Connecting millions to the lifeline
A
field trip with UNICEF and the European Union on the joint urban water project
It was not until I travelled to Boroma and Tog Wajaale that I realized just how much I had taken for granted one of the most basic yet most valuable resources in life – water.
On our way to Borama, we passed small villages and made stops to talk to residents. One of them was a young boy who hadn’t washed himself for a week because there wasn’t enough water go around. He was covered in dust. Then there was a young girl, her small frame dwarfed by the jerrycan on her back. Also a mother, who spends 6 to 9 hours a day fetching water, carrying 30 to 40 liters of water on her head. When I asked one villager about her life, she said that all is well except for the “water shortage.”
But things are changing.
A new borehole in Afraag,
an urban settlement about 12 km west Borama, has just been tested and once the pipes
are installed it will be connected to the main town. This was where I met Ismail Farah, 13, a water vendor. As the eldest
boy in his family, it’s his responsibility to support his family, even if it
means that he has to give up his education.
“When the pipes reach our neighborhood,
I will stop doing this,” he told me, standing next to his donkey cart that he
uses for transporting water. “I will go to school. I will get to wear school
uniform like other boys. I will carry books instead of jerrycans. And I will
walk with my classmates instead of a donkey. It has always been my dream to
wear uniform and carry books.”
In Tog Wajaale, I could
feel the eagerness in the air. “The era of walking a long way to fetch water will
soon be over,” said Nim’aan Abdi, a local resident. I was told that for the
first time in the community’s history, piped water will be available thanks to
the reservoir tank installed on the outskirts of the town. Pipelines are being
installed as we speak and that will connect the tank with individual houses.
Nim’aan, 29, lives on the outskirts of
Tog Wajaale and has 11 children. He has a good job and supports his family
comfortably. But access to water was always a problem. “Before the borehole was
drilled we had to get water from Botor, a small village 25 km away, using water
trucks, and it was very expensive,” he said. “With this new water reservoir, we
will get water at an affordable price. It is very challenging when you have
something to eat but nothing to drink,” he added.
The impact of the project on women and
girls is even more startling. For them, water has been long associated with
danger, as Habiba, 29, a mother of three, explained to me. “Going into far
places to get water is a risky business. You walk alone in the bush, starting
from 6 in the morning, and come back around noon. You never know what will
happen to you. Thanks to UNICEF, EU and our government, we can now access water
in such short distance.”
This project is different in many ways
compared to others that I have visited. It involves various stakeholders,
including the government, water users’ associations and private contractors.
All of them play a part in the management of water. You
can feel that the ownership of the resource is in the hands of real people,
people who have suffered for far too long and know exactly what to do to make
things right – not just for themselves but for their children and
grandchildren.
The goal of this project is to reach 525,000
people with safe drinking water in four towns in Somaliland – Borama, Tog
Wajaale, Erigavo and Burao. From what I saw, it was only a matter of a month or
two until the goal is fully met.
“We are very proud as a donor to see
this remarkable achievement,” Mohamed Hajji, manager of this project at the EU
told me. “Our ultimate goal is to enable local communities to have access to
piped water - at an affordable price, for every household. In addition to
supplying water to the town, this project will most definitely attract new arrivals
- people will build new houses, and business will thrive.”
Perhaps the success here will inspire
more such endeavors and benefit more people, and if more projects like this are
undertaken, we will have a better chance at averting drought emergencies like
the one we are experiencing now. These thoughts kept coming to my mind as I bid
farewell to the UNICEF-EU team at the end of the two-day field visit, Philp and
Bajwa from UNICEF, and Hajji from the EU. I knew they had worked very hard to
get this far, but despite the success here in Somaliland, there is still so
much to be done for the people. At the moment, around half of the population still
don’t have safe drinking water at their disposal.
I wish them Godspeed.
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