That’s why an Oxfam America emergency response launched in La Pelota last October sought not only to meet people’s immediate needs, but to help them mitigate the risks of their community for the future.
When it rains hard, La Pelota is one of the first communities in the area to flood, in part because a vigorously growing plant called la ninfa clogs the local waterways. The plant is a sign of another problem people face: poor infrastructure for sanitation. Most families rely on pit latrines whose contaminants feed the growth of la ninfa.
In October, Tropical Depression 12-E hit. It rained for almost two weeks straight. On one side of La Pelota the lake overflowed, and on the other side its natural drain spilled its banks.
“It began to rain quite a lot. Little by little, the lake drained, but then the water level rose as it continued to rain,” said Juan Francisco Flores, a 32-year-old community member. “The lake doesn’t flow fast enough through the channel. The water backs up and that’s what floods the community… The stream was flooding on one side and the lake on the other. We were isolated.”
The response from the community to the flooding was well planned and evacuation was timely, due to preparedness work that had been done by Oxfam partner Fundación Maquilishuat (FUMA), in recent years. However, damage to crops was severe.
Together with FUMA and the World Food Programme, Oxfam America launched a food-for-work initiative that not only helped families in La Pelota survive in the first months after the emergency, but reduced the risk they would face in the future. FUMA and citizens of La Pelota decided to clean out the channel to allow the water to flow more easily and prevent flooding. Oxfam provided material to do the work, FUMA provided monitoring and technical assistance, and the families carried out the work.
The project provided people with 100 pounds of corn, 33 pounds of rice, 20 pounds of beans, and a gallon of cooking oil, in exchange for 80 hours of work a month.
“The food-for-work project has been well received. It was very effective to implement this project at this time of year, when people usually don’t have work,” says Sandra Quinteros of FUMA. “There’s been a selection process for the FFW program, with several criteria—that they lost at least 50 percent of their production; that they live on less than two dollars a day; that they have many children or older adults to care for; that they are day laborers; and that they are willing to work.”
The food-for-work project has been implemented in 99 poor communities like La Pelota, in 15 municipalities throughout El Salvador. A total of 3,800 families earned a three-month supply of corn, beans, rice, and oil for a family of five, enabling them to recover from their losses and now live in better prepared communities.
]]>The mega floods of last year would have challenged any government, but the emergency response led by Pakistani authorities saved thousands of lives. However, Oxfam has expressed concern about the pace of recovery and reconstruction, which has left millions of people unnecessarily exposed to another disaster.
Husna La Shari is one survivor who is struggling to rebuild her life in Khawand La Shari in Shikapur, Sindh. Her family and community were hit hard by the flooding last July. Husna has 7 children and an elderly husband. She is responsible for providing for her entire family as her husband is too old to work. Before the floods last July, she worked on fields farming and harvesting. But after the floods, the fields are no longer fertile and Husna is struggling to feed her family. Oxfam is working in Husna’s village providing latrines and rehabilitating water pumps. Husna took part in Oxfam’s Cash for Work program in her village, clearing rubble and cleaning irrigation channels in the fields.
“It was difficult for me before the flood and it is now more difficult for me as there is no farming or harvesting. We cannot cultivate the land here this year… PDI (Oxfam’s partner) came and gave us money for doing labor. We collected whatever remained of our houses and we put it all in one place and together we cleaned the village. My husband was not capable, so I did it, I earned the money. PDI gave us kitchen pots, blankets, quilts and buckets and we are thankful as they helped us a lot. I am still in trouble to get food. How will I feed my family?”
Around 37,000 people affected by the 2010 floods are still living in camps in Sindh alone; and across the country, many of those who have returned to their villages have inadequate housing, with some still living in tents. More than 800,000 families are still without proper homes and many flood defenses, such as river embankments, destroyed in last year’s floods, have not yet been properly repaired. This increases the likelihood of breaches in future floods. For example, embankments in Sindh province have reportedly been increased by only two or three feet rather than the recommended six feet.
Neva Khan, Head of Oxfam in Pakistan, said:
“Pakistan needs to act now. Investing in measures today that reduce the impact of disasters is essential to save lives and safeguard development gains in the future. It will ensure schools built with aid funds are not washed away and that farmers can keep the crops they have toiled over. A year after Pakistan’s mega floods it’s time we learned this lesson.”
For children in the Shikapur district of Sindh, playing an interactive game is one way to avoid the risk of illness which often comes in the wake of a natural disaster. Julia Moore, a hygiene promotor for Oxfam, teaches children basic hygiene activities such as washing their hands and faces and showing them how to use a latrine.
“Pakistan is a disaster-prone country and has been flooded 67 times since 1947. Climate change will only increase the threat of floods. But while floods and earthquakes are inevitable, widespread devastation is not. For years, not enough has been done to protect ordinary Pakistani men, women, and children from disasters before they strike.” Says Kahn.
Lives and scarce resources could be saved in the future if the Pakistan government, with support from international donors, invests more in measures to reduce the impact of disasters. This could include flood resistant housing, and effective early warning systems – especially at the village level. In order to implement these programs, more funding is needed for local authorities and organizations that play a frontline role in preparing for and responding to emergencies.
]]>— Padmanaban, farmer of Sengapadai
The farmers of the village of Sengapadai, India, make it their business to know what's coming. They are fortune-tellers of sorts, who look deep into history in order to forecast the future. Using methods that have evolved over thousands of years, they watch the movement of the stars, notice the feel of the wind on a given day of the month or year, and carefully observe the behavior of plants and animals. At the heart of the mysteries they set out to unravel each year is this: When will the rains come?
If they miscalculate, the consequences can be grave. In years past, it has meant families postponed not only weddings but also medical care. Sons and daughters have dropped out of school, ending their formal education. They've pawned their jewelry, which represents their savings—even the necklaces that symbolize their marriages. And, says 51-year-old Jakkammal, "In a bad year, there's only one meal a day."
The specter of bad harvests looms larger than ever these days because, as one farmer put it, "We are not getting proper rain."
Rains are coming when they shouldn't and not coming when they should, and the traditional forecasting methods, unable to adapt to the speed of change, are losing their power to predict.
"There's been a vast difference in rainfall patterns in the last 10 years," says Jeeva Rathinam, another farmer. "Before that, we used to plan properly and plant one kind of seed in the fields. Now we have to mix them together and see what comes up."
"The rainfall variations these farmers are seeing now are defeating their knowledge of the way nature functions," says Hari Krishna, Oxfam's research program manager in India.
Climate change, in other words, has come to Sengapadai.
The DHAN Foundation's ACEDRR, an Oxfam partner, has set out to help communities adjust to the changing climate landscape. Researcher B. Arthirani, herself the daughter of farmers, gathered and analyzed 40 years' worth of local rainfall data, and on a sweltering day in May 2008, the farmers of Sengapadai came together to learn the results.
Rains that once fell here predictably in July, she told them, can now be expected to arrive in late August. Then she made a proposal: delay sowing peanuts until between Aug. 10 and 16.
A heated discussion followed. Shifting to accommodate the rains could make some crops more vulnerable to infestations of weeds and pests, and the farmers argued pros and cons of various plans. But an hour later, everyone had come to agreement: the best way to balance all the factors would probably be to plant corn in September.
This is not research as it's conducted at universities, where academics carry out studies at a comfortable distance from actual farmers, and where recommendations are conveyed to the villagers in top-down fashion. That day's discussion, which began with Arthirani's educated guess about what to sow when, ended with a practical plan that drew on knowledge from both inside and outside the community. The ACEDRR study, says Arthirani, "is not a one-way process."
Community members are not simply considered beneficiaries of the study, explained Hari Krishna. "Here, they are partners in the research. They know best about their soil, their sky, their water, and what crops suit their needs."
Outside the meeting place, a heifer nosed along the roadside looking for something to graze on, and a bullock cart passed by with a load of fodder. Women headloading firewood and water walked along the dusty main street in the fierce midday sun, and in the distance, a man stood knee-deep in a pond, splashing water on his team of bullocks after what had probably been a morning of hard labor in the fields.
Fossil fuels and all their labor-saving pleasures seem to have bypassed this village entirely. There were no cars or tractors in sight, and despite the scorching temperature, no one was heading home to air conditioning or refrigerated drinks. It is a painful irony that many of those who have done least to bring about climate change are the most vulnerable to its effects.
DHAN is tackling that vulnerability on two fronts: the disaster-oriented research of ACEDRR is helping ensure that changing rainfall patterns don't lead to catastrophic crop losses, while DHAN's development programs are building resilience in other ways—helping those same farmers organize themselves into self-help groups that enable savings and investment; creating federations that have clout in the marketplace; and helping farmers gain access to high-quality seed, affordable insurance, and lenders that charge two percent interest instead of ten.
It is an approach that is working. By November it was clear that the shift from peanuts to corn was a big success. But there are signs everywhere of the growing security of this community—most convincingly in the confident smile of Jakkammal. The days of one bad harvest plunging the community into debt and hunger, it seems, are over. "After joining DHAN," she says, "we are able to have three meals."
]]>Watching her in action, in her long orange tunic, it's clear that Aryarathne has found her calling—far from where she began in a Sri Lankan architectural firm working on designs for multi-national companies.
How did she wind up here, near the Kalu River in the Ratnapura district of Sri Lanka, helping women think about how to keep their families safe and ease the constant hardship that flooding brings?
"I always had a passion to do something for people who are less privileged than me," says Aryarathne. During her university years—as she was working toward her goal of becoming an architect—she couldn't help but think about the community outside the institution's walls: It was impoverished and yet the development of the university had done little to address that poverty. That fact bothered her deeply.
But it wasn't until Aryarathne landed her first architectural job that she got the chance to tackle that kind of injustice herself. Her firm won a contract to develop a Colombo laundry facility—a place where scores of people manually wash clothes and linens on a large scale for clients such as hotels and hospitals. The laundry sat on prime property that a multi-national company wanted to develop—and the city had agreed to let it go ahead in exchange for the corporation's commitment to build a replacement facility.
The design of that new facility fell to Aryarathne. And right from the beginning she followed the instincts that led her to where she is now: a consultant and trainer working with poor and marginalized people who have a great deal to say about how to improve their lives, but little opportunity to be heard.
Warned that the washers could become unruly and that she should be careful, Aryarathne visited the old laundry facility. Instead of being afraid, she found herself deep in conversation with the people there—after telling them the truth about the construction proposal. If it happens, she asked, what would they like a new facility to include?
The floodgates opened, and though she didn't know it then, Aryarathne had her first exhilarating experience with participatory action research—a method of working with communities on problems whose solutions they will own. At that first laundry meeting, she learned everything about their work, from soaking and soaping, to boiling and hammering.
"That was my first exposure to a community—and it was really good," said Aryarathne. "I knew they had a lot to tell me and all that my boss had said was not true."
Soon after followed other participatory architectural projects, and gradually Aryarathne came to see where her real interests lay: With people working on initiatives that will improve their lives.
Fourteen years ago—leaving behind years of training and a budding architectural career—she made the shift from the private sector into the development world. And she hasn't looked back.
"This is more satisfying than architecture," says Aryarathne.
In the small community building in Ratnapura, the session with community members comes to an end. Aryarathne looks thoughtful as she folds up the charts she has just made with their help—charts that list the problems associated with flooding and some of the solutions villagers have proposed. She will compile the findings for an Oxfam-supported study aimed at promoting equal participation of both men and women in programs to reduce their risk of disaster.
"Architects are at the service of rich people," said Aryarathne later. "Just as you cater to multi-millionaires, villagers need our services, too."
]]>"When a cyclone hits, it means you can lose everything," said Khan, Oxfam America's humanitarian response officer in East Asia. "Rich and poor alike."
The entire coastal zone is prone to violent storms and tropical cyclones between April and May—before the monsoon season starts—and again in October and November, when the monsoon has ended. Khan estimates that cyclones have killed nearly one million Bangladeshis since 1820. In 1970, one event alone took about half those lives. With a storm surge topping 30 feet, that November 12th cyclone killed 500,000 people and more than one million heads of cattle.
The disaster pushed the United Nations to ask the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to develop an early warning system for the country, said Khan. The result was the establishment of the Cyclone Preparedness Program, a community-based volunteer organization that provides early warning to people, and then helps with relief work and first aid after the storms hit.
But 21 years after the deadliest storm in Bangladesh's history, another devastating cyclone struck the country in late April, 1991, killing 138,000 people. It was at that point, said Khan, that Bangladesh began to look seriously at the steps it could take to help people prepare for the inevitable.
At the urging of aid groups and the donor community, the government of Bangladesh began to shift its emergency response programs to focus more heavily on preparedness. When Cyclone Sidr struck a few weeks ago in mid-November, evacuation planning, early warning systems, and the establishment of cyclone shelters helped to save about 100,000 lives.
Nevertheless, the physical devastation left in the storm's wake was stunning: Sidr damaged or destroyed 1.4 million homes, hurt more than two million acres of crops, and wiped out more than four million trees. What all of that means is that people have nowhere to live, many of them have lost their means for making a living, and food reserves have been wiped out.
While aid groups like Oxfam are responding with programs to provide clean water and sanitation to prevent the spread of waterborne disease and to supplement food in the months ahead, there is a great deal more that can be done to help people stay safe—and recover quickly—from storms like these.
Khan points to the need for more research on how to build low-cost but cyclone-tolerant housing in coastal areas. And then work needs to be done on developing programs with commercial banks to finance the construction of those homes. Additionally, aid groups need to help communities explore alternative ways for people to earn their livings, so that storms like Sidr don't wipe out all their options.
For these disaster risk reduction programs to be successful, added Khan, they need to be based at the community level—where local people will know best what the particular dangers are and what steps are needed to grapple with them. But there is an international component to this too: Donors need to support the preparedness work that local governments and aid groups are undertaking. It's a smart investment. Typically, each dollar spent on reducing a community's risk to disaster is worth about $8 in emergency relief.
]]>
"Caylloma. Caylloma. Caylloma," he says into the mic, and over the airwaves, not slowed for a moment by mud or steep ridges or gushing streams, comes the scratchy answer—accompanied by a big mayoral smile.
This is Chinosiri's new radio, one of four Oxfam America and its partner, Asociación Proyección, have installed in remote mountain hamlets around Caylloma following a devastating cold snap and heavy snow three years ago. The storm lasted five days, dumping nearly three feet of snow in the highlands, paralyzing families of alpaca herders who make their living there, and killing the grasses on which their precious animals feed. In some of the remotest communities, help didn't arrive for 10 days.
Now, for the 70 families living close to 16,000 feet above sea level in Chinosiri, calls for emergency aid can be broadcast instantly. And on the receiving end, storm alerts, picked up via the new radio, may soon give residents of the hamlet and their far-flung neighbors a chance to get ready.
"We can keep communications with authorities both ways," says Jaime Condori Inca, Chinosiri's 27-year-old radio operator whose job it is to establish contact twice a day—at 7 a.m. and again at 7 p.m.—with the world far below his hamlet.
The radio network is part of an early warning system that is helping 355 families scattered throughout the Caylloma district prepare for future emergencies.
Training has included the compilation of a list of natural signs—much like a farmer's almanac—that could indicate a pending change in weather. What can you expect when the sky is pink in the afternoon? Frost. If you should hear a sheep bleating at night, snow is surely on its way. And about that black lizard: its color announces plentiful rain. But if the lizard is white, the rain may be in short supply.
Gleaned from generations of herders' experiences with the harsh conditions in the Andes, the list now appears in a colorful training guide published by Oxfam and Proyección and distributed widely among Caylloma residents. But as weather patterns begin to shift—during the last three years, for instance, November rains didn't come until January—mountain families need new ways of understanding their environment. And that's where the radio comes in.
With it, Condori can send details about daily changes in the local weather to a national repository that collects meteorological data as part of a long-term tracking initiative. Caylloma is working with the Meteorologist National Services and the ministry of Agriculture on the project. Environmental details are gathered with the help of a small weather station—a sturdy white box with a thermometer mounted inside—that stands just behind the radio hut. It's checked daily and the temperature, along with noticeable precipitation, is carefully recorded on a chart next to the radio.
Across the highland plains, in the hamlet of Jachaña, sits a second radio, which in turn connects with another in Chinosiri and with a fourth one in the Caylloma town hall. It's here that Proyección has a small emergency operations center equipped with a computer, a printer, first-aid supplies, and a list of all the relevant radio frequencies.
Small though the radio network may be, it represents a major step forward for Caylloma—and is testament to the commitment of the entire district. Families arranged, for instance, to carry parts of the Chinosiri weather station up the mountainsides on the backs of llamas.
"The people from every community got involved," said Danny Gibbons, Oxfam America's communications officer in Lima. "They shared the burden."
Additionally, the radio network has helped people communicate about other emergencies such as health crises and alpaca rustling as well as improved coordination among different levels of government.
]]>