In April, the Ethiopian government announced that 2.18 million people now need emergency food assistance. Citing the toll water shortages have taken on crops and pastureland, Ethiopia has asked donors for $67.7 million in aid to help it meet the nutritional needs of people in six of the country's nine states, as well as needs for emergency water provision, animal care, and seeds. The government has also said an additional 947,383 people would have their emergency needs met through Ethiopia's existing safety net.
Oxfam and the local groups with which it partners are responding to the crisis in the Somali and Oromia regions through a multi-pronged approach which not only addresses the immediate requirements families have for water, but also provides some help to reduce the risk of hardship during the next water shortage.
In Ethiopia, the daily chore of fetching water usually falls to women and children. In drought situations, when local sources such as shallow ponds or wells dry up, the trek for this essential resource becomes even more grueling.
The Liben Pastoralist Development Association, an Oxfam partner working in the southern part of the country, realized how acute the water shortage had become when it began receiving reports of women, some of them pregnant, walking more than 18 miles from their villages to the nearest water point. Laden with 20-liter jugs of water, some of those women miscarried. Others delivered their babies along the road.
In one part of the Somali region, Oxfam learned that people were selling jerricans of water for 30 birr, or about $3.20—a small fortune in a country where poverty is widespread. Some private businesses had even started importing water from Hargessa in Somaliland.
An assessment team that traveled to the Borena zone in southern Ethiopia reported in March that more than 17,000 animals had died since January in the 11 districts it visited. Herding families in the area depend on those animals—cows, goats, sheep, camels, donkeys—not only for food but also as a critical source of income. The team found that drought had prompted the closing of 29 schools in that area because there was no water for the students. And local officials told team members that many elderly residents were showing signs of malnutrition—a possible indication that the Borena people were using one of their traditional coping strategies. In their culture, the first priority of women during food shortages is to invest in the youngest generation: children eat before their elders do.
Families in these dry pastoral areas have developed a number of ways to cope with recurrent drought. Some of them have been able to keep reserves of hay on hand for their animals when the pasture dries up. Sometimes, people slaughter their cows and goats and use the meat to help feed their families. When they can, they hunt for wood to sell or to turn into charcoal. If families lose their entire herds, other families contribute animals to get a new herd started.
But over the years, the persistent crises have depleted the assets of many people and exhausted their ability to cope. For herders, their traditional means of managing are also running headlong into modern realities. For instance, the populations of both people and their animals are growing. The allocation of communal grazing areas to private investors and a system of regionalization is limiting the amount of land herders can have access to. And bush, once burned off by fires that have since been banned, continues to encroach on valuable pastureland.
One of the consequences of the current crisis is a plunge in the value of animals. Without enough water or pasture they become sick, and many die. The Gayo Pastoralist Development Initiative, an Oxfam partner, reports that the drop in value of livestock has been extreme in districts such as Dire and Dillo in the Borena zone.
And herders are facing a double hit. As they are earn less for their animals, they are simultaneously confronted with spiraling costs for grain—a food staple. Gayo notes that grain prices have jumped by almost 100 percent in some districts.
To help ease some of the severe hardships caused by the drought, Oxfam is working with four local groups to distribute water, provide needy animals with feed and veterinary care, and rehabilitate a series of local ponds so they can provide water in the future.
With support from Oxfam, the Liben Pastoralist Development Initiative's plans have called for providing drinking water to 6,000 people in two areas in the Liben District of the Oromia region's Guji Zone. The water is being trucked in from wells about 28 miles away and stored in four large tanks—and providing enough to allow each person about 4 gallons a day.
The Liben group is also transporting hay and a wheat-bran feed into the region to help shore up the strength of the animals on which people depend. But in an indication of how challenging it can be to work in remote areas, the nearest place Liben can find the necessary fodder is Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, more than 370 miles to the north.
In the Dillo and Dhas districts of the Borena Zone, Action for Development is restoring three wells that typically serve 4,000 to 5,000 head of livestock each day. But because of the drought and shrinking water supplies elsewhere, the number of animals relying on water from these sources could double. The plan calls for the purchase of generators and sub pumps to get these wells running at maximum efficiency.
Like the Liben group, Action for Development is also trucking water in to Dillo and Dhas to help more than 5,000 people with access to a clean supply. The trucks are transporting the water from wells up to 34 miles away.
An estimated 13,500 people and 2,500 head of cattle will benefit from a series of projects the Gayo Pastoralist Development Initiative is also carrying out with Oxfam's help, including the restoration of two ponds in the Borena zone. Ponds provide one of the central sources of water for animals in the area, but during long dry spells they dry up, especially if silt has made them shallow.
By hiring local people to deepen the ponds, Gayo is able to provide families with an important source of income while also helping them to increase the holding capacity of these critical water sources.
"Rehabilitation of ponds during the dry season tremendously increases their capacities and enables them to serve for a longer period of time during drought," said Gayo in its grant application to Oxfam. Gayo pointed to its successes with three ponds in the Moyale area during the 2006 drought.
"The three ponds rehabilitated in response to the drought have still enough water and serve the community at the moment," Gayo said.
]]>The reservoir is at the base of large, steep hill, more like a small mountain really. At the top is a spring, from which water flows through pipes to the pond. It was constructed three years ago by a nearby organization called Action for Development with support from Oxfam America. Before then Jarrso's clan members had to herd their cows up the steep hill, the only means to get water in the dry season. Every day cows would expire on the path up to the spring.
"During the dry time there is no grass to eat," Jarsso says. "They could not climb, so we pushed them up, and some would die." There were years in which more than 10 a day would die on that hill.
Piping the water down the hill helps tremendously. More cows can access the water, the herders and their families can retain more of their wealth and can better survive the dry season, and they get clean, fresh water to drink and cook with, and wash their clothes in.
But the reservoir does not help one ongoing problem: herders are reporting that good pasture for grazing their cattle is harder and harder to find, and not just in the dry season. Jarsso and others in his clan say there are three main reasons for the disappearing pasture:
"The Borena people have many different methods for coping with drought," says Abera Tola, director of Oxfam America's program in Ethiopia. "But some of these bushes are new to them, and the increase in tick infestation may both be related to changes in the climate. We want to research this to find ways to help them."
Bilalo Jarsso said the Borena are trying to survive despite these challenges, and are accustomed to traveling two to three days at a time looking for decent pasture.
"We used to find grass somewhere," he said. It is becoming more and more difficult now.
Oxfam America's partner AFD is helping herders take a more active approach, teaching the Borena to manage their range land more aggressively and actually clear away the encroaching bushes to improve the pasture for grazing. This would be particularly crucial in the dry season, says Tolusa Kemaio, a project officer for AFD.
"The dry season is a very serious time here," he says. "People really struggle, and they can't just slaughter their animals to survive."
]]>A crowded camp sheltering 25,000 people from the horrific violence of Darfur's five-year-old conflict may seem an unlikely venue, but this is no ordinary pop concert. The tunes are traditional, but the lyrics talk of hygiene and explain how people can avoid fatal diseases. Kaltoum is one of a dozen women who have teamed up with Oxfam to hold weekly music festivals in Shangil Tobai in North Darfur. The concerts bring an afternoon of fun to people who have had fled attacks on nearby villages—but they educate as well as entertain.
"Singing is a part of our lives and we like to sing whenever and wherever we can," says Omer, sipping a small glass of extra sweet tea after the concert ends. "We enjoy it, and the people listening enjoy it, but most importantly our singing now helps change people's lives for the better."
"We take Oxfam's advice about good health and sanitation and put it to our own music," she continues. "You can see the songs changing listeners' behavior. The camp is much cleaner now and there are far fewer cases of malaria and diarrhea. Children wash their hands now without being told. When you tell young children to wash they don't always do as they're asked—but when we sing it to them they join in and have fun, and they really pay attention."
The songs change over time to reflect the needs in the camp, adds Zaharisa, another member of the group. "We used to sing about the need to clean the latrines regularly, but now people are doing this well so we no longer have to sing about it. At the moment my favourite song tells people how to safely and hygienically dispose of waste and get rid of rubbish."
Zainab Basher, an Oxfam health promoter in Shangil Tobai, helps the women organize the concerts. She says the impact has been enormous.
"We hear women and children singing the songs at home and work, and the communities keep asking us when the next performance will be," says Basher. "Now the women perform at weddings and religious festivals, as well as the weekly concerts. Each community has its favorite singers, and keeping latrines and water points clean has become a source of pride. Everyone wants to keep their area of the camp the cleanest. Participation in regular clean-up campaigns has increased greatly."
As the conflict has dragged on five long years, Basher says she and the Oxfam team have had to adapt their work. "We held committee meetings, we visited people's homes, and we trained individuals to become community health mobilizers, but the longer people are here in the camp, the more these methods become routine and ineffective. We needed something new and exciting, so we approached the women singers and they were very keen to help."
The concerts are held in different areas of the camp each week, attracting an audience of hundreds each time.
"We want as many people to hear the songs as possible," says Omer. "Oxfam gives us megaphones for the concerts, to make them louder. The next step is to get cassette recorders to tape the concerts, which we can hand out as gifts to neighbours and relatives so people can listen to the messages at home. Not everyone can sing but we still want to involve them somehow. Some of the women who can't sing are good at playing drums, while others help us write the lyrics."
All over the world, children like to imitate their favourite pop stars. Darfur is no different, and Kaltoum and the women have inspired a new generation of singers who meet every week at the Oxfam health centers in the camp. One popular chorus goes:
"Let us go to school to read,
Let us learn to be healthy,
Let us clean ourselves,
All children, let us do this."
Manahir, a 15-year-old girl from the camp, leads a group of children aged 5 to 16. Some sing, some bang on small drums, and others just clap and cheer. A chant of "clean the jerry can, clean the latrine" gradually gets faster and the drums louder, until the children lose their breath and burst into applause.
"We have great fun, and we learn at the same time," says Manahir. "My friends and I come to the center every day from all over the camp."
Nearby, as the women's concert reaches its finale, another singer named Mahasa takes the megaphone and leads a chorus in praise of Basher and the Oxfam team's recent distribution of blankets and jerry cans for carrying water.
"We thank the aid agencies and the people around the world who send us these things when we have nothing," she says. "If they didn't help us we wouldn't be able to stay here in the camp. We'd have to go home and be attacked all over again."
]]>This is where Asewe stays when she's in Goz Beida, a small town in eastern Chad whose outskirts are now flooded with about 52,000 people forced from their villages by factional fighting. But when it's safe, her home is a tent at Kerfi, one of several sites in the area that the displaced Chadians have temporarily settled.
"That's what my beneficiaries are using," says Asewe about her tent. "It's good to use what my beneficiaries are using."
It's there, at Kerfi, that Asewe likes to be best—in the midst of the people she has come to help. A registered nurse and trained midwife, she is a public health promoter for Oxfam, leading a team of three staffers and a committee of 15. Her job is to work closely with families, showing them how to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases. A musical voice, a warm smile, and an untempered passion are her tools.
Asewe came to this region of Chad in mid-July 2007—at the height of the rainy season—her second posting to the country in a long humanitarian career that has carried her around the world from the tsunami-ravaged coast of Indonesia to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia and back to Chad. It was raining that first time here, too, back in 2004 when refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan were streaming across the border, many of them having walked for days to reach safety.
She was assigned to Bredjing, a camp that now has a population of close to 30,000 people. But back then, it was just beginning to grow, a chaotic sprawl of families, ragged and tired, desperate for food, water, and shelter.
"It was a very difficult situation. Every morning we would come and we would find at least 100 people, towards the wadi, just squatting around," recalls Asewe. "Some would come with small plastic sheets. Some would have traditional mats, but some would have literally nothing. It would be raining the whole night. The children would have literally nothing on top of their heads."
Many of them didn't survive.
"They put in their own graveyard. Every morning organizations like Doctors Without Borders had outreach people just to count how many graves. Yes. So it was very very painful when they first came."
For nine months, Asewe worked with Oxfam, and alongside other organizations, to bring some order to the camp.
"I left happy, though," she says, "because I had seen the beginning and I saw all the changes—everybody putting in a lot of effort." Besides getting water and sanitation services in place, aid groups had even managed to set up activities for children. And the overcrowding was relieved a bit when some of the refugees moved to a new camp—one that was planned for them in advance, so water systems and latrines were already in place.
For the first few weeks of her posting to Kerfi, about 45 kilometers south of Goz Beida, Asewe couldn't even get there. The heavy seasonal rain had swollen the seasonal river, or wadi, swamping parts of the village, and making it impossible for trucks to cross. The short drive from Goz Beida to Kerfi took six or seven hours through the rain, as drivers struggled to negotiate the mud and gushing streams.
Doctors Without Borders was the only aid organization working in Kerfi at the time, said Asewe and it had managed to get there before the rains began to fall. It had parked two of its trucks on the far side of the wadi rushing by the village.
Eventually, workers built a small raft from old drums. An Oxfam driver would deliver Asew to the wadi's edge, and she would float across, her feet dangling in the water, to catch a ride on the other side in a Doctors Without Borders truck.
"We did that until September," Asewe said. "We were not able to get a driver across until October so that delayed all the possibilities."
But once she was able to set foot in Kerfi, Asewe wasted no time in laying the groundwork for her program.
In crowded situations, where there is little room for people and their animals to live as they are accustomed, the spread of waterborne diseases poses a major threat. In December Kerfi was home home to more than 3,000 displaced people—on top of the 4,200 who were already living there.
"The major issue was there was a lot of wadi water, but no clean water," said Asewe, noting that Doctors Without Borders was treating numerous cases of diarrhea. "It was pathetic. The host community, having been completely surrounded, also lost the area they would use for extra space. Their main complaint was they hardly had any place to get their animals to graze." Nor did they have any place left to use as a bathroom.
"Hence the demand for latrines and water," says Asewe.
In convincing people to adopt new ways of doing things, it's important to make them part of the process—so they own it, too. But first, Asewe has to find out what they know, and in this case, it quickly became clear that people were not making the link between the dirty wadi water they were relying on the diarrhea they were suffering from.
"That gives you a key basis where to start," says Asewe.
She organized a development committee of nine women and eight men from Kerfi who would eventually help her with the big task of public education. After some training, together they settled on three main messages they needed to convey to the community.
The messages may sound simple to western ears, but for the residents and displaced people of Kerfi, they could mean the difference between life and death.
Here is what the health promotion committee and Asewe want the people of Kerfi to do:
Part of Asewe's public education program also includes granting families ownership of community latrines—along with cleaning and maintenance duties. About 20 people share each latrine. When a cluster of three or four have been built for people who are under the care of one chief, Asewe arranges for a handover ceremony, with plans made for who's going to keep the latrines clean and how they'll close them down when they're full. And with each latrine, Oxfam provides a latrine kit—a brush and bucket for cleaning.
Some people get the messages very quickly; others are slower to change.
"The best people to target are the children," says Asewe. They learn quickly and adapt readily. "For adults, they may be able to understand, but changing habits may not be so easy."
But whatever the frustrations may be—wadis overflowing with water, insecurity that keeps her tied to Goz Beida, the slow pace of people's adaptation—Asewe says none of that is enough to snuff out the enthusiasm she has for this work.
"I'm still so happy to be the public health promoter who goes to that little house and finds the child and plays around with them and see how you could improve their little lives," says Asewe. "That makes me more happy. It's quite an opportunity and a blessing."
]]>"We had no choice, but to evacuate our staff from N'Djamena where the situation has become extremely insecure," said Raphael Sindaye, Oxfam's acting regional director for West Africa. "Some of the evacuated staffers will work from Dakar to support teams continuing to provide life saving humanitarian relief to refugees and internally displaced people in the east of the country."
Oxfam still has its field teams in eastern Chad that continue to supply aid to more than 100,000 people.
The security situation remains very tense and uncertain, and Oxfam teams are closely monitoring the events.
"The movements of our staff have been limited, but we are continuing to deliver our programs in Goz Beida and Goz Amir in Eastern Chad," added Sindaye."We are concerned that if the fighting in N'djamena drags on it could increase insecurity in eastern Chad and hamper the aid effort. N'djamena is an essential supply route for humanitarian goods."
There are nearly half a million people displaced in Eastern Chad. The majority of them are refugees from the conflict in neighboring Darfur, Sudan. Oxfam's aid effort has been reaching more than 100,000 people in Chad with clean water, safe sanitation, food and public health promotion.
]]>"Life is water," says Oxfam's Brahim Abdel-Madjid. "Without water there is no life at all—enough water, sufficient water, good quality water."
Here at Koloma, that is what Oxfam is helping to supply to some of the 180,000 Chadians chased from their homes by recent waves of violence between rebel forces and government troops. About 7,400 displaced people have settled at Koloma, one of seven sites in and around Goz Beida in which Oxfam is now providing emergency services for a total of 52,000 people.
And for some, the help aid groups have offered, coupled with the advantages of being near a town like Goz Beida with its new hospital, mosque, and market, hold enough promise for a better life that home no longer beckons them.
"Some will not go back—even with security," says Abdel-Madjid, who is the team leader for Oxfam's public health education programs in the Goz Beida area. "Most of the people living in the temporary sites had never traveled to Goz Beida to see that there's a big market. You can trade. You can start a new life."
Clean water is certainly one of the lures—a benefit that has helped to soften the hardships many have experienced as their family members have been killed, their homes ruined, their villages abandoned.
In the mottled light inside a mat hut at Koloma, a crowd of women—and a baby or two—has gathered. These are the sushies—the female leaders of their communities. Sitting on the ground, folded in their colorful wraps, they talk about their lives since fleeing their villages and coming to this sandy sprawl of makeshift shelters. Abdel-Madjid translates.
Food is in short supply, they say. And they have no land to farm. To earn money to buy extra food, they gather wood in the bush to sell in the local market.
Many of them have lost everything in the conflict. Fatouma Sosal tells of the four huts that once belonged to her family in Tiero. All of them were burned down. She talks about the millet she used to grow in her fields and her lost self-sufficiency.
Kadjidja Mahamat says the days here at Koloma can be long, filled only with the chores of trying to keep her temporary household in order: cooking food in the morning—if there is food—washing her children's clothes, patching her hut.
But at least there is water—clean and ample—and for that the women are happy.
In their villages, says Abdel-Madjid, families used to drink from the same source in which they bathed and also shared with their animals, which left their droppings nearby. People were sometimes sick and their children would have "blajose," or bloody urine. But with clean water supplied from a large Oxfam storage tank erected at the edge of their settlement—and a new understanding of waterborne diseases and the importance of good hygiene—problems like diarrhea have disappeared.
"A lot of these people are coming from huts in the middle of the desert. They get to Goz Beida and suddenly they get clean water, schools, health care," says Sarah McHattie, an Oxfam program manager. "I don't think we'll see a big return."
The question of when—and if—displaced people will return to their villages is a complex one, says Poul Brandrup, Oxfam's country program manager in Chad. There are many factors people weigh in making that decision.
"They need to be convinced that they will be able to re-establish sustainable livelihoods," says Brandrup. "Safety is important. So are primary health services and water. And we are increasingly hearing their strong wish for their children to be able to attend school."
One of the realities is that the temporary settlements in which people can now access those essential services are, in fact, "artificial," says Brandrup. They offer limited possibilities for people to establish and maintain themselves over the long-term. For instance, without Oxfam?s assistance, communities could not sustain the kind of water systems—with deep boreholes and expensive diesel-powered pumps—on which they now rely.
"The displaced understand that it will not be possible for all to stay in the current sites," Brandrup adds. "At the same time, many villages have been destroyed and land taken over by others so return in those cases is no longer an option."
Economic and social development for rural villages may play a key role in some people's willingness to return.
"It is not possible to drill thousands of boreholes to replace the existing water systems," says Brandrup. "But people can learn to develop traditional open wells better and to ensure that water is not contaminated by animals or unsafe practices. This is, in most cases, the way to go when and if the displaced people can return to their villages."
Khadidja Saleh has already made up her mind about that—at least for the moment. She doesn't intend to leave Gassire, a settlement for 16,300 displaced people on the other side of Goz Beida.
Not far from the steady thump of an Oxfam generator pumping water for this temporary community, Saleh welcomes visitors into her home. A collection of three huts for her extended family, Saleh's improvised compound is like many crowded onto this dusty patch of earth, cobbled together from branches, plastic sheets, thatch, and grass matting.
The mother of six children, Saleh, her husband, and their family made it here safely after a three-day walk from their village of Fagatar—a place she does not want to go back to.
"Many, many people have been killed and no one took time to bury them," she says through an interpreter. "There will not be peace there."
Instead, she says, she would like to stay here and possibly farm a little plot where she can grow vegetables such as ochra—if she can get some land. It feels safe here, she added. And the water is close by and clean.
In Fagatar, Saleh spent about two hours each day fetching water for her family, lugging it home on the back of a donkey. Here, water taps are a short distance from her home. She and her children visit them four or five times a day, filling a 20-liter jug each time.
Even though there is not enough food for her family to eat here yet, Saleh is confident that the international aid groups that have streamed into the region to help will do just that—make sure that she, and the tens of thousands of other displaced villagers, will have at least the basics for survival.
"Here, the place is safe, so one day the food can come," she says.
But the challenges, including insecurity and lawlessness, that confront aid groups in this poor and remote region are enormous—and the needs of people seemingly without end.
As Saleh's visitors bounced in their truck away from Gassire, they passed a thin and tired-looking woman slapping the rump of donkey, urging it onward with its heavy load of a child and a battered pair of plastic water jugs. From the bottom of one, a steady drip of water caught the light. It drizzled from a rag plugging a hole—an afternoon's labor draining into the dust.
]]>In a conference room far from their native Liben in southern Ethiopia, the men painted a picture of that place—its herders, their hardships—that was so alive those listening to the stories could almost hear the cattle's hooves on the hard, dry earth and sense the struggles of the families who depended on them.
"These marginalized people living in the bush, in the dark, I see some light (for them)," said Kararsa. "I want to expand the light. I can't do it alone. I need people like you."
Their plan was simple: To help local herders by improving the health of their cattle and finding a way to educate their children.
They weren't looking for a handout: They were looking for a partnership. And they had come as community activists armed with local ideas for solving local problems. They even had a small reserve of cash—and livestock—donated by the Boren people to launch their initiative: the Liben Pastoral Development Association.
Less than a year later, this newly formed group now has a two-room office in the town of Negelle—funded completely by the community. It has refurbished a youth hostel so that children will have a place to stay when they attend school in Negelle while their families move off in search of fresh pasture for their animals. And the association has inaugurated its first project with Oxfam's help: a tick bath designed to rid cattle of the troublesome insects that have caused herders extensive hardship.
The ticks have been taking a toll. They cause mastitis in the teats of the cows, blocking the flow of their milk, and depriving herders of an important source of food for their families.
That day in the Addis office, Kote had come prepared with the facts. His fledging development group had surveyed 100 families in the Liben area and found that out of the 700 milking cows among them, 502 of them had mastitis.
"You can imagine the impact of this problem at the household level," said Kote. "This has great impact on food security for Boren families."
But the problem, back then, was that there was nowhere for the herders to take their cows for treatment, and some of the traditional methods of tick control were no longer effective. In the past, before there were permanent settlements scattered around Liben, herders had kept the ticks at bay by burning the rangeland. The government now bans that practice.
Using a long nail, herders collect as many of the ticks as they can off their animals. They rely on chickens and a local bird called a "chiri" to help by feasting on the engorged insects. And in some places, herders also use a mixture of salt and tobacco which they rub on their animals to discourage the bugs from attaching themselves. But more needed to be done. Lots more.
And that's why the Liben Pastoral Development Association's first construction project was the cattle dipping bath located about an hour's drive from Negelle. It's a long concrete canal filled with water and a combination of chemicals. From a steep entrance at one end, the cows wade in and swim to the other side where they walk out into a draining area. Within 30 minutes, the ticks begin to drop off. A committee elected by the local community is in charge of running the bath.
It's an investment the community takes seriously: local families raised more than half the cost of the bath. Oxfam's contribution was $25,794. The project is benefiting about 25,000 people and has been in constant use since it opened.
At a recent inauguration ceremony, Liben residents thanked Oxfam in a way that befits a herding community: They honored the organization by roasting a sheep and placing a piece of sheep skin on the wrists of visiting staffers.
For the people of Liben, this is just the beginning. The same day as the inauguration ceremony, the Liben Pastoral Development Association held a fund-raiser for its next project. Kicking off the event was a well-known elder who donated a camel—which could fetch up to $290 at market. His gift set the tone. By the end of the event, the community had raised about $10,000.
"The self-mobilization of this impoverished herding community was inspiring to see," said Tim Delaney, an Oxfam staffer who documented the day's events and tallied the donations: 55 cows, 73 goats and sheep, seven camels, and almost $2,000 in cash. "These are people whose only assets are their animals. Yet they were willing to give not because they had excess, but because they realize the importance of these projects. And they know they can't sit back and wait for donors to come along and offer money."
What's next on the agenda for the Liben Pastoral Development Association? With support from Oxfam, the group has plans to improve the water supply for about 5,000 people in the village of Hadhesse Korati. The association plans to install a generator, a reservoir, and two-and-a-half miles of pipeline so that the village and its school, health post, and veterinary clinic can all have a clean, reliable source of water.
A year ago, Kote spoke about his dreams for establishing night schools so students could attend classes after they had finished their herding chores. And he stressed the need for more health clinics in the area. For women having difficult labors, the nearest functioning clinic is more than 60 miles away. Carried on stretchers, they often die before they reach it, he said.
"As a Boren man, I feel ashamed," said Kote last year. "I can't do anything for my people. People are suffering from illness. They're thirsty. They're signing (their names) by fingerprint."
But now, Kote—and the herders of Liben—have plenty to be proud of, and a way to keep moving forward.
"Social change could not have been more clearly seen than at the inauguration of the cattle bath that day in Liben," said Delaney. "Everyone in our group was amazed at how motivated this community was and what they are capable of doing."
]]>Ato Teshome Belayneh, the chairman of the surrounding area, stood tall in his worn and dusty suit, a regular mode of dress for Ethiopians where even in the most rural areas it is considered important to be well-dressed. He explained that prior to the installation of this pump, which brings clean drinking water from almost 100 feet below the surface, the women of the village collected water from a small river, which he pointed out about 500 yards to the west in a steep ravine.
As the women filled the containers, they would cover the opening with cheesecloth to strain the worms and other small parasites from the water. Ato Teshome pointed out that there were many other dangerous things that the cloth failed to stop, but people here had little choice as this had previously been the only source of water. Stomach illnesses and diarrhea were rampant.
These once common illnesses have now decreased in Neftegna as the people have a clean source of water thanks to Oxfam America and our partner OSRA.
As Ato Teshome puts it, "this is a rebirth for us."
The new pump has been turned over to the Water Users' Committee, a group of seven people from Neftegna who OSRA has trained to manage the device. The community considers this new source of water so valuable that it has instituted strict measures to ensure the pump functions long into the future and that the water does not run low.
The pump is only available for operation for about five hours a day—once in the morning and again in the evening—as there is concern that using it during the heat of the day will cause damage. There is also an age limit placed on pump use: No one under 18 is allowed even to enter the fenced area.
As the people were explaining the restrictions they have put in place to keep their pump in good condition we witnessed the value that they put on this important community tool.
A member of our group stepped around to try the pump. As he was unaccustomed to using a pump like this he raised the handle quickly, meeting less resistance than he expected. As the handle reached its upper limit, it clanked loudly, metal hitting metal. The collective gasp from all 40 people almost completely blocked the reverberation. It was a minor issue, not causing any harm to the pump, but the gasp of alarm was a clear indicator that the users of this pump normally treat it with the same gentle care given a newborn baby.
In order to quell the fears of the water running low, the community has agreed to limit water usage to about 26 gallons per day per household. This is all the water a family of five to 10 people will use for the entire day to drink, cook, wash, and bathe. This is less than the amount of water people in the United States generally use to take a shower. An average American uses between 80 to 100 gallons a day according to U.S. Geological Survey, which means that a family of 5 uses about 500 gallons a day—almost 20 times the amount that a family in Neftegna uses.
While most Americans tend to take clean drinking water for granted, the people of Neftegna do not. Each household, 66 in total, contributes about 22 cents a month towards the upkeep of the pump.
The men that were still gathered as out visit drew to a close explained that people who live a two-hour walk away are coming to use the village pump, and while the people of Neftegna are willing to share what they have, they would much rather see the burden of their neighbors eased with the building of pumps in their respective villages.
Oxfam America has already funded the building of 10 pumps in Bacho, but clearly many more are needed.
]]>For them, the fact that they were playing soccer together at all was what counted.
A few short years ago, school boys in Moyale—a southern Ethiopian border town where bursts of violence plague the region—would never have joined a game that teamed children from one ethnic group with those from another. The Gabra, the Borena, the Guji, the Gari—they just didn't get along.
But with assistance from Oxfam America, that dynamic has begun to change. The agency helped to plant the seed of peace at the Moyale Primary School, and its roots are now spreading throughout the district.
Through a series of three grants, Oxfam helped the Moyale Primary School, which now serves 3,000 students in grades one through eight, construct three new classroom buildings and equip them with materials, including books and computers. In conjunction with that, school officials launched a massive public education campaign, targeting parents in particular.
The message? Ethnic conflicts coupled with cultural expectations about the limited role of girls had caused enrollment in the school to plummet. A divided administrative system, with different ethnic groups aligned with each of the two divisions, had also left the school severely short of funds. The end result meant a generation of students was at risk of not being able to get the education that is so vital to their future success.
The solution? Improve the school facilities with the understanding that the buildings—and the opportunities they represent—belong to all the students and their families, regardless of their ethnicity. The school would also serve as a place for conflict resolution.
The parents embraced the idea.
"They are beside us today," said Tsegaye Desta, who recently became the coordinator of the school system after serving as the principal of the Moyale Primary School during its transition. "Before the coming of Oxfam America, the enrollment of students was very low. Now it's very high."
Work has helped pull the families together around a common cause. About 25 percent of the new construction on the school grounds has been carried out by community members, including students and their teachers.
"When they do it together, they build not only construction, they build peace," said Desta. "When there is peace and unity, it is possible to do a lot."
A small tree nursery inside the school compound has also served as a place for students to get to know each other.
"They forget about conflict. When they work in the nursery, they discuss things as friends would," added Desta.
With those new friends kicking up clouds of dust on the soccer field behind him, 15-year-old Tegalu Sale, took a break from the game to describe how things have changed since Oxfam began helping the school.
"Before the construction, there was no sitting place and not enough books," he said, sweat beading on his forehead. "We ran to the class to get a bench. The others did it too. Then, things happened."
And now?
"The conflict is minimized—and that's why we're here exercizing together," Sale said.
Besides the new construction, which has allowed class sizes to drop from as high as 120 students down to 50, the school has incorporated discussions about peace-building into its curriculum.
Teacher Aschelew Mokinnin doesn't have to look far for material for his students.
"Mostly we take the surrounding problems as an example, and the solutions—they're always discussing (those) face to face," said Mokinnin.
"There is great improvement," added Mulu Seba, an eighth-grade teacher. "The students' interaction is very nice. It's positive."
And that bodes well for students like Sale: His dreams stand a good chance of becoming true. "In the future, after I complete school, I will help myself and my family," he said. "I'd like to be a teacher or a master of a school."
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