Oxfam’s Elizabeth Stevens recently visited Haiti to document our work on revitalizing rice farming and reducing the risk of disasters—including outbreaks of cholera.

If I had to choose one place to sit and learn about a rural town in Haiti, I’ve decided, it would have to be the community well. In places where there is no running water, the local well has a steady stream of visitors, and everyone has a story.

Even the well has a story.

"We love the Oxfam staff here," said Jean Jose. "They've given good advice and really helped us get rid of cholera." Photo: Elizabeth Stevens/Oxfam

On a November afternoon in the town of Atchevrot, Marchand Dessalines, my Oxfam colleagues and I crossed a rickety bridge over an irrigation channel to the place where villagers were collecting water.

Jean Jose—the man who dug the well with his machete back in 1984—joined us there, and Valeus Wislor, the engineer that Oxfam hired to fix it up last year was with us, too. The concrete cover, sand filter, hand pump, and drainage channel were his work.  And gathered around the well to meet us that day were members of a team—trained by Oxfam partners from El Salvador—that is helping communities of the lower Artibonite Valley protect their water supplies from cholera bacteria and prepare for emergencies of all kinds. Read more about this program.

The team leader’s name is Philippe Merisson, and he is a middle school teacher. We learned that day that he is also a master in the Haitian martial art of stick fighting, and he told us a little about it. A stick fighter, he explained, learns to anticipate and block blows from all directions—even in the dark. Even when the stick is swapped out for a machete.

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When a massive earthquake struck Haiti in January, 2010, it shone a spotlight on the need to ease the dangerous overcrowding of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. So, after responding to the disaster with emergency programs, Oxfam shifted some of our focus to the countryside. Together with our partners, we ramped up our program to reinvigorate the rice economy of the Artibonite Valley, with the goals of reducing rural poverty, contributing to food security in Haiti, and—by making rice farming more viable—counteracting the continuous pull to migrate from the country to the city. As Oxfam’s Elizabeth Stevens reports in a series of blog posts, Haiti’s rice farmers are embracing the program and making it their own.

Oxfam and our partners have helped restore 4,700 acres of land to cultivation by clearing and repairing irrigation channels. Photo: Anna Fawcus/Oxfam

The muddy water coursing along the roadsides and through the rice fields of the Artibonite Valley plays a prominent role in the lives of rice farmers.  Rivers and channels nourish the rice, the vegetables, the goats and cows, and the riot of greenery in the countryside.  But when storms and hurricanes strike, it’s those same waterways that overflow and carry away livestock, drown the crops, contaminate wells, and deliver deadly cholera bacteria to rural communities.

If the water moves freely through the channels—unimpeded by sediment, weeds, and debris—the risks subside, and the benefits can transform communities, which is why we’ve focused resources on helping farmers clear more than 60 miles of irrigation canals.

Dubuisson is one of the towns where we’ve been working, and I visited there with an Oxfam team last month. Clearing channels isn’t all we’re up to in this area.  We and our partner have  introduced methods of improving rice yields, provided access to low-interest loans, and helped boost the vegetable harvest in the off season for rice. But here what people talked about most was what it’s meant to them to restore irrigation to fields that had gone dry.

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Melvin Elias Fuentes, a community leader trained to help provide clean water during emergencies in El Salvador. Photo by Rene Figueroa/Oxfam America

This blog was written by Tjarda Muller, Oxfam America’s communications officer in San Salvador.

I’m thinking back six months ago—to February—when I was in the field with Elizabeth Stevens, Oxfam America’s humanitarian communications officer. Together with technicians from our partner organizations, we were visiting rural communities across El Salvador. The weather was hot and a big bottle of water was my constant companion. Water: a commodity so ordinary for many of us. But there in remote areas, water doesn’t flow fresh and clear out of a tap. It comes from hand-dug wells and is often highly contaminated. If Elizabeth or I were to drink it, we’d definitely get sick. But so do the people who have no choice but to drink it. Contaminated water isn’t something one’s body easily adapts to and gastrointestinal diseases are common in these villages. During flooding, which happen on a yearly basis, contamination gets even worse. And so do the diseases.

That’s why Oxfam America started training a team of 17 technicians from partner organizations to become specialists in WASH, or water, sanitation and hygiene promotion in emergencies.

Now, during this month of August, the WASH team is celebrating its fifth anniversary. The team has been trained in installing water tanks after emergencies, monitoring water quality, cleaning contaminated latrines and hand-dug wells, fumigation, garbage management and pest control. The reach of the team is national and each member can be deployed instantly to where disaster strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

Oxfam’s Skye Wheeler returned recently from a trip to a camp in Jamam, South Sudan, where refugees from conflict in Sudan are living in harsh conditions.

Among many other challenges, the first year of independence has seen the influx of some 170,000 refugees into South Sudan.  Fleeing conflict in Sudan’s Southern Kordofan  and Blue Nile states, these refugees continue to face crisis upon arrival, including water and food shortages.

In the height of the dry season I visited Jamam camp in Upper Nile state (South Sudan), where Oxfam is struggling against a harsh and unyielding environment to provide water and sanitation for 32,000 of the refugees from Blue Nile.  There I found people living in extreme difficulty - hardship that has worsened since these pictures were taken, as the rains have arrived in this remote part of South Sudan. Few have the shelter they need to adequately cope with the rains that also turn the ground to thick mud and will likely flood part of the camp.

 As well as trucking water to tap stands in the camp, Oxfam is building latrines and is working with both the refugee and host population of about 3,000 people to spread vital hygiene messages and raise awareness on how to identify, treat, and prevent the spread of waterborne diseases.  Oxfam is also stockpiling emergency supplies of water purification equipment, rehydration salts, and soap to help contain the spread of cholera if an outbreak happens. These refugees are entirely dependent on aid agencies. Oxfam delivers water and sanitation all over the world and conditions here are about as difficult as they get. (Read more about the Jamam camps and about Oxfam’s work in this emergency.)

Women set out to collect water

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Here is Jamam camp in Melut county of Upper Nile, South Sudan, which hosts some 32,000 refugees from Blue Nile in Sudan. The refugees that live here escaped the conflict between the government and the SPLA-N rebels that broke out September 1, 2011. Women and children spend a lot of time collecting water. These women on their way to the tap stands were really friendly to me and were laughing about something. There’s a sense of waiting in the camp that’s typical of refugee camps. There is no sign yet of the peace Blue Nile will need for these refugees to return home. Photo by Skye Wheeler.

Noaga Yambeogo plans to help feed her family with vegetables from an irrigated garden. Photo by Andy Hall/Oxfam

You’ve got to admire the focus and drive of a woman like Noaga Yambeogo. She’s a 50-year-old widow in Tansoba, a village in the center north region of Burkina Faso where more than two million people are struggling with a food crisis. They are among more than 18 million across the Sahel region of West Africa hit by the crisis.

But for about 32 women here, hope has arrived one steady drop at a time—through a drip irrigation system that Oxfam and its partner, ATAD, with support from the European Union, have helped to install. It’s part of a development of six areas with market gardens that are allowing 200 women to grow produce to feed their families and to sell.

In Tansoba, Yambeogo, who has four children, is president of the women’s cooperative.

“I was elected because I work hard,” she says. “They thought I could push them to do a good job because I love working myself.”

Anyone who has ever had a vegetable garden knows how labor-intensive it can be, especially if your goal is to produce enough to make a bit of income. And for the women here, the stakes are as high as they can get: The health of their children may depend on what they can coax from the ground. Read the rest of this entry »

Ubah Hassan is a model and activist, and the President and Co-founder of Maji Umbrellas. Ubah has also served as a spokesperson for FEED projects and recently became a Sisters on the Planet Ambassador for Oxfam America.

As a model, I promote luxury goods—handbags, shoes, and couture clothing. But as an activist, social entrepreneur, and native of Somalia, I know what real luxury is: access to clean water.

Since the July 2011 declaration of famine in Somalia by the United Nations, I have been thinking a lot about water and food shortages in the Horn of Africa. I recently partnered with Oxfam America and created Maji Umbrellas to raise awareness about the crisis in East Africa and money for the 13 million people affected by the drought and famine. Maji will donate a portion of each umbrella purchase to Oxfam America’s relief work in East Africa, enough to provide a day’s supply of clean water to 20 people.

One in eight people has inadequate access to water supplies. And that lack of clean water claims more lives each year than all forms of violence on the planet combined.

The numbers are shocking. And the reality’s even worse.

I know firsthand what it’s like to go thirsty. I was born in Somalia and, at the age of seven, fled this war-torn country to Kenya with my brother and father. There were many days in Kenya when my family, neighbors, and I went with very little water. Sometimes the water pipe in my town would break or the water would get contaminated. When that happened, we’d travel for hours to the next village to get water. And once we got there, we had to wait for hours while others who arrived before us filled their canteens. Read the rest of this entry »

When Aniceto López looks out on the mine pit at the Marlin Mine, he sees what used to be there: forests and animals, an area he says was “full of life.” Now he says it is disgraceful what has happened to the area, as massive trucks take a steady supply of ore up and out of the pit gouged out of the side of the mountain.

López is the coordinator for FREDEMI, the Frented de Defensa Miguelense or San Miguel Defense Front. Members of FREDEMI, and of other groups in the area that are critical of the mine, are urging the government to suspend operations there. This is putting many of them at risk: People have been shot, beaten, arrested on dubious charges, and endured intimidation via death threats and near misses from gun fire.  It’s a tense situation in all the areas around San Miguel Ixtahuacán in Western Guatemala.

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The UN announced on Labor Day that famine conditions have now spread to six areas of Somalia, affecting 750,000 people—more than double the number in July when famine was first declared. Several hundred Somali refugees cross the border into Ethiopia every day; many of  them have walked for three to four weeks across the desert with very little food and water. They seek shelter in places like Dollo Ado, in Ethiopia’s southern Somali region, where Oxfam has been providing water and sanitation facilities for an estimated 11,000 people in Hilaweyn refugee camp.

11,000 people–that’s a lot of water. And a lot of lives depending on it. So what exactly does the relief effort look like? Check out Jane Beesley’s photos, below:

A worker loads Oxfam equipment onto a truck for transport to Hilaweyn camp. Photo: Jane Beesley/Oxfam

Shortly before Hilaweyn camp opened, Oxfam workers assembled a water tank called the “T70,” which holds 70,000 liters of clean water. Photo: Jane Beesley/Oxfam

Oxfam staffer Enthemanche Chane hands out clean water to people as they arrive at the camp after a long bus journey. Photo: Jane Beesley/Oxfam

Oxfam aims to reach more than 3 million people  throughout East Africa with a variety of support, including food aid, clean water, and veterinary care for animals. We are drilling and repairing wells and distributing fuel vouchers to ensure that pumps on the wells can keep operating—even if people have no money. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.

Yesterday the UN announced that famine conditions have spread to six regions of Somalia and are affecting 750,000 people, many of them children. One of Oxfam’s local partners, Wajir South Development Association (WASDA), works with drought-hit communities in Wajir in northeastern Kenya, as well as in Lower and Middle Juba in Somalia itself. WASDA program manager Bashir Mohamed, who regularly travels into Somalia, spoke to Oxfam’s Caroline Gluck about conditions on the ground right now and the process of getting aid to those who need it most.

“… Some areas of Somalia, like Mogadishu and Gedo, have been getting more aid.  Apart from the border town of Dobley [which lies en route to Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya], nothing much has reached people in Lower and Middle Juba. Access is a big problem; it’s taken a long time to get agreement from authorities for programs to start and we’ve had many delays.

Bashir Mohamed. Photo: Oxfam

“But now I hope we will be moving fast in our work. We’ve now got agreement for our cash distribution program to start. We will be targeting 14,600 households in middle Juba and lower Juba and hope we might be able to start this week. 

“We have been trucking in water into Lower Juba since July.  But the numbers of people [who need] water are increasing as the situation is getting worse. And we’ve been providing fuel subsidies to some communities so that boreholes can run 24 hours a day, as well as rehabilitating shallow wells.

“We’re planning to drill four new boreholes in the next few weeks in Lower Juba (in Hagar; Nasiriya, Wel Marow, and Bibi). And the drilling could take several weeks. The sites have all [been] chosen for their strategic locations. These are pastoral areas, but very far from rivers, towns, or other water points … so when they’re finished, it will be a great help to many people.

“Conditions are very severe; there are no health facilities and people face restrictions on their movements. People are just praying for the coming rains. But even if the rains come and we manage to reach everyone targeted in our interventions, this emergency will continue will into January and February at the earliest.

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Just in time for World Humanitarian Day, we received this short video profiling a day in the life of Oxfam plumber Silas Kipsang. True, fixing water leaks, maintaining pipes, and digging wells may not be the most glamorous aspects of humanitarian aid work. But for thousands of people seeking shelter in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, the efforts of people like Kipsang are what keep the clean water flowing. And that’s an accomplishment to celebrate, no matter what day it is.

Oxfam aims to reach 3 million people with a variety of support, including food aid, clean water, and veterinary care for animals. We are drilling and repairing wells and distributing fuel vouchers to ensure that pumps on the wells can keep operating—even if people have no money. We are also campaigning to change the root causes of this crisis. Find out how you can support our efforts.