But when they returned, the full impact of the strongest storm in 16 years was all too clear. Sidr killed at least 2,837 people, destroyed or damaged more than 1.1 million homes, and hurt nearly one and a half million acres of cropland.
"There are so many people without homes or basic sanitation, and who are now likely to be unable to get food, that Bangladesh is facing its most serious humanitarian disaster in many decades," said Heather Blackwell, head of Oxfam International in Bangladesh.
Oxfam is responding with an initial $8.5 million emergency relief effort that will provide up to 153,000 people with clean water and nutritional support. Additionally, the program will offer 15,000 households the means to construct temporary shelters. And as many as 400 latrines will also be built—with a design that will ensure privacy for women.
"People urgently need drinking water, food, and medical support," said Enamul Hoque, a public health advisor working with Oxfam on the response. "Many areas are completely cut off from receiving supplies and markets have been destroyed. There is a need for markets to start functioning properly."
Assessment teams visiting the devastated region have reported that dead animals and debris have contaminated many of the ponds on which most people depend for their drinking, washing, and cooking water. The potential for the spread of waterborne diseases, including cholera, remains high.
Oxfam and its partners are working with communities to clean up the ponds and dispose of the animal carcasses. And though access remains difficult, Oxfam has also started to transport water to some of the more remote areas. We plan to install up to 100 solar desalination stills—as a pilot project—in some of those remote areas to provide drinking water.
Our response plans also call for the distribution of water treatment materials to 15,000 households that will allow them to improve water quality to a satisfactory level. In addition, we will provide up to 200 temporary shallow-tube wells in areas where seawater has contaminated the surface.
Sidr caused massive damage to crops in the coastal region which will have both an immediate and long-term effect on Bangladesh. Severe floods in the north a few months earlier also hit the agriculture sector hard, and with the price of food now spiking, aid workers are concerned that people will not have enough to eat.
Oxfam plans to provide supplemental rations for up to 30,000 households for three months. The distribution, intended to complement food programs undertaken by other groups, will meet about 35 percent of each household's food needs.
In addition, Oxfam will distribute basic goods to 30,000 households. Many families lost everything—clothes, tools, animals—and have no means for replacing them. Our distribution of household goods includes buckets, jugs, mugs, blankets, saris, kitchen utensils, and soap.
]]>I like to sleep. But by six o'clock the first rays of the sun are coming through the holes in the wall of my family's shelter, the cocks and donkeys start their shouting, and the camp starts to come to life. The first thing I do when I get up is pray. I ask God to look after my family, and bring peace to Darfur. Then I get on with the household chores... so many chores! I boil the water on the fire to make tea, I wash my brothers' and sisters' clothes, and then I clean the cooking pans. I don't enjoy cleaning and sometimes I'm tempted to do it very quickly, but Oxfam is always telling us to clean the pans thoroughly and I'm scared of getting sick if I don't!
By 8 a.m. I'm on my way to the community center. It's a short walk from my house and it's run by Oxfam. At the center I take lessons in hygiene and English. I like the hygiene class because I can see how to make changes in our house that keep my brothers and sisters healthy. Now whenever I see a woman not taking proper care of her latrine, or not cleaning her jerry can (for carrying water) I get very upset with her. I like the English class, too, but it's very difficult. Maybe next time we can speak in English, but I don't think so!
I am not married yet. Insha'allah—God willing—I will be soon. But there are few men my age in the camp. Most people here are women, old men, and children. Many younger men are away fighting. Or dead. There was a boy in my village who my friends used to tease me that I would marry, but now I don't know where he is. So for now I live with my mother, two little brothers aged 8 and 9, and two sisters aged 11 and 13. My father is no longer with us. I'm the oldest, which means I get to be in charge, but also that I have to do most of the work while my brothers get to play soccer.
At 10 a.m. it's time to go home and make breakfast. We have two meals a day—breakfast at about 11 a.m., and then dinner in the evening. I like to eat goat meat but here in the camp it is too expensive. My mother taught me long ago to make stew from vegetables, but it would be so much nicer with some chicken in it. I also like assida, which is one of our famous Darfur dishes. It's like a thick porridge made from sorghum. Back in my village, every time there was a celebration—a wedding, a birth, a new visitor—we would have roasted meat to eat and a big party in the village.
After breakfast I head to the Oxfam water point. I do this at least once every day. At the moment there are big queues. Today I had to wait for more than one hour and it was very hot. But the other women have to wait, too, so I get to catch up on all the news while I'm waiting. I usually take one of my little sisters with me to help carry the water home as it can be too heavy for one person.
We use water for everything. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be without it. Every time I eat I need water—to boil the food, to wash the vegetables, to get rid of the dirt and germs. Everything I drink is either normal water or boiled water for tea. I use the water to wash the clothes of the whole family. We don't have any animals but some of my friends' families have donkeys and the water also keeps them alive and healthy.
The afternoon is more of the same. Living in the camp I really notice how life feels very repetitive. I go to school, I cook and do chores, and then I do it all over again. In the afternoon I go back to study at the community center for an hour or so, and then I go home to prepare the evening meal. Even the food is usually the same.
I very rarely leave the camp. Why would I? Here there's a water point, a market, a community center. Outside there's danger—soldiers and guns. My mother goes out of the camp maybe twice a week to collect firewood, which we can use at home and sell what's left over. This is the only money we get. I feel guilty: It's so dangerous for my mother to do this. The women often get attacked or shouted at or shot at. They won't let me go with her. They say only older women should go as young girls are more likely to be attacked. Secretly I'm glad: I don't want her to go alone, but I don't want to go with her because I'm scared of the men.
When I first came here we saw the camp and the aid agencies and felt safe. Unhappy, but safe. Now even the camp is dangerous. At night nobody really goes outside their shelters. When I'm done cooking I stay home and study. I would like to do my English work but I have nobody to practice with. I study until it gets dark after eight o'clock, and then we go to bed and start the day again.
It's difficult for us here. Look at our shelter—it's very basic. This is not home. Soon the rains will come and then some of the shelters will be destroyed. What will happen to those people? I know the aid agencies are doing their best, but there are so many people here and everybody always needs something. I think the only way our lives will really improve is if we go home. But we can't go home because people are still being attacked. I will stay in Kalma until peace comes. I just hope it won't take too long.
]]>The achievements of Oxfam and other aid agencies in Darfur have been truly incredible. Jan Egeland, the former UN Humanitarian Coordinator, described the humanitarian response in Darfur as among the most successful in the world, and he was right. The high levels of mortality and malnutrition that we saw at the start of the crisis have been greatly reduced. Many people now have better access to water, sanitation, and education than they did before the conflict. However, other things have not improved. People in Darfur still live in daily fear of violence. Those living in camps cannot go outside without risking attack. The number of people in need of help keeps rising. There are now four million people in Darfur who rely on aid.
What are the biggest challenges Oxfam faces now in Darfur?
Safety and security is by far the biggest concern for both civilians and our staff. Our ability to reach people in need is decreasing due to hijackings and attacks on aid workers. Early in my time here I drove for hours through North Darfur, from El Fasher to our programs in Kebkabiya, through quite stunning scenery. Now this road is far too dangerous for us to use and we rely almost entirely on UN flights. In terms of security, we are operating at the very limit of what we can tolerate as an organization, and if the situation continues to deteriorate then we may be left with no option but to withdraw from Darfur. The humanitarian impact of this could be catastrophic. It's vital that the world leaders do more to ensure an end to the violence so that aid agencies can continue our life-saving work.
The crisis is now in its fifth year. Is there any sign that Darfur will move on from being a humanitarian emergency and into a development and recovery stage?
Oxfam has been working in Darfur for more than 20 years, carrying out development work with local communities. We all hope that we can resume this as soon as possible. But at the moment Darfur is still an enormous humanitarian crisis and we cannot resume large-scale development work until there is a sustainable political solution to the conflict. People continue to be attacked and displaced by the thousands. We are still seeing people arrive in the camps where we work. The situation in Darfur is incredibly complex and we have to be very careful. For example, many of the villages that people have fled from are now inhabited by other communities, and if we were to provide development assistance to them we would risk legitimizing this.
What has been your proudest achievement in your time here?
The relationship between non-governmental organizations and the Sudanese government has been complicated and at times difficult. Back in early 2004 we just could not get our staff members the necessary visas and permits to get to Darfur and respond to the urgent needs there. It was very frustrating. Our staffers have since done a wonderful job in building a working relationship with the authorities—both in Khartoum and at the field level—and as a result these problems have now been eased considerably. Without this success, we would not have been able to have such an impact on the ground and provide water and assistance to half a million people.
And your biggest frustration?
When I took up the post of country program manager, Darfur was one of the world's largest humanitarian crises. Today the security situation for people there is perhaps even worse, and the prospect of peace seems as far away as ever. It has been incredibly frustrating to see the hard work of our staff thwarted by insecurity in so many places. In Gereida in South Darfur, for example, the team did a magnificent job to set up water supply to 130,000 displaced people. But since then we have had to withdraw from the area because of insecurity. Across Sudan there are still many challenges. Marginalization and poverty are still endemic, and there are increasing threats to the nationwide Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
Finally, what personal memories will you take from working in Africa's largest country?
Outside Sudan, very little is known about the country, its people, and culture. What does get attention is mostly war and human suffering. Despite the enormous problems in the country, the Sudanese people are incredibly friendly and welcoming. I can honestly say that in my years of working around the world, my job in Sudan has probably been the most satisfying and enjoyable. The Sudanese are also extremely resilient people. It is incredible to go to the camps in Darfur or to the harsh deserts of the east and see how people cope in the face of adversity. It makes me feel confident for the future that Oxfam can work closely with local communities to help build a better Sudan.
]]>But this year, when these rivers spilled their banks, the consequences were severe. A team of local officials who visited 10 districts in the Gambella region in the end of September reported that the floods had displaced 135,721 people. The flooding killed two people and left 970 heads of livestock dead. High water still surrounded more than 19,000 people at the time of the assessment. Some districts were accessible only by boat.
Now, many people are in need of help. Food, shelter, and blankets are top on the list.
Together with its local partner, Envision Beyond Basic Needs Association, or EBBA, Oxfam America has launched a $39,000 emergency relief project to help about 8,500 people, almost half of whom are women. Plans called for the distribution of blankets for warmth and plastic sheets for shelter to 1,693 families in five localities.
"We are prepared to do more if the request comes through," said Dawit Beyene, Oxfam America's deputy director of humanitarian response. "The flooding continues and subsequent information we got revealed much more damage than we initially received." Five health posts, 20 schools, two farmer training centers, and nine clinics were also damaged by the floods.
Most of the people in Gambella, which is a low-lying region along the border with Sudan, make their living by fishing from the rivers, working small farms, or herding animals. Despite the regular flooding, villagers settle on the banks of region's rivers to pursue their livelihoods. Now, Oxfam is exploring more permanent ways of helping people cope with the challenges of their environment.
"We're discussing targeting Gambella for more preparedness work—such as establishing a permanent warehouse for emergency supplies as well as helping to increase the capacity of the local organizations with which we work in the region," said Beyene.
]]>In a dusty yard under the shade of a mango tree, Abdulie Camara holds out his hands for a visitor to feel. His palms are as tough as leather. He has been cutting trees—countless numbers of them—to sell their wood for cash so he can help feed some of the dozens of people with whom he now shares his mudbrick house.
His neighbors in the Gambian village of Janack are chopping down the forest, too, in an effort to provide not only for their families, but for the refugees who have settled among them. They are from the Casamance region of Senegal.
A push to gain independence for the region, which has pitted the separatist group known as the Movement of Democratic Forces of the Casamance against the government of Senegal, has fueled more than 20 years of fighting. The violence has forced at least 60,000 people from their homes. An estimated 7,000 of them have streamed across the border to seek safety on Gambian soil, heightening the pressure on an already strained land.
As Camara, and residents of other border villages, have struggled with the crush of that refugee flow, Oxfam America and its local partners have been providing emergency assistance designed to help villagers cope. For them—and the land around them—the consequences of the Casamance conflict have been severe.
The tree-cutting deeply worries some environmentalists.
"In 10 to 20 years, all of Gambia will be a desert," said Marcel Badji, marveling at the wood, split and piled, in the yards around Janack. "People are cutting trees for survival. Huge trees are going down."
Badji is the director of St. Joseph's Family Farms center, a local Gambian organization and Oxfam America partner. His words give voice to a grave reality: Poverty is putting intense pressure on the environment here.
Camara leads a visitor into his small mudbrick house. Forty-six people sleep here, sharing beds and straw mats unfurled on the dirt floor. Many of the refugees who have sought safety in Gambia are related to their hosts. Cousins and nephews are among the people Camara is sheltering.
"It's very difficult to handle such a large number of people," Camara says. "Food is number one." As he speaks, a ruckus breaks out in a kitchen hut at one end of the hard-packed yard. A pair of sheep have nudged their way in and are rooting around for something to eat. Alert family members shoo them out and fasten the door.
A farmer, Camara grows millet, rice, peanuts, and corn. But because of increased pressure on the land, it has lost some of its fertility and his harvests have shrunk. The money he would have used for fertilizer to enrich the soil has been spent helping to support the Casamance refugees.
"It's part of the culture. You assist people who need your help," says Badji. "And these people are in need."
In searching for answers to these problems of poverty, Oxfam and its partners are focusing on ideas that will help people exert control over their circumstances. When villagers have the means—training, resources, know-how—to solve their own troubles, those tools become the basis for lasting solutions.
That's the hope for four bright blue hand pumps that now cap wells in some of the border villages. They are part of a $45,000 grant Oxfam provided to Concern Universal, an international partner that has been addressing the needs of refugees and their hosts.
In the village of Oupat, a short distance from Janack and a stone's throw from the Casamance line, Bakary Sonko and Gibril Sonko worked together on a recent afternoon to spin the handle on one of the pumps. After 40 seconds of cranking, they had filled a four-gallon bucket with fresh water. Bees buzz about the stream as it sputters out of the faucet. Next to the pump sits a large metal barrel hooked to a hose—key components of Oupat's brick-making enterprise. With water readily available, new mudbrick houses?homes for the refugees'are on the rise nearby.
"The pumps can be easily maintained by the communities without big fees," explains Zanira Paralta, an Oxfam humanitarian response officer. "It's a technology Concern Universal has been implementing for five or six years. We realized it could be a good way to provide water at low cost."
Inside the blue casings, the pump mechanism is simple: it looks like a bicycle wheel that spins with the help of a rope affixed with tiny washers that pull up the water. The rope, made from nylon, can be replaced easily when it breaks. To show how simple it is to reach the parts that need fixing, Ousman Jammeh, a technician for Concern Universal, untwists a plastic cap at the top of the pump and removes the plastic tubing through which the rope runs.
Nearby, another well signals the importance of Oupat's new hand pumps. This well, dug in 1983, is dry. A tangle of skinny branches covers its opening. Before Concern Universal installed the new wells and pumps, people had to trek to Nyambolo, the neighboring village, for their water.
Working with other local groups, Concern Universal has built about 150 of these wells using manually operated equipment—simpler technology means fewer breakdowns—to bore the holes. And it has experimented with a variety of materials, available locally such as wood and aluminum, in constructing parts for the pumps.
Niall O'Connor, director of Concern Universal, explains that a similar pump is used in Nicaragua and that Concern made modifications so that it could be used here.
"The whole idea is to be affordable and sustainable," he says.
]]>"We get water from this ditch, which is a very dirty and murky channel, where garbage is dumped and even dead animals have been found," says Huarcaya, who lives in the town of Huaya Chica. But now, with the help of Oxfam, many families in Huarcaya's town have clean water to drink—thanks to the distribution of water filters and the training in how to use them. So far, the organization has provided 870 water filters in the districts of Humay and Independencia. The goal is to improve significantly the quality of the local drinking water, which often comes from unsafe sources.
Not only did the quake obstruct canals and collapse water treatment and distribution facilities, it also revealed how poor the water quality was in some areas of the countryside. Before the quake, many families had to buy water from tanker trucks or draw it from wells and irrigation ditches. In all these cases the water was unhealthy. The earthquake worsened this situation by increasing the risk of disease.
With the filters Oxfam has been distributing, people are able to remove impurities and sediments. Water that was initially murky, contaminated, and unfit for human consumption becomes clean and free from harmful micro-organisms.
"We get home tired after doing agricultural work (cotton cultivation) and now we have clean water without having to boil it first," observes Delia Mendoza Suárez, a 50-year-old mother of seven children in the village of Palto. Paltoand six other villages now have clean water for drinking and cooking.
Oxfam has been distributing water from tanker trucks in districts where the population does not have sources from which to draw water. The agency is working in coordination with other institutions, such as United Firemen Without Borders (Spain), Pompiers Sans Frontières (France), and Action Against Hunger (Spain). Oxfam has successfully put into service three water treatment plants and has installed 45 water distribution points, including tanks (of 600 and 1,100 liters) and water storage bladders (of 1,500, 3,500, and 6,000 liters), making available an average of 20 liters of water per person per day in each village within the districts of Humay and Independencia.
"Children and adults get stomach illnesses because the water is not clean. After the earthquake, the situation had worsened since there was no water. Now we have it again but it continues to be dirty," said Amalia Valdiviezo Meza, whose family now drinks filtered water.
To help address the ongoing problems, Oxfam is also coordinating a public health campaign through the local press. It's helping to spread information on the proper use of water, latrines, and hygiene to avoid the spread of disease.
"A month after the earthquake, the health risks keep increasing and we must not lower our guard. On the contrary, we will double our efforts to promote hygiene and good health," says Mónica Ramos, Oxfam's public health promoter in Pisco.
As part of that effort, Oxfam has distributed 1,650 hygiene kits, which include soap, shampoo, brushes, and towels, among other items. To achieve a more complete response, latrines and accompanying sinks for washing are also being installed.
Helping Oxfam to achieve its goals have been members of "Jovos," or Young Volunteers for Disaster Prevention, who came from Moquegua, in southern Peru. Assistance has also come from members of the "Grufides" group who have been helping with the installation of tents and temporary shelters as well as with the promotion of public health through talks on hygiene and the proper use and maintenance of water filters.
Maribel Sanchez is the communications officer for Oxfam International in Pisco, Peru.
]]>Although Minera Majaz has not yet submitted its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), there is reason to be concerned about the area's environmental future, especially if Río Blanco proves to be just one part of a mining "district," or group of mining operations.
First, mining is an activity with high environmental risks, as a list of hundreds of environmental liabilities compiled by the Ministry of Energy and Mines reveals. While it is true that a given mining operation usually affects a local area in a concentrated and relatively small manner—according to the company, the total area to be directly affected by the Río Blanco project will be around 4,450 acres (1,800 hectares)—it is also true that aquifers can be severely affected many miles downstream.
The potential contamination of the Río Blanco has become one of the main causes of unease for the people in the area, given that the proposed mining project is located in the river's headwaters. The Río Blanco is a tributary of the Chinchipe River, which forms the most important valley in the neighboring province of San Ignacio, in the department of Cajamarca. According to the study "Mining and Development in Peru, with Special Reference to the Río Blanco Project, Piura," written by a multi-disciplinary team led by Anthony Bebbington, professor of the School of Environment and Development of the University of Manchester, the most serious environmental problems that the mine could generate are "the leaching of acidic mine waters (AMW) from the mining site, the heaps of tailings, and the piles of excavated material." According to the study, the high precipitation in the area (2,000 millimeters (6.5 feet) or more per year) "raises the possibility that rainwater could filter through the piles of tailings and excavated material, transporting contaminated metals to both surface and underground waters." The study indicates that another worrisome potential problem is AMW contamination of the water table, because the open-pit mine would probably be deeper than the groundwater in the area.
After analyzing the environmental variables and reviewing the technical proposal by Majaz, Bebbington and his team concluded that "it would be possible to handle the environmental impacts of the project as designed," provided that this is an isolated mining project. If Río Blanco became part of a large mining district, the situation would be different and the risks to the environment, and water resources in particular, would increase considerably.
At the same time, the team had reservations, given that the proposed mining technology "has never been used in an area with as much precipitation or a history of seismic activity" and hence "the possible combination of tailings/wet excavation material and seismic activity is a reason for serious concern."
Minera Majaz states in many of its official notices that using of state-of-the-art technology will protect the environment. However, simply complying with Peruvian laws, which are regrettably weak, is no guarantee of true protection from environmental contamination. Vito Verna, Director of the Indigenous Communities and Environment Program in the office of the Peruvian Ombudsman observes that "the Peruvian state apparatus lacks an integrated environmental policy. For example, each industrial sector has (or should have) its own maximum allowable pollution limits, and there should be national quality standard for water, soil and air. The system does not work because the ministries have not yet put these standards forward, and consequently the National Environmental Council (CONAM) cannot approve them."
As a result, Peru has approved standards only for air and non-ionizing radiation [such as emitted by radio waves, or microwaves], but not for water (the existing standard is obsolete) or soil. Although a mining operation is required by law to treat its waters before discharging them into a body of water, the maximum allowable limits are so lax that they could even be Class III—waters suitable for irrigation or livestock, but not to sustain aquatic life. Thus, in Peru, a mining operation could exterminate fish, amphibians, and other river wildlife without breaking the law.
But the potential environmental impact of the Río Blanco project does not end there. The project site, in addition to being at the headwaters of a river basin, is located in the heart of a vast area of high-altitude cloud forests—the last sizeable area of tropical rain forests remaining in the department of Piura. These forests have great value in themselves, owing to their diversity and the fact that they form an extension of the forests of Ecuador and Colombia, and thus contain flora and fauna rare in Peru. Yet their greatest value is the connection they provide between the Tabaconas Namballe National Sanctuary (SNTN) in neighboring San Ignacio, and protected areas extending to the Ecuador border. The Río Blanco forest creates a "biological corridor," serving populations of animals that require large areas to be viable, such as the spectacled bear and Andean tapir—two endangered species protected by law.
A large open-pit mining operation in the midst of these forests, and the resulting human activity, represent a threat to the very survival of this corridor. Without it, the spectacled bears and tapirs of the sanctuary, which would lack the space necessary to survive, would be condemned to extinction. A World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) study of the biodiversity of the sanctuary and its neighboring zones concluded that "the protection of a biological corridor between the SNTN in Peru and the Podocarpus National Park in Ecuador is critical for the preservation of the species that inhabit those areas."
A final consideration: Minera Majaz is not the only company interested in conducting mining operations in the area. A glance through the government's Cadastral Mining Atlas reveals, in addition to the Río Blanco project, concessions of several thousand acres in Carmen de la Frontera. Many of these are adjacent to the Río Blanco project—forming, on the maps produced by the National Institute of Concessions and Mining Surveys (INACC), a solid block of mining concessions in the forests of the Yanta and Segunda y Cajas communities. In context, then, the Río Blanco project is just the first of many future mining operations, which, as a group, constitute a potential new mining district in Peru—and whose environmental impact would be considerably more serious and significant than any single project such as Río Blanco.
It is imperative that the Peruvian government consider all the environmental issues at play in the Río Blanco case, both as part of the dialog process following the referendum and when it evaluates the EIA that the company must soon deliver.
]]>Having completed a training program with the environmental and human rights organization WACAM, partly funded by Oxfam America, Ayensu said he could tell what had happened: "WACAM has taught me how to identify a polluted stream," he said. Ayensu then went to alert others in Teberebie that there was a cyanide spill in the streams that supply water and fish for him and about 100 families that live along them.
Ayensu's colleague Emilia Amoateng, leader of the Concerned Farmers' Association of Teberebie, immediately started an investigation. Knowing that cyanide is used to separate gold from ore in the mining projects surrounding Teberebie, she centered her investigation on the polluted streams near the south gate of Gold Fields Ghana mining company, and behind the waste piles of AngloGold Ashanti Iduapriem Mines. However Gold Fields has a drain from its tailings dam (a waste storage area) that runs into the stream. She also found that BARBEX Technical Services, a chemical supply company to the various mines in the area, has also constructed a drain from its warehouse into the stream. An accidental cyanide spill from either of these sources would therefore enter the streams quite easily. Recent heavy rains increased the likelihood that water overflowing from these sites would carry any spilled chemicals into the waters.
Moses Ayuba, the district program officer for Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said water tests had shown extremely high levels of acidity, but that he was unable to identify the cause of the acid in the river. He said that further testing on fish and water should help identify the source of the pollution.
Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, the director of WACAM, said that the pollution represented a serious public health problem. "Some people who mistakenly went swimming in the river had their skin peeled off," he said. "Those who drank the polluted water and ate some of the fish are having serious stomach problems. We have helped seven of them get medical attention."
Owusu-Koranteng went on to say that the mining and chemical supply companies have been reluctant to take responsibility for the pollution. "The mining companies and EPA initially tried to push the blame on 'galamsey' [small-scale mining] activities and later shifted the blame to chemical fishing." He went on to say that chemical fishing is unusual in this area, and in any case would never be done during the rainy season when the rivers are high. He also said that people living near the Barbex Technical Services had been previously warned by the company not to drink from the river, and were permitted to take tap water from the company.
Villagers in Teberebie are now calling on the EPA to help them defend their right to live in a clean environment, and are planning a demonstration to bring media attention to this incident.
]]>The water running through the northeast highlands of Cambodia was brown and muddy, but she was hot and needed to cool off. Later that night, Ranh woke up scratching at a rash on her hands and legs. Several months pregnant with her second child, she traveled hours by motorbike to find a medical clinic.
Weeks later, her scabs still covered in purple ointment, Ranh said she was worried her skin condition might hurt her baby. But, like so many others living downstream from the Yali Falls dam who reported rashes, stomach illnesses, and diarrhea since the dam's construction, she feels like there's no alternative to using the river to bathe and drink.
"I don't have a well at home," she said. "Even if the water looks dirty, I have to wash."
Built upstream in Vietnam and Laos, hydropower dams are rising up on the Sesan, Sekong, and Srepok Rivers that flow through Cambodia's northeast provinces, Ratanakiri and Stung Treng. Dams, such as the Yali Falls, have changed the water quality, killed whole species of fish, flooded villages, and wiped out large fields of rice.
These problems are compounded by what's happening in the nearby forests. There, armed guards stand in the thicket, threatening to arrest anyone who enters. The guards hack ax-cuts into the tree trunks, marking off ancestral land the government has sold to the highest bidder—usually a foreign company looking to start a lucrative plantation. The forests have traditionally served as a safety net for the indigenous people, providing a source of income during the "lean months" when the fish aren't spawning and the rice is too young to harvest. But when the government sells off the land, the safety net goes with it.
These dangerous circumstances threaten the very existence of the more than 66,000 people who live in these remote hills. What's worse, the indigenous people here lack any real political power. Many feel marginalized by the mainstream Khmer, who dominate the government and still associate the rural minorities with the genocide of the 1970s, which began as an agrarian revolution.
"The people here, they feel very isolated. They feel like no one from the outside will come to help them," said Kim Sangha, coordinator of the 3 S Rivers Protection Network (3SPN), an Oxfam America partner.
As the scorching sun sets on the Sesan River, the people of Taveng Lou village get to work. Men take out their fishing boats and pull in their nets. Women fill their watering cans and irrigate their gardens and rice paddies. Families wade into the shallows, bathing and collecting water for household use.
Vietnam's Yali Falls dam disrupts this daily routine. Since it became operational in 2001, the Cambodians living downstream have noticed dramatic changes. Unexpected water surges have eroded the shoreline, depositing silt, sand, and rocks in the deep pools where fish live. And the fluctuating water levels have either swept away nets or left them high and dry.
All in all, villagers here say they've seen a 70 percent drop-off in their fish catch.
"Before, you used to be able to put a pot on the fire, walk down to the river, and catch some fish—all before the water boiled," said Em Vuthy, deputy governor of Taveng District. "Now you can spend a whole day and get one fish."
Beyond reducing the number of fish, the dam has altered the way people farm along the Sesan River. Traditionally, the villagers depended on the overflow of the river to water their plants and rice during the wet season. During the dry season, they would plant different crops that could handle the heat and scarcity of water. But now people like Mean Trosh, a mother of seven who grows cabbage, watercress, pumpkins, red chilies, eggplants, and rice along the water, can't plan around the seasons; the dam creates unexpected floods. Trosh says she tries to plant on higher ground, but even those gardens and rice paddies have been destroyed.
"When the water level changes, it rises quickly and goes down quickly," she said. "Last year, I tried to grow rice along the river, but it was damaged by the floods."
According to the villagers and Oxfam partners, the Yali Falls dam was built with no formal assessment of the environmental and social impacts downstream in Cambodia. And right now, more than a dozen dam projects like it are already in the works along the "3 S Rivers"—the Sesan, Srepok, and Sekong—that flow from the central highlands of Vietnam and southern Laos downstream to the northeast provinces of Cambodia.
Last August, a huge flood along the Srepok River inundated at least 15 villages in Stung Treng and Ratanakiri. More than 650 families were affected. Months later, sitting on the wooden floor of their village pagoda under a cascade of prayer flags, Dae Low villagers shouted over each other as they recalled what happened.
Villagers reported hearing a bulletin on the radio that one of the dams under construction would be releasing water for a few days. But by the time the bulletin aired, the Srepok was already rising. Many of the villagers didn't have access to radios. Those who did, lost time warning family and friends. When they returned home, their chickens, pigs, and water buffalo had drowned. Their vegetables had been washed away. More than 1,300 rice fields were destroyed—an entire year's harvest.
"We are very worried about the future," said the village chief, Prom Phally. "We don't know how to prepare for these floods."
The people of Cambodia's northeast highlands depend primarily on fishing and farming to make a living. But they have always looked to their forests as sacred places. They supplement their income by collecting local plants there and gather herbs for traditional medicines. During the dry season, when the green grass turns to yellow straw, they let their livestock wander into the woods for food and water.
At 67, Seth Gnal makes the three-mile trek to the woods near the Srepok River every three days. Together with family members, he collects tree resin to repair and maintain his fishing boats. He uses what's left to fuel the torches that illuminate his home in Kbal Romeas village.
Gnal feels threatened by his new neighbors: foreign-funded, Cambodian-fronted land concessionaires. These are the companies that make use of Cambodia's weak land titling laws to buy up what indigenous people consider their land. Even before these companies clear the land to plant single crops like teak—a hardwood requiring at least a decade to mature before it can be logged—they pay armed guards to prevent the local people from coming through.
"Before, the indigenous people in the village always went to the forests to gather vines, resin, rattan, and honey to sell," said Kim Deung, another villager. "Now, if we go into the forest, the guards will catch and arrest us. We're afraid to go in."
According to locals, the plantation owners have promised to give them work. But it's usually people from the larger towns who get hired. And even then, the pay is poor: less than $2 a day.
At the same time, the concessions often encroach on land the indigenous people use to grow rice. This situation forces them to remain on the few parcels of land they already occupy. For farmers and fishers who typically move every 15 years to allow the soil to regenerate, it threatens the farmers' ability to feed their families. Many people end up producing so little that they must sell the rice they grow and borrow the rice they eat.
"The Forest Administration tells us we can't clear some of the forest for more rice fields, yet the concessionaires are permitted to clear the forest and sell the trees," Gnal said.
To make matters worse, the land concession sales slowly strip the local people of their culture. As Estela Estoria, a program officer in Oxfam America's East Asia office explained, the 15-year interval of farming is so engrained in the highlanders' way of life that they use the Khmer word for these farms—chamka—to measure the ages of their friends and family members. A 15-year-old is one chamka. A 30-year-old, two.
"The indigenous people don't know why this is happening to them," Estoria said. Animists and Buddhists, "they feel like God or their ancestors are angry with them."
The work of Oxfam's partners begins here, teaching the local people about the outside forces impinging on their lifestyle and working with them to advocate on their own behalf.
Local o rganizations like 3SPN, the Culture-Environment Preservation Association, and the NGO Forum on Cambodia encourage the highlanders to use their indigenous knowledge to keep written records about the changes in their environment. The records describe which species of fish are dying off, how quickly the water is rising or falling, and which plants have been eliminated by the clearing of the trees. Then the partners train members of the communities to form local networks. Through these networks, the network leaders, called "focal people," teach the villagers to consolidate their research, write petitions to land concession companies, and even speak out at stakeholder meetings of dam developers and governments.
As a result of this work, officials of Electricity of Vietnam, the agency behind the hydropower dams in that country, met to discuss the environmental and social impacts on the Srepok River basin this past January. It was the first time in more than a decade that the Cambodian indigenous people affected by these projects could speak directly with the Vietnamese government, the Cambodian government, and the donors funding the construction.
The indigenous people used the opportunity to ask for compensation for their lost livelihoods, fishing boats, and equipment. They asked for a share of the benefits of the dam, such as electricity transmission lines for their community. And they asked that no new dams be constructed without their consultation.
According to news accounts, the Vietnamese government agreed to "implement dam projects with bilateral agreements, follow international treaties, look to having the citizens of Vietnam and Cambodia gain income," and reduce environmental impact. The Cambodian government said it would work on reducing the impact of the dams on local people and the environment.
Having accomplished this much already, Oxfam's Cambodian partners hope to increase the participation of indigenous people in dam projects and land concession disbursements. It's a slow path to success, but in a country working to overcome so much, the progress is historic.
"It was amazing to realize that the ministries were all raising the same issues as the local authorities and villagers. Everyone was just waiting for a legitimate platform to speak out," said Sangha of 3SPN. "Now we need to follow up with the national governments to make sure they come through on their promises. That's the biggest challenge."
With additional reporting by Brett Eloff.
]]>Delivering water to affected villages has been a race against time, as water pipes, generators, pumps, and electricity supplies have been destroyed or severely damaged in the conflict.
"In some of the villages, 80 percent of homes have been destroyed along with vital water systems of pipelines and large water storage reservoirs,” said Simon Springett, Country Program Manager for Oxfam.
"Access to clean drinking water and water for personal hygiene is vital to keeping people healthy in the wake of such a humanitarian disaster. We've geared up our delivery to bring immediate relief to families, but we're also working to repair water systems to enable villages to supply their own water again."
Oxfam, working with contractors and partners, is now supplying 1.2 million liters (312,000 gallons) a day to seven villages in south Lebanon and 360,000 liters (93,600 gallons) a day to the heavily bombed southern suburbs of Beirut.
Damage caused by the bombing has cut electricity to many villages and they now rely on emergency generators. Oxfam is providing a large generator to the southern town of Sifra that will pump enough water to supply the 12,000 local residents. Oxfam will also be assisting five southern towns to repair the pumping capacity of their main water supply wells. Where generators are working, Oxfam is supplying 300 liters (78 gallons) of fuel a day.
Oxfam is also supplying:
One of the remarkable things about Darfur is the number of people who are still volunteering with health committees after three years of living in Abu Shouk and Al Salaam camps outside of North Darfur's capital of El Fasher.
About 60 percent of the original committee volunteers at Abu Shouk have continued with their work. At nearby Al Salaam camp, the number is 80 percent. Their help is pivotal to the success of Oxfam's public health work in the camps. Every week they spend several hours visiting households in their allocated blocks and inspecting the surrounding areas.
They go shelter to shelter talking with families and sharing information on good hygiene. They check latrines for cleanliness and wear. And they instruct families on how to keep their water clean by making sure the jerry cans in which they store it are scrubbed with powdered soap and chlorine.
"We wanted to serve our people and to raise the awareness of the population so that everyone's at the same level," says Kaltoum Ali Asad, a volunteer at Abu Shouk.
"If we don't volunteer to do something the people would suffer and there'd be outbreaks of diseases and illnesses," adds Namma Saed Haroun at Al Salaam camp. "If we didn't volunteer it would be us who would eventually suffer, so we will continue to volunteer."
Their efforts win high praise from the agency.
"The volunteers work really hard," says Hussaam Eddin Mirghani, Oxfam's team leader at Abu Shouk. "They volunteer because they're afraid of diseases, especially diarrheal diseases, spreading throughout the camp. The volunteers really feel the necessity to support their communities and their people, who are really suffering in this dreadful situation."
Camp life is bleak. Ahmed Eysa, who has lived at Abu Shouk for three years with is family, makes that clear.
"Life here is horrible," he says. "It's full of difficulties, and we don't have any solutions in our hands. There are no choices for the people living here in the camp."
But Eysa has made one choice—an important one that will make a difference to others in the camp. He chose to volunteer, and he has continued giving his time for three years.
"We have to adapt to our situation and we really need to respond," he says. "There's no way we could give up."
Soon, the rains will come and fall heavily. Living conditions in the camps will deteriorate, and the threat of diseases like cholera, malaria, and diarrhea will rise. Then, the job of the health committee workers will be even more vital.
]]>In a place where there is no electricity to run a pump, where llamas instead of trucks transport many of the goods, and where most people rely on a local spiky grass for their cooking fuel, gravity is the free and super-abundant energy source that is now powering Simon Ccalachua's sprinkler. And beneath the arc of water it sprays, a new growth of hardy rye grass is now sprouting—the guarantee that Ccalachua's alpacas will have the nourishment they need.
Here in Jachaña, a small hamlet in the district of Caylloma, Oxfam America and its local partner, Asociación Proyección, have launched a pilot project aimed at helping poor herders find ways to improve their resources so they can better withstand the hardships of mountain living—the cold, the snow, the remoteness. The sprinkler systems—there are now three scattered around the district—are part of a larger program that has helped 355 families in the area with everything from veterinary services to the production of high-altitude barley for their animals. The effort is part of Oxfam America's strategy to help Andean communities adapt to climate change, some signs of which are already apparent.
"They used to rely on nature and now they know how to work on channels and sprinkling," said a translator, summarizing the benefits for Ccalachua. "Before this project, the mortality of the animals (was very high). Now the mortality is 3 to 10 percent".
Using the resources at hand—a mountain spring and the pull of gravity—the agencies worked with Ccalachu to irrigate about two-and-a-half acres of his sloped, rocky land. Well-watered and well-fertilized (naturally, with alpaca droppings), a pasture that size is big enough to keep 20 alpacas happily nourished, said Arturo Rivera Vigil, the field coordinator for Proyección. The trick is to fence off portions of the pasture after the animals have grazed, allowing the grasses to recover. By the time the herd completes a full rotation, the grass where they started will be ready to eat again.
The system has a number of benefits, said Rivera. The robust diet the animals get encourages them to produce more wool. Instead of one or two pounds of wool, each alpaca can produce between two and four pounds—which in turn means more income for herding families. Keeping watch over the animals in a fenced pasture is a great deal easier for a herder than following them high and low as they roam freely looking for natural grasses, added Rivera. And the mechanism is easy fairly easy to construct: A small reservoir above the field, lined with plastic, is connected it to a pipe running down the hill. With the twist of a valve, the reservoir opens and the water gushes down through a pipe, shooting through slow-spinning sprinklers set in a line across the field.
The only stumbling block is cost. The price tag on each of these sprinkler systems is $1,625, and that doesn't include the cost of the machinery used to help dig the small reservoir.
"That's why (Caylloma) City Hall has to get involved," said Angel Chavez, an Oxfam America humanitarian officer who has worked on the project. Using tax dollars, local government needs to help support these kinds of projects, he added.
That's what the people of Jachaña want too—more sprinklers like the one Ccalachua has. A few pipes hooked to a few small reservoirs could go a long way toward improving the resilience of these mountain families. And though life at nearly 16,000 feet above sea level can be hard, there is no other place some herders can imagine living.
"There is no pollution. The water is nicer. And we have open fields," said Timoteo Ccalahua Quispe.
This activity is part of Oxfam America's adaptation strategy on climate change in Andean communities where already there are some signals of the climate change effects.
]]>Alami Bera is one such woman living in Ethiopia's Bacho district, about 50 miles southwest of Addis Ababa. A mother of twelve children, Alami and her husband toil on their farm to support eight of their unmarried children. Sometimes they are elated with their plentiful harvest, but other times they struggle to feed their large family. They work on their field year round to grow wheat and teff, and make the two-hour trek on foot to sell what they have harvested at the nearest open-air market. This is the same market that Alami walks to every week to purchase items for her family's consumption.
Up until the time Oxfam America partnered up with Oromo Self Reliance Association (OSRA) to launch the Sodo Liben Water Supply and Sanitation project, Alami, her family, and the other 3,000 people living in Sodo Liben locality had no access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities. Waterborne diseases and other illnesses caused by lack of hygiene were rampant.
With heavy clay water pots on their backs, women and young girls traveled great distances on foot to fetch water from polluted streams. The hardship of fetching water increased as the dry season advanced, with the water levels dropping and the streams running dry. Women then would have to trudge down deep gorges and climb back up, lugging six gallons of water—about 50 pounds—on their backs.
For the 80 households living in Alami's village, the only near source of water was an ella, or traditional well, located at the heart of the village. The well, about 82 feet deep, had never been fit for drinking, but Alami had no choice other than to let her family drink from it. When the seasonal ella ran dry, Alami and the other women in her village walked two hours to fetch water from the nearest stream. One trip was never enough to meet the daily water needs of a family of 14. In a society where the burden of fetching water falls on women and young girls, Alami had to travel to the stream two or three times a day to fetch water.
"I knew the water I was giving my children was making them sick, but you have to know that I had no choice," said Alami. "I had only two choices. Either give my family filthy water to drink and bathe in or don't give them any water at all."
Ethiopia is known as the Water Tower of the Horn of Africa—a place with 12 river basins and vast underground reserves of water. Yet, the country has not been able to harness that potential. Countless traditional songs, poems, and proverbs praise the country's great rivers but lament the fact that the children of the mighty Blue Nile go thirsty while the river traverses boundaries to flow to far away lands and turn deserts into oasis. The irony is not lost on anyone.
Oxfam America set out on this project to provide a supply of clean drinking water and sanitation structures to improve health conditions and boost the productivity of people living in10 different sites within the district. Through this intervention, Oxfam America also intended to reduce the toil on women and young girls who had to walk great distances to fetch water. Oxfam and its partner constructed shallow wells, pit latrines, and washing stations and provided training to the communities on how to use them.
"Only a woman can fully appreciate what it means to have clean water near by," said Alami, pointing to the well and hand pump located only five yards from her thatch-roofed hut. "It now only takes me two minutes to pump out 7 gallons of clean water."
The hand-pumped well, which stands proudly in the middle of the village, is available five hours a day and the 80 households each get turns filling their jerricans for their daily use. The community imposed the five-hour limit to reduce wear and tear on the pump.
"What mother wouldn't give up everything she has to see her children's health restored?" asked Alami. "For the first time in our lives, our family is drinking and washing with clean water and using pit latrines."
Women in communities with the new wells are seeing some changes in gender role dynamics as more men are taking the initiative to fetch water for their families. It is a cultural taboo for a man to fetch water from a stream and carry it home on his back, so even the most helpful of husbands would only fetch water if the family owned a pack animal that could do the job.
"Imagine my husband sharing the water fetching responsibility with me," said Alami chuckling. "But he does it now, and I happily let him."
]]>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.
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