AFAR PASTORALIST DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION
QAFAR DACARSITTO DADALIH EGLA
P.O. Box 592 Code 1,110 Addis Ababa afarpda@yahoo.com, afarpastoral@ethionet.et,www.apdaethiopia.org (251)
011 5159787 (251) 0911 642575/ 0911 246639 Fax
(251) 011 5538820 Field Office, Logya (25133) 5500002
Update on the Critical Situation In Afar
Region and Program Development Activities
In
summary:
Since the update of April 4th, the government has met again with
NGOs and agencies in the region declaring the urgency to
a)
See that water tankering is adequate
b)
Supply animal medications to tackle animal disease
outbreaks
c)
Support animal feeding for selected milking animals
in families facing near destitution
d)
Provide human medications for expected increase in
human disease outbreaks
e)
Support nutrition monitoring aiming to respond to
any cases of acute malnutrition.
The rainfall
situation
Since the storm of April 2nd
as reported in the previous update, there has been 2 further storms in Sifra
and parts of Uwwa on April 7th and 8th in Gawwaani and
Buramudayto on April 19th and 20th. This then leaves the
dry districts Zones 1, 2 still under extreme thirst. Rain that fell in Eli Daar
Woreda was limited to a central strip in the woreda and is estimated to assist
communities from 20 to 40 days only.
Update of the
situation
APDA and the DPP&FSB
have assessed the situation in the worst affected woredas and report
-
Continuing and extreme thirst in Kori Woreda north
of Dubte Woreda; northern Awra Woreda; Eribte and Barahale Woredas in Zone 2 as
well as a very tentative situation in Eli Daar Woreda.
-
Animal disease outbreaks are spreading and animal
deaths are reported from a number of the dry woredas. It is concerning that
there are several reports of camels dying as well as goats, sheep and cattle.
-
Increased number of refugees entering
-
Malnutrition among infants and child-baring mothers
increasing
Current assistance achievements
-
Government relief food distribution first in early
April and again in the last week have brought grain prices down in the region
to ‘before’ levels and relieved the immediate fear of hunger
-
APDA has baby cereal to respond to identified cases
of infant malnutrition and lentils for malnourished child-baring women.
-
APDA has some food – assistance (grain) for refugees
-
APDA has 2 water tankers delivering water in Eli
Daar and the government has one tanker in the Kori district
-
APDA has sent out animal medications to treat
outbreaks in Afdeera, Dallol, Eli Daar. Medicine stock now totally depleted and
the government currently has no significant supplies.
-
Through food – for – work, communities in 5 woredas
are constructing rain-water harvesting ponds and cisterns; constructing feeder
roads and later will plant out grass – seed depleted pasture land with seeds.
The whole project plans to provide for some 200,000 person workdays.
Current urgent gaps in assistance
-
More water trucking in Kori, Awra, Erebti and
Barahale
-
Animal medications to curb the outbreaks current in
Dubte, Mille, ‘Adda’ar, Awra
-
Animal feed to assist households facing near
–destitution keeping alive the remaining goats and producing milk for the
family over a period of 2 months supplementary feeding.
-
Human medications to curb any possible disease
outbreak
News of the APDA development
program
The January to March reports show a total of 16,108 students as follows:
|
Type
of learning |
Male |
Female |
%
of female participation |
Total |
Student
drop - outs |
|
1. Afar Literacy |
6,103 |
2,188 |
35 |
8,289 |
460 |
|
2. Non-formal
education |
6,032 |
1,787 |
29 |
7,819 |
208 |
|
Total |
12,135 |
3,975 |
|
16,108 |
668 |
Some 212 community teachers
submitted these reports giving an average student number per teacher as 75.98.
This was achieved despite extremely unfavorable conditions in the community as
described above. The program, the teachers and the community development
committees are using a number of strategies to retain students and to
facilitate learning under the most adverse conditions. The most impressive
district in the program, Geega in Dubte Woreda, recorded 8 teachers having a
total of 877 students of whom 42.17% were female. This reflects the effort made
in community mobilization as well as the use of various techniques to encourage
pastoralist children and adults to participate in one of the most ‘mobile’
communities in the program.
Teachers are teaching AFL
(Afar literacy) as well as Level 1 and 2 in non-formal education. Level 3, the
final of the primary education phase will begin as of September 2008.
Meanwhile, APDA is planning an aggressive program to upgrade the teachers;
their field coordinators and their trainers. This the organization is doing in
collaboration with the Bureau of Education and the Bureau will then test all
APDA’s teachers to see that they fit to government standard. This APDA is
undertaking aiming to hand teachers over to woreda management.
The Head of the Bureau of
Education recently involved in the evaluation of one program district and as a
result, the Bureau now has a more realistic view of the role APDA is playing in
providing education to communities beyond the reach of the formal system.
APDA’s primary health team,
active in 13 woredas is currently anxiously surveying health and nutrition
conditions with communities subjected to current water and food shortages. As
mentioned above, health workers are currently bringing in increasing reports of
pocket – communities where rapid assessment is showing acute malnutrition.
The project aiming to lower
maternal death in the community is now underway. A treatment center is being
constructed in Mille and APDA is aiming to develop maternal waiting centers in
each of the 8 woredas that surround Mille. Within the community, awareness of
the rights of the mother to safety are being undertaken through every means
APDA has. In the last quarter alone, 9 maternal deaths were reported in the
program areas, most of them related to anaemia as well as mal=presentation.
APDA is currently piloting
hand-over in 2 woredas: ‘Adda’ar and Afdeera. The strategy is to firstly assist
the woreda to plan for the project teachers and health workers and then to
undertake a gradual process of assimilation. For this, teachers are being
upgraded as mentioned above and so are health workers. Health workers are
undertaking accelerated education aiming that each student reaches Grade 5
standard after 6 months course. Aside from this training, the most senior
program health workers elected to use their annual month refresher training in
learning English with the aim to work toward higher education.
The campaign to stop
harmful practices is now highly intensive: several hundred female genital
mutilation practitioners were given the opportunity to swear through Islam to
stop the practice in the last quarter and the extent of female suffering under
FGM and lack of rights in marriage is now well exposed. The two Shieks working
on the organization harmful practices awareness team are very successfully
mobilizing Shieks at the local level to support female rights. As before, the
locally produced films illustrating the problem have a dramatic affect on the
community. Community women extension workers are basic to keeping the issue
alive in the community.
As well as the ponds and
cisterns mentioned above being constructed through food - for -work, APDA is constructing others in Mille,
‘Adda’ar, Sifra, Uwwa and Awra. Once it rains, these will overcome a
considerable amount of the water shortage in these 5 woredas. With the
construction, the community builds rain-water retaining bunds so that the land
re-forests. Ponds a dams promote quite some woodland coverage. APDA recently
saw work in Tigray and this has greatly widened the organization’s vision of
how to collect/ promote water reservoirs through gully closures using the
system of water – shed to halt water erosion.
APDA is currently working
to pilot and then hopefully popularize a bio-sand filter that effectively
destroys almost all water-borne pathogens. Again, health workers continue to
keep the community aware of the dangers of acute watery diarrhea; to distribute
soap and jerricans for clean water storage.
Intense training of APDA –
formed cooperatives continues as well as that of newly – formed women’s income
generating associations. Taking and linking this better into the woredas, APDA
is now training a person per 11 selected woredas to enforce an environment of
training - empowerment into income generating. The long – term vision in all
this is that the pastoralist community has a household economy base according
to their own concept and that makes best use of the resources of the region.
APDA is now working much
more deeply with voluntary testing and counseling and the community APDA is
currently assisting is complying well to testing. This is revealing the extent
of the outbreak in the rural community and the need now for concerted care and
support. The project uses the youth to mobilize the community and works through
the traditional association (peer – group) leaders so that the community can
develop regulations for safe social practice.
The organization has
resumed its campaign against charcoal production in Dubte, Mille and ‘Adda’ar
Woredas. The level of land – clearing for large – scale commercial farming is
now alarming and yet another challenge to the project. ‘Adda’ar Woreda are
taking strong measures against charcoal production but the draw back is the
need to re-stock a number of destitute households in the district who now
depend on charcoal for an income. In order to sustain this effort, APDA is very
keen to connect it with empowering and enabling traditional environmental
protection laws.