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.
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>A crowd has gathered, as it always does, to watch this momentous event: Wayongo and his crew are drilling a well in a place that looks so dry one wonders if water could possibly be percolating down below. But Wayongo, a public health engineer and well driller for Oxfam, is optimistic.
"We have not struck water, but the formation is giving us courage," he shouts over the roar of the hydraulic drill. "The problem is during the dry season, the water table is very far down."
This will be the fourth deep well Wayango and his crew of five men have drilled recently in the rural areas around Kebkabiya in North Darfur. The water improvements are part of an Oxfam program to help the people in 11 small villages in this region manage as the conflict that has consumed Darfur for more than three years rages on. The initiative also includes constructing latrines and distributing farming tools.
While most of Oxfam's work during the conflict has been geared toward preventing the spread of waterborne diseases among hundreds of thousands of people who have fled from their homes, the agency recognizes that the needs in Darfur extend far beyond the temporary camps to which displaced people have flocked.
"Although there are two million internally displaced people in camps, there are many others remaining in villages who need help too," said Alun McDonald, Oxfam's communications officer based in Khartoum.
And some of them are here on this small hill in Igro. Under a scorching sun, Wayongo is making his second attempt of the day to locate a new source of water for the inhabitants of this village. After drilling about 90 feet down on a nearby rise—and coming up empty—Wayongo decided to move a little closer to a dry river bed and try his luck there.
If he hits water, he'll quickly send a sample to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, to have it analyzed for salt and other contaminants. If it passes the test, the work crew will install a pump and build a platform around the well to keep the water clean when people draw it up.
Wayongo prefers to drill for water during the dry season because he knows that if he does strike it when the water table is at its lowest, then the supply will be a reliable one. Besides, during the rainy season, which typically stretches between June and October, this kind of work is difficult. The rain swamps the dirt tracks that serve as roads, turning them into mud that can swallow heavy trucks loaded with drilling equipment.
But it is not just the rain that makes movement difficult for Wayongo and his team. As with much of Darfur, the area around Kebkabiya is prone to hijackings and militia activity, and is not always safe to travel around, particularly after dark. When things are secure enough for the team to travel to the villages, they work late—and stay where they are.
So, after a hot and dusty day, Wayongo's crew won't be heading to Oxfam's headquarters and their own comfortable beds in Kebkabiya. They'll camp at Igro—and get an early start on the next day's drilling operation.
]]>As violence in this part of the remote region of western Sudan increases again, there is an expectation at Abu Shouk—and across Darfur—that no one will be heading back to their villages any time soon. In the face of that reality, the camp has undergone a slow transformation from a settlement of plastic-covered shelters hastily constructed with branches, to a community that has many of the trappings of permanence—and home.
"The camp now looks like a town," said Hind Adam Ali, an Oxfam public health promoter as she led visitors into the dense by neatly laid out settlement, divided into blocks with broad paths of sand, much like streets, running in between. Oxfam has been providing water, sanitation, and public health outreach to more than 50,000 people in the camp.
Abu Shouk lies close to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the place where the first serious fighting of the on-going conflict erupted more than three years ago. Since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement last May, fighting has actually intensified in this area and has again devastated many towns and villages north of El Fasher—the places that many of the people who have sought refuge in Abu Shouk originate from.
Increasingly, the camp has the feel of a sprawling capital neighborhood, within walking distance of El Fasher's main market and linked to the city by periodic family compounds that have recently sprouted on the plain between the camp and the capital.
By one estimate, 80 percent of Abu Shouk's shelters are now made of mud brick, and signs of that industry—the pocked ground from which the dirt is dug and mixed with water—dot the camp.
But the consequence of all that liquid-intensive building was that by the middle of July, the lines at the camp's pumps where people gather to fill their large plastic jerry cans with water to lug home for drinking and washing, were up to three hours long. At midsummer, only 23 of the camp's 33 hand pumps were producing any water. The other 10 had gone dry.
Housing isn't the only thing that is sucking up great volumes of water. Aid workers also say that camp residents, needing to provide for their families beyond the basics offered by aid groups, are collecting water at the camp and hauling it into the capital for sale.
The massive human need for water is simply outstripping the natural resources of the land, which is not meant to house so many thousands of people for such a long time.
"We've been talking to the leaders about it, but it's still going on," said Hind.
On the outskirts of Al Salaam, a newer camp established nearby to relieve some of the over-population at Abu Shouk, a brick works, masterminded by a gang of little boys, was also underway.
Despite the midday heat, one boy hardly noticed the visitors who appeared, so intent was he on shoveling dirt from the pit in which he stood. Jugs of water ringed some of the other pits. Another boy scooped fistfuls of mud into a sloppy heap onto which he stomped to squeeze out the extra water before packing the mud into a metal form, shaped like a rectangular bread pan. Set out in the sun, a row of the soggy bricks slowly dried. It would take two days before they would be done
Abdal Azim Tigani, 9 and caked in mud, announced that he had made 51 bricks which he planned to sell for 10 dinars—or 4 cents—each.
How many had he sold so far?
None, he replied, clearly content to be messing about in the cool mud on a hot day, and undaunted by the sales task ahead. But judging by the widespread use of the bricks throughout Abu Shouk, Abdal would have a ready market for his product.
At Abu Shouk, family plots once ringed with prickly branches now stand protected by thick walls. Many of the plots have morphed into mini-compounds with separate rooms for cooking, shelters for chickens, and stalls for donkeys—all made with mud bricks.
At one compound, the owner proudly showed off his satellite dish, tucked behind a curtain made from cut-up food sacks. The TV, he said, was stashed carefully in the bedroom of one of his wives, and electricity to power the high-tech production came from a neighbor who owned a generator. Every evening the whole neighborhood gathers around his screen to watch the news and keep up with the world outside Darfur. The biggest crowd, he added, was for this year's World Cup final.
Alleyways have formed between the compound walls, connecting to the broader "streets." Hurrying down one of them was Hawa Sulieman Ahmed, a member of one of the health committees Oxfam has organized at Abu Shouk to help promote good hygiene practices throughout the camp.
Coming upon Hind and her visitors, Hawa insisted on inviting the small crowd back to her "home,"—a small complex of tiny structures tucked behind a heavy mud wall with a metal door. When Hawa's family first arrived at the camp, a plastic sheet was their only shelter. Now, a dwelling of straw walls—paid for with the bricks they made and sold—houses a bed along with several mats and a carpet unfurled on the sandy ground. Recycled plastic grain sacks serve as the roof. In the corner of her compound, a stall for sponge-bathing and another housing a latrine, completed the makeshift creature comforts.
But despite appearances, Abu Shouk is no substitute for home. Time passes slowly, said Hawa, and she longs to see her family.
"When we are in our villages, we are so busy farming and doing other things, but here, there are no activities," she said. "And we're not happy because our family is separated. My mother is in one place, my sister is in another, and me here."
Mud bricks make a show of permanence. But what Hawa wants is something more important than that. Bidding farewell to the visitors, she asked them a final question: "Why is there no peace?"
]]>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.
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The stories that follow testify to the fact that aid can be used effectively—in Africa and beyond. By investing directly in people, by helping them gain access to education, credit, and natural resources, by challenging the policies that perpetuate poverty, Oxfam puts the systems in place that can end poverty. Without this work—and your support—people remain hungry, poor, and lacking meaningful ways to change their lives.
Together, we have the chance to make that change.
]]>From flooding in Haiti to drought in Ethiopia, water has long been central to Oxfam's work. Our emergency water systems are a hallmark of our agency. And our efforts to help communities access water for farming and fishing enable people to realize security.
But in recent decades, some extraordinary water pressures have emerged, as water resources are being swallowed up by dams, mining, and other commercial projects. The result is that, for the villages along the rivers, in the watersheds, and on the floodplains of East Asia being swamped or dried up by dams…for the indigenous people and farmers of South America whose rivers, lakes, and wells have been destroyed by mining…water is quickly becoming a major issue—and a major issue for Oxfam.
]]>Amid cheers from a throng of enthusiastic supporters and international media, Make Trade Fair won the day.
Oxfam's trade campaign was launched.
Within hours of the Hong Kong debut, events were held in 25 cities including Brussels, Dublin, Geneva, Mexico City, San Salvador, and Washington, D.C. These events ranged from press conferences and symposiums to a rock concert in London’s Trafalgar Square.
Oxfam's trade campaign seeks to unite concerned citizens around the world in calling for fair trade policies that will help move millions of people out of poverty.
Nobel Prize Professor Amartya Sen, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and musician and social activist Bono were among those who endorsed the campaign. "Oxfam has got it right," said Bono. "It wouldn't cost much to change the rules of trade so that poor countries can work their way out of poverty. But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough people telling them."
Also in this issue of EXCHANGE, writers Frances and Anna Lappé discuss their book Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, and we bring you updates on Oxfam's work with water and sanitation, drought in Ethiopia, and indigenous women in the highlands of Peru who are speaking out after decades of violence.
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