and she has been relying on the goodwill of her neighbors in nearby tents to share their food with her. Some days, she didn't eat at all.
And Chery’s worries were about to get worse: Her four other children she had sent to live with relatives after the quake were coming back to live with her. How would she support them?
“Give us land to live on when we set up our shelters,” said Chery. “And give us a grant so we can start a trade or business to survive.”
As the families have moved from site to site, Oxfam has been helping to provide them with clean water and sanitation services, essential especially now that cholera, a deadly waterborne disease, has broken out across the country. At the Merger camp, Oxfam constructed a bank of emergency latrines at the back of the site that can be emptied weekly. Instead of dirt pits, they’re built around drums designed to prevent wastes from seeping into the seawater that runs close to the surface of the ground.
And with oversight from Charles Nesly, an Oxfam public health promotion supervisor, cholera prevention activities were in full swing at the camp. A cleaning committee made up of camp residents ensured that a small blue tank outside the latrines stayed full of water so people could wash their hands regularly. And each day, the latrines were sprayed with a water-chlorine solution to keep them clean.
At the other end of the camp, a yellow bladder, like a big pillow, provided water to the taps from which people came to fill their jugs and lug them back to their tents. The bladder got filled each day by a water delivery truck.
If you’re counting latrines, shower stalls, and water, the families in this camp are rich, said Frederic Bonny, a camp leader and teacher who has managed to find a part-time teaching job. But so much else—food, good educational opportunities, land to settle on—they don’t have, he said.
“As far as finding land, it’s not a problem, but every land we find, the owners want money,” said Bonny. And if an owner learns a non-profit group is supporting families in pursuit of that land, they’ll jack up the price.
If there was a government—a serious government—since the 12th of January to this day people wouldn’t be under tents,” added Webert. “The only way we are surviving is because of help from NGOs.”
]]>Most of the 118 families here didn’t have latrines and when the January 12 quake turned many of their houses into heaps of rubble--upending their lives--stomach illnesses and cases of diarrhea began to climb. Making matters worse, the pump that had filled a cistern with water on which families relied had broken.
In camps for earthquake survivors, people had easy access to clean water and sanitation services thanks to the effort of aid groups. Should the people of Tapion abandon their community and go to a camp, too?
It might have been tempting—if Oxfam hadn’t launched an initiative to provide similar assistance to Tapion, allowing families to stay where they were while making a long-term improvement in the quality of their lives. What changed? Household sanitation, starting with an unforgettable lesson about feces and ending up with latrines—100 of them, dug by willing families and now ready for completion by Oxfam, which is building the small hut that surrounds each pit.
A key part of Oxfam’s water and sanitation program is hygiene education. But before it could carry that out effectively in Tapion, said Frantz Jean Lys, a public health promotion supervisor, it realized residents needed a decent place to go to the bathroom—and that would require changing some traditional practices. Most people were relieving themselves out in the open.
So, to convey just how unsanitary that solution was, public health workers put on a presentation that showed how flies can travel from excrement to food, contaminating the food with germs.
As that reality sank in, Oxfam invited families to join in a campaign to build household latrines across their community. Andrena Attis jumped at the chance.
A young mother with a husband and two children, Attis has been living in a tent with 10 people since the quake destroyed her home. All that’s left is the concrete slab on which the long—and leaky—tent is now pitched.
But on a rise surrounded by plantain trees stands the family’s shiny new latrine, its corrugated metal walls glinting in the sun—irresistible to her children.
“All day they’re opening the door and going inside,” said Attis, adding that the new latrine gives her a sense of pride, too.
The family had longed for the convenience—and had used a neighbor’s latrine off and on—but couldn’t afford one of its own. Until now.
And it required a serious investment. To get the cash to hire the man to dig the pit at 100 gourdes per foot, Attis’s family had to sell a goat and some chickens. But with Oxfam providing the materials for the shed that surrounds the latrine, now was the time to make the commitment, said Attis.
“It’s better for us now,” she said. “It’s a lot safer.” And with cholera, a deadly waterborne disease, sweeping across the country, the latrine is more welcome than ever.
“Now there’s a cholera epidemic, so even if we had no latrine, we would have continued using the neighbor’s,” said Yvon Attis, Andrena’s brother.
Both of them have been very worried about the disease, and have taken to heart the lessons on how to prevent it. Hand washing is key—before eating and after going to the bathroom. Yvon Attis said he’s going to stick with those simple steps religiously.
And for water? The cistern is a short walk from their house—just a few minutes—and Oxfam has been filling it regularly with a water truck. Soon the organization will have the pump fixed, too.
Clean water and sanitation have made it easier for Attis and her family to stay on the land they own and farm. But there’s more work to do to return to the life they once had. The family needs a house.
“I hope to rebuild,” said Attis, recalling how frightened her children were when Hurricane Tomas howled across Haiti recently, whipping at their tent. “But I don’t know when.”
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