Across Ethiopia, these are the images tied to cycles of drought that plague one of the poorest countries in the world. Most recently, a drought triggered a humanitarian crisis in early 2006 for more than 2.5 million people. Many of them were herders dependent on the rain to nourish pastureland for their animals—their central source of food and income.

Oxfam and the local organizations with which it works respond to these cycles of drought with both emergency assistance to ease the immediate suffering of people and their animals, and with programs aimed at longer-term solutions to address the region's severe water shortages and to improve the health of its livestock.

For example, in Afar, one of Ethiopia's northern regions, a water shortage in 2005 forced some people to walk up to four hours one way in search of the critical resource. Irregular and weak rainfall in the previous few years had caused pastureland to shrivel and water sources to disappear. About 90 percent of the people in Afar are herders, and many of their animals died as a consequence of the drought.

To help families survive, Oxfam and one of the local groups with which it works, the Afar Pastoralist Development Association (APDA), launched a project to truck water to three sites in Afar's Dubti district. The agencies set up 12 large tanks that could each hold 1,321 gallons of water. The trucks made daily deliveries to the tanks—the furthest of which was 70 miles from the well that provided the water.

Though only a temporary solution—and a costly one—the water trucking substantially relieved stress on the herders. Women who had been walking for eight to 10 hours to fetch water from a neighboring district had their trek cut to just a few kilometers.

In another area of Afar, Oxfam provided APDA with an $83,000 grant to offer veterinary care to 410,000 animals. The goal was to prevent the spread of common diseases such as Anthrax, Blackleg, and Pastereulosis.

More recently, in southern Ethiopia, Oxfam and another local partner, the Gayo Pastoral Development Initiative, worked on the restoration of a local pond so it could hold enough water to last between the sporadic rainy seasons. The pond is a central source of drinking water for the community's animals. As in Afar, many people in this part of the Oromiya region are herders.

The 2006 pond project did two things. It provided temporary work for local people hired to deepen the pond, thereby giving them a source of income to help tide them through the drought that was killing their animals. And secondly, the improvements will last into the future, ensuring that when the next drought comes the pond will be able to retain whatever limited amount of rain does fall.

Shortages of critical resources, such as water and pasture, can often spark conflict among different ethnic groups. A key part of Oxfam's work in parts of Ethiopia is peace-building—helping people find ways to resolve disputes without resorting to violence. Around the border town of Moyale in southern Ethiopia, for instance, Oxfam and the Research Center for Civic and Human Rights Education have established a series of peace councils whose job it is to intervene among sparring groups when tension begins to run high.

Elsewhere in Oromiya, Oxfam has been working with the Oromo Self-Reliance Association on a series of water supply projects that have improved the lives of 1,800 people in three communities about 50 miles southwest of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital. Oxfam contributed $42,000 to underwrite the cost of wells, pumps, bathing sheds, and laundry stations.

Before these improvements, women in one of the communities, Gura, were walking up to three hours a day to fetch water—and often it was dirty. The parasites that occasionally contaminated the water sickened the children who drank it. Now, for families in Gura, clean, cool water is just minutes away. A nearby pump taps into an aquifer 200 feet deep.

The water supply projects have made such a marked difference in people's lives that neighboring communities are now asking officials to make similar improvements in their villages.

Easy access to clean water, through projects like these, is critical in stemming the poverty that affects so much of Ethiopia. And they are part of the global drive to meet the Millennium Development Goals—a series of international targets aimed at cutting by half by 2015 the number of people around the world who do not have access to clean drinking water.

But proverbs can evolve over time and no longer be accepted as true. As communities become more educated, they may update their perspective. In one village in Oromiya, future proverbs may reflect the wisdom of educating women and the changes in communities when this occurs.

Like many places, Southwest Shewa in Oromiya has a history of practices that harm women. Traditional culture here often oppresses women, whether involving female circumcision (genital mutilation), early marriage, abduction, battery, or the inheritance of a wife upon the death of her husband.

What is called "culture" often reflects matters of convenience. The abduction of women for marriage has increased as the economy has declined, since husbands no longer want to pay for weddings and dowries. Inheriting a wife from a dead relative is another way of keeping land in the family. An economy of subjugation serves to control women who do most of the work in a household. And female circumcision is thought to dampen a woman's sexual desires, making her calmer, less willful and uncontrollable, less likely to "break everything." Some of these practices, especially female circumcision, are perpetuated by women themselves, concerned that their daughters will be unmarriageable unless they follow established tradition.

Yet one village in Southwest Shewa is starting to change such practices. Oxfam America, through a partner organization, the Oromo Self-Reliance Association (OSRA), began the reeducation process in Adaa Berga district eight months ago. Women and men in the communities are learning about women’s rights and initiating their own changes to harmful practices. This training is coupled with a livelihoods project, the establishment of a cereal bank run by women. The cereal bank, where grain is stored to be sold when prices are high, empowers women by providing them with some economic security and supplementary income. Women must take the civic education course as a condition of joining the women's cooperative. That powerful combination makes both the education and the cooperative more effective.

The Oxfam-supported women-run cooperative has named itself Qubse, which means "hope for the future." The women on the committee have all attended OSRA trainings, enabling them to become advocates in their own communities. But "hope for the future" is not limited to economic growth through the cereal bank. It means realizing the dream of a better life for each woman and her neighbor, a life of rights and respect for themselves and future generations.

The education has been an eye-opening experience for many people in the community. For some, the lessons have come late in life, but the whole community stands to benefit—especially the girls.

Mulu Gofta, a 45-year-old mother of four, is clear about what she hopes for the future. "One thing the good life means to me is educating your children. You support your daughters in education. First they will help me, then they will help the community, and in a few years they will help our people."

It is a sentiment that is echoed by others, most notably by 46-year-old Abebu Kebebe. For nearly a decade, Abebu has struggled as head of her household, a single mother widowed and left with nine children. Like many others in the community, she speaks of educating her daughter, saying, "That is the good life. That is the good hope for me. Also, this will be helping my neighbors and being an example."

Several years ago, Abebu forced one daughter into marriage at age 11. Her daughter left school, where she was in 4th grade. Now, after attending the OSRA training funded by Oxfam, Abebu has changed her outlook on early marriage and other traditional practices.

She says: "Now that I've had training on harmful practices—early marriage, female circumcision, abduction—I really regret doing what I did to my children. I married [them] off before I learned. Had I the chance again, I would not do it." Within months, Abebu has changed her opinions on the treatment of women, becoming an advocate for change. "I don't only stop at regretting what I have done," she says. "I share what I have learned with my neighbors, with relatives. I'm doing my best."

Abebu’s voice rings out proudly. She has met more than her share of hardships and is not afraid of change that will ease life for future generations of women. Her face framed in a black headscarf, she sits regally among the women, respected and liked by the community. Her shoes are unlaced and made of plastic, her skin is prematurely aged by the sun, and a life of labor stretches behind her. Ahead of her is a future that she can watch taking shape in other women in her own village. She is fearless, sharing her knowledge and teaching from her own experience—her own regrets.

It is through such discussion and sharing of information that what once was an oddity can become accepted. Twenty-five-year-old Meseret Nugussie, herself circumcised, speaks passionately about what she has learned and how she will apply her knowledge: "I know the problems now of circumcision. I have two girls and I will make sure it does not happen to them."

For Meseret's daughters, it is not too late. Major change in this village happens one daughter at a time.

Abebu now views her 8-year-old daughter Tiya differently than her previous children. With Tiya there is another chance, a hope for the future—Qubse. Abebu is now a different woman than a year ago, as she vows, "I will educate her until my last breath leaves." Perhaps one day that will be the village’s new proverb.

Shito Massele, a 30-year-old mother of four, sits outside, her back against the warehouse wall. She is one of 96 members of the Qubse cooperative, a cereal bank run by women and funded by Oxfam. In a community where women previously were not consulted on business decisions, today they are ensuring economic and food security for themselves and their families. In fact, their work will turn a profit, generating additional income for their village.

"Before, the women were not even supposed to come near the scale," Shito says. "Now we can weigh things ourselves, our own grain." On this property, the women are not just weighing the grain; they are also fixing the price and deciding when and where to sell it. The land is theirs as well, donated by the village administration.

The cereal bank began nine months ago, with help from Oxfam America and OSRA and the encouragement of the village administration. Given a warehouse and seed money, the cooperative now controls the purchase, storage, and sale of grain.

In Oromiya region, where the project is based, having control of these basic factors has a huge impact. Before the cooperative was established, farmers were forced to sell most of their crops immediately after harvest to settle loans and taxes. During the rainy season, grain was scarce and prices rose. To feed their families, farmers were forced to take out more loans at high interest rates—sometimes simply to buy back their own crops, continuing the cycle of poverty.

The new cereal bank has enabled the community to store some of its harvest, setting grain aside for sale during the rainy season when the market price is high. The women thereby make a profit and ensure food stability for the next planting season.

The cereal bank's organizers stipulated that each prospective member had to attend civic education classes focusing on women's rights. The combined impact of both the classes and the cereal bank has been enormous.

Following the training, attitudes toward traditional practices harmful to women have changed noticeably. Furthermore, the women have proved themselves just as capable of earning an income as men are, thereby gaining the respect of the entire community. Indeed, many farmers prefer to sell their grain to the cooperative because of its reputation for honesty; the women will not try to cheat the farmer.

Being valued in the community is new to the women, but hard work is not. Before the cereal bank, women had little power, according to 46-year-old Abebu Kebebe. She recites her daily activities in a monotone, as if it is a chant she is used to repeating:

"For us it is clear that men are not stronger than us. Early in the morning, I clean the house and take care of the animals, travel two hours to collect murky water, return, cook, take care of the children. It is the oldest burden. Nothing is as simple as it seems. We do a lot of work the whole day, but [the men] move oxen and plow for an afternoon and come home. They move the animals and consider they moved a mountain."

Now, however, the women make all decisions involving the cereal bank, and are able to control their finances and ensure their own economic security.

The success of the Qubse cooperative has not gone unnoticed in neighboring villages. Three kilometers away, another group of women approached OSRA and their village administration, asking if they too could start a similar project. Dirre Dame, 67, chairwoman of the new cooperative, says it began because "we were encouraged by the group, so we organized ourselves, inspired."

The new cooperative, Association Gura, has only been around for a month, but the impact on the women is already noticeable as they plan what to do with the eventual profits. This is the first time these women have had any economic power. In a village where the nearest school is a three-hour walk away, women see this is the beginning of change and a better life for their children.

Some of the changes may seem basic: food, clothes, education for their children. Other women have bigger dreams, hoping to invest in land or animals some day. Right now, however, they focus on meeting the basic necessities, including a secure source of food. They plan eventually to build a small health clinic with the profits, noting that many women die in childbirth because there is no clinic nearby.

Regatto Bedhasa, a 57-year-old mother of six, explains what empowering women to take control of their lives has meant to her community:

"This becomes a hope for us," she says. "We can change our life without having been educated, without knowledge, without experience. We can change our situation."

Dhara Botara, a mother of eight in the remote community of Gura in Ethiopia’s Oromiya region, used to spend more than three hours each day walking to fetch water, sometimes accompanied by some of her children. The surface water she collected was often dirty and sometimes contaminated with parasites, which sickened her children.

Today, Dhara gets clean water twice a day from a new pump located just minutes from her home. In the morning and again in the afternoon, she visits the pump to haul back one or two five-gallon water containers. The water, from an aquifer 200 feet deep, comes out pure and cool.

In addition, she and her family now have access to a private bathing shed and a concrete washstand where they can wash their clothes and dishes.

The water project is one of three developed in the past year by the Oromo Self-Reliance Association with support from Oxfam America. Oxfam’s $42,000 contribution also underwrote the cost of the wells, pumps, bathing sheds, and laundry stations in two other communities besides Gura—Qamaxo and Alanqa—some 50 miles southwest of Addis Ababa. Altogether, some 1,800 people are benefiting from the water projects, which were inaugurated recently in separate ceremonies in the three communities.

"Clean water is just part of the equation," says Abera Tola, Oxfam America's regional director for the Horn of Africa. "Women now have more time to spend with their families, children can spend more time in school—the whole community benefits from these projects."

So popular are the water projects that neighboring communities have sent delegations to local authorities asking for the installation of similar facilities for their use.

Dhara and other beneficiaries in Gura pay 1 birr (about 12 cents) a month toward the upkeep of the washstand and pump, which is surrounded by a fence and open for six hours a day. But it’s clear from the smile on her face that the change it has brought to women in the community has been priceless.

If she does, there's a chance she will be beaten or raped. If she doesn't, she won't be able to cook breakfast for her children. Even the donkey might starve. Piles of rotting carcasses along one edge of the camp are a constant reminder that many other animals have perished.

Muna isn't her real name, but the difficult choices this mother of five has to make are very real. And so are the dangers she and countless other women face each day in Darfur. In some camps, women, children, and old men make up the majority of the population. Many of the younger men have been killed in attacks.

Not collecting firewood or fodder would have other consequences as well. The first provides cash to help Muna feed her family, and the second keeps her donkey healthy enough to haul water.

Muna and her children are among the hundreds of thousands of families in Darfur who receive monthly food distributions from the World Food Program. The staple grains, a protein-rich mix of corn and soy, and cooking oil are a welcome contribution, but Muna needs a few other ingredients to prepare even the most basic meal. She sells some of the firewood in the local market to earn a few extra dinars to buy onions, tomatoes, dried okra, or chilies to supplement her family's diet. Without the firewood, she would have to sell a portion of the food ration itself in order to buy the additional items. But the amount she receives each month is already barely enough to survive.

The donkey fodder is also very important, since Muna needs her donkey to carry water from the nearby well several times a day. When that well runs dry, as it often does this time of year, she must travel even farther to fetch water. This, too, can be a perilous journey that exposes her to potential violence.

But even the camp that Muna shares with 15,000 other displaced people isn't particularly safe. The straw walls of her small compound provide some privacy, but no real protection. Her "house" is just a shelter made of sticks and plastic sheeting. Sometimes armed men come into the camp at night. They shout and laugh and fire their guns into the air, terrorizing the population.

On the day an Oxfam team arrived for a field visit, the body of a camp resident had been found near the dry riverbed on one side of town. People said he had been beaten to death during the night. The previous week, a group of men from outside the camp visited a house not far from Muna's. They beat the man who lived in the house and raped his wife.

Beyond the perimeter of the camp where Muna lives, there are other groups of people who don't seem afraid at all. Nomadic tribes continue to roam freely in this area. Some of them ride horses and camels, and some of them carry guns. They keep watch over enormous herds of cattle, camels, sheep, and goats. Their animals graze peacefully among the charred ruins of mud-brick huts in the many abandoned villages that dot the landscape.

Of course, not all nomadic tribes are affiliated with the notorious Janjaweed militias that continue to terrorize civilians throughout Darfur. But the contrast is striking: Most of the nomads the Oxfam team met in the Wadi Salih area were confident, reasonably well-fed and secure, while Muna and her neighbors are often sick and hungry, and live in constant fear.

Although people in Muna's camp can see their destroyed village in the distance, they insist that it is too dangerous to return. The armed groups prowling the countryside have effectively imprisoned the displaced Sudanese in the camp.

Retrospective mortality studies have shown that violence has been the leading cause of death in Darfur since the region plunged into conflict in February 2003. It is difficult to calculate exactly how many people have died, but one thing is dreadfully clear: The violence continues.

Every morning, in hundreds of camps and towns across Darfur, mothers like Muna get up to face yet another day filled with threats of robbery, murder, and rape. The fear is debilitating, but the options are few. After agonizing over the alternatives, Muna will go out to collect firewood and fodder. She can't afford not to.