AFAR
PASTORALIST DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION
QAFAR
DACARSITTO DADALIH EGLA
afarpda@yahoo.com, afarpastoral@telecom.net.et (251)
011 5159787 (251)
0911 642575/ 0911 246639 Fax
(251) 011 5538820 Field Office, Logya (25133)
5500002
Update on relief situation and development
activities:
With the
closure of the main rainy season in late September, significant pockets remain
virtually drought – bound
a) Much
of Yallo Woreda in north –
western Zone 4 (adjacent to Alamatta in the
b) Dirma in Teeru
Woreda that borders onto Yallo
c) Dallol in the far
d) Musle in northern Dubte
woreda (a significant grazing area)
Other woredas such as Eli Daar had below average rainfall, rain only beginning in that woreda in mid August. Otherwise, the region enjoyed average to good rainfalls. Currently there are local storms in Zone 3 in the Awash / Fantalle and parts of Ami Bara Woredas as well as in parts of Mille, Sifra, Uwa and Awra on the central western frontier of the region.
Floods that covered 6 kebeles of the woreda in September have not receded. In fact, due to release of water from the Koka Dam on the head – waters of the Awash, the water rises from time to time. There are 2 NGOs planning to assist these people with household supplies, shelter, malaria protection and sanitation.
On the other hand, in the last month, the
As with many regions of
Aside from Afdeera, there is a smaller but
still dangerous outbreak in Goolina Woreda (114 cases and 11 deaths), Zone 4 and very recent
reports of cases in the surrounds of Dubte town, Sifra, Mille and Uwa.
The Bureau of Health as of November 8th expressed that the
disease was spreading at an alarming rate and is calling for all possible
assistance, including in setting up CTC treatment centers. They express need
for operational support, media coverage for awareness, support to tanker water
to Afdeera, need for latrine construction in Afdeera. APDA has mobilized its health workers in the Afdeera area to work on searching out new cases, teaching
the community how to handle the outbreak and as support for the Bureau of
Health team in Afdeera and is processing a proposal
with a donor – partner to further mobilize health workers and women extension
workers as well as the organization drama group. As of November 9th,
the organization has sent a provisional team of health workers to Uwa Woreda.
APDA will complete 3 rounds of vaccination for Yallo and Uwa Woredas then giving full EPI coverage to 4 of the 5 woredas in zone 4. As the organization vaccinates the women and children, health education and health/ nutrition surveillance is carried out.
The forum
now has an employed coordinator in place who is
familiarizing himself with all forum member organizations. The Forum plans to
again meet in early February after the Afar Development Conference in January.
In a
meeting held in Awash on November 5th and 6th, the
non-formal education forum elected its Board of Executives consisting of one
from the Bureau of Education, one from the Women’s Affairs Bureau and
representatives of 3 NGOs. The Board is now vested with the task of drawing up
a working constitution for the next planned meeting in early January. UNICEF
expressed their firm support of the Forum and its aim to improve education
enrollment, particularly female enrollment that is reported the lowest regional
figure in
7.
Non-formal education for pastoral children
Throughout
the country, non-formal education is gaining momentum as the solution to
APDA is
now faced with the tremendous cost of providing texts and exercise books for 5
learning subjects for each student. The organization now has over 4,000
students in total learning in non-formal education and the number is expected
to rise. Students in the program are now being issued with grades 1 and 2 texts
and grade 3 texts will go out in the coming academic year.
The
initial 3 months health workers’ training for 20 people from Teeru and 20 from Awra has begun.
Once they complete this 3 months, they will consolidate learning with 1 - year
field experience and take the final 3 months course toward the end of 2007.
This will provide mobile primary health workers’ coverage for all kebeles in
these 2 woredas. Both woredas now have community teachers and Awra has women extension workers. APDA is also training
currently active TBAs from both woredas so
that the primary health team in Awra will be complete
with health workers, women extension workers and TBAs
while Teeru will have health workers and TBAs.
57 rural
women from remote sites in 14 woredas (Assayita, Dubte, Eli Daar, Afembo, Mille, Sifra, Uwa, Awra, Teeru,
Afdeera, Gawaane, Ami Bara, Awaas/ Fantale
and Dulassa) met in Logya
for 5 days (November 5th to 9th) discussing development
progress in resolving the difficulties they face as women in the society. They
particularly focused on APDA’s work, giving the organization
highly valuable criticism and insight. They highly commended work done by women
extension workers giving substantiating evidence to the organization that this
community development role is essential to the way forward in Afar pastoral development. Too, women re-iterated teaching
given to TBAs demonstrating that the community shares
knowledge and takes learning very seriously on issues to improve maternal
safety and health. While the issues they mostly raised re-iterate issues raised in their conference in 2005, they noted progress on
FGM, informing households about safe motherhood and in attitudes of men toward
them as a result of literacy and awareness – raising. They emphasized the need
to
a) Improve
opportunity of female participation in education all agreeing that education is
essential
b) While
many areas do now have access to grinding mills, they expressed problems in
remaining remote areas where women still grind grain by hand
c) All
women spoke of the tremendous problems of distance to water and quality of
water. While APDA is and continues to increase the number of rain – water catchment reservoirs (dams and ponds) it is clearly urgent
to do more. Carrying water is another huge problem and this remains with APDA,
the Islamic and community leaders to convince men how dangerous it is for women
to carry 20 to 30 liters of water for hours. They particularly thought APDA’s film on ‘Afar women’s Hard Work’ was very helpful
and convincing.
d) They
appreciated APDA’s introduced system of training,
equipping and networking TBAs and said that
apparently antenatal checking is going on in remote areas as a result of this
teaching. They wanted many more TBAs trained and
expressed extreme problem in getting emergency obstetric assistance when it was
needed. So many women die in the process of trying to get them to assistance,
they said. All women expressed eagerness to learn what they can to give first
aid assistance in the home as well as prevent illness.
e) On
the issue of FGM (female genital mutilation), they all agreed the tradition was
draconian and outside Islam. While they conceded some women do secretly
continue the practice, they said in most of APDA’s
program areas it had stopped and the ‘lesser practice’ of taking skin from the
clitoris was performed. Like APDA, they are hopeful FGM will totally stop in
the not too distant future.
f)
There was much discussion on
women’s rights in traditional marriage. This discussion was also combined with
that of what they described as socially repressing pressure on women. They said
APDA must do more to make the issue clear and focused, particularly demanding
the Islamic Council and the local religious authorities to take action to bring
marriage and household practice in line with Islamic teaching.
g) Women
expressed the need for APDA to work harder with the Islamic and government
authorities to curtail the use of town – related practices such as kaat – chewing since this is draining their family life.
h) Women
from woredas along the
i)
From other areas, women talked of
the local governments increasingly giving opportunity to charcoal production
destroying their forest cover. APDA has an ongoing campaign against this.
j)
Again, women from Gawaane, Mille and Kutubla in Assayita talked of the increasing menace of Issa invasion –
both loss of life and animals. Gawaane women say they
are not safe in the town of
k) They
spoke of increasing loss of animals to drought and disease and said that in the
dry parts of Zone 1 (Eli Daar, Geega
and Kori in Dubte Woreda) there are now many families near destitution.
Following
the national celebration for Pastoralist Day that this year will be celebrated
at the regional level as well as the national level, APDA and the Regional
Government are planning to hold a 6 – day development conference involving all Afar: whether in
a) Afar
education and language development
b) The
status of environmental protection in the region
c) Female
participation in development and female – driven issues
d) Security
and conflict in the region
e) Relating
Afar traditional government to modern government
f)
The affect of the practice of
chewing kaat on Afar development
g) Sustaining
development and the way forward