Adadley Community Development Program
Adadley Community Development Program
- Capacity building
- Micro-finance
- Small business management
- Animal health service management
During the last two weeks heavy rains have been raining in the Somali Region, Ethiopia where human and livestock casualties have been reported as well as shelter and communication system (Roads and bridges) damage. As a result more than 60 human casualties have been said by Mr. Muktar Mohamed the DPPB Coordinator of Somali Regional State.
Ogaden Welfare & Development Association (OWDA) has distributed 1000 Mosquito Nets to the victim families.
In this respect, all Rivers, valleys and lakes have overflowed and broken down to the around areas. The most affected areas are many districts and villages in Gode Zone particularly those along side the SHABELE River namely Qallafo and Mustahil where 17 villages in Qallafo and 14 in Mustahil are being circled by the flood water, some villages in other Zones also reported being under emergency. High quality facilities for rescuing the people are needed for.
As a humanitarian response, Ogaden Welfare & Development Association (OWDA) has paid a visit to the affected areas and preparing emergency aid action to the victim community.
The highly recommended aids and facilities:
There is a pressing responsibility on the National and international community to respond quickly and effectively to find a solution to the problem. That is why Ogaden Welfare and Development Association to ask for help from International Community in alleviating the problem.
» Why has famine struck again?
Organization For Welfare and Development in Action (OWDA) had implemented an integrated pastoral and agro-pastoral development project in Adadle Woreda of Gode zone from 2007 to 2011.The project beneficiaries’ livelihood system composed of pure pastoral livelihood and agro-pastoral community residing in the Shabele river bank. The pastoral communities’ livelihood is based on livestock and is very sensitive to droughts and water shortages. Out of the targeted 10 Kebeles 4 were chronically water insecure and faced water shortage on numerous occasions.
Malka-sallah Kebele, 55 Km south of Gode and with population of 300 households, was one of these Kebeles and was known for its chronic water shortage history. The community in Malka-sallah, like other communities in the region, has developed water trucking dependency syndrome. The project prioritized ways to address this problem by developing new water points (Birkas) and rehabilitating existing ones. The number of the functional water points in the Kebele increased from 1 to 6 and these water points increased water availability during the dry season to cover the needs of the community from less than a month to 5 months. The household level water consumption was below 20 litters a day that cost them over 4 hours before the project inception. This has improved now to over 45 litters a day that will not take them more than 15 minutes. Daily household allowances are followed normally followed but adjustments are based on the prevailing situation.
Community skills on service management were also enhanced by organizing and training water management committee. The main functions of the committees are ensuring proper utilization of water, collection of fees from users and administering water fund, determining household consumption ceilings, community mobilization for labour contribution and sanitation of the Birkas and surroundings.
Water fee was introduced and 1 birr/40 litters is charged. Assigned person from the committee, mostly woman member, collects the water fees. Daily collections are submitted to cashier and recorded on logbook. Birkas are opened one after another. The Committee has opened a saving account at Gode CBE branch in the name of community water fund. The process was co-facilitated by OWDA and Woreda Rural Supply Development. After checking the cash on hand against the log book, the proceeds from each Birka are deposited in the Bank.
Withdrawals can be made with signed minutes of at least four members of the committee. The committee uses the Kebele stamp on minutes. The committee operates with simple saving pass book in which the photos of the signatories are affixed. Two designated persons, chairperson and cashier, from the water committee co-sign. Community water fund is earmarked for the expenses like for maintenance and repair of Birkas, leveraging as community contribution for construction for new Birkas and emergency water trucking.
For the first time in its history, Malka-sallah was not in the list water Kebeles under water trucking in Adadle Woreda during the last Jilaal period. Over 440,000 birr worth of money that would have been used for water trucking was saved (assuming 60 days water trucking at 4000 birr per 12m3 tanker cost). It received the Deyr rains while two Birkas were still full of water and locked (360m3).
According to the regional Disaster prevention and preparedness bureau The food security condition remain stable in many parts across the Somali region in this month compared to the last months, due to a combination of factors such as onset of Gu season improved water availability, regular distribution of relief and PSNP food, good livestock body condition and the existence of internal livestock market demand.
Organization for Welfare & Development in Action (OWDA) in partnership with The Denan Project (TDP) is vigorously running the Denan Health Center which is fully staffed with an exceptionally dedicated team of more than 35 staffs headed by medical doctor.
Organization for Welfare and Development in Action (OWDA) conducted its 3rd annual General assembly meeting on March 24th after the establishment of the Charities and Societies Agency.
The meeting was held in Hamda Hotel at the association’s headquarter of Jijiga. The Meeting was participated by the General assembly members, invited guests and representatives from the regional government line bureaus.
The meeting was officially opened by the General assembly chairman, Najeeb Aden, who welcomed the participants and introduced the meetings agendas as follows;
OWDA’s executive director presented the organization’s 2011 performance report while the accountant presented the financial report prepared by the external certified accountant. The performance report revealed major achievements, constraints and challenges faced during the year. In addition the reports revealed that the budget of the organization increased significantly compared to the last year.
Consequently the annual action plan was presented to the participants. After serious discussions, Questions and answers the general assembly members approved both the reports and the action plan.
Adadley Community Development project (ACDP) is a five year development program implemented by Ogaden Welfare and Development Association (OWDA) and funded by Development Fund Norway – DF in Adadley Woreda of Godey Zone, Somali Regional State, Ethiopia. The goal of the project was to provide capacity building and effective model of public services that addresses community priority needs and reduce their vulnerability.
The project beneficiaries’ livelihood system is composed of pure pastoral livelihood and agro-pastoral community residing in the wabi-shabele river bank. The pastoral communities’ livelihood is based on livestock and is very sensitive to droughts and water shortages. Out of the targeted 10 kabales 4 were chronically water insecure and faced water shortage on numerous occasions. The project prioritize ways to address this problem by developing new water points (Birkas) and rehabilitating existing ones. The project increased number of the functional water points per kabale from 1 to 3 on average and these water points increased water availability during the dry season to cover the needs of the community from less than a month to 3 months. If the gu rains are normal and recharge and fill the Birkas, the communities in these kabales will not require water trucking that was common in them before the project implementation. The household level water consumption was below 20 litters a day that cost them over 4 hours before the project inception. This has improved now to over 45 litters a day that will not take them more than 15 minutes.
The above information was collected from the project beneficiaries in different villages and here is one case from Birlays village under Malko-salah kabale. Abdiqadir Osman lived in the village before and after the project commencement and he compares the situation in his own words.
“I am a father of 5 children and lived in this village for long enough to compare the situation before and after the project implemented water points (Birkas) in our village. I personally remember fetching water from Karoodka hand dug wells, which took me 6 hrs per trip, and I did not have a donkey to carry the water from this long distance. I used to borrow it from my neighbors. The capacity of the donkey was about 50 liters per trip and it was every other day that we used to bring water from this source. The owner of the donkey took half of what we brought and my family was getting the other half. My wife was either pregnant or lactating and I used to fetch the water most of the time, which was taking a lot of time from me and this has stopped me to involve in income generation of the family. Now we do have 4 Birkas in the village which has been developed by the project except one. Now per day my family gets 40 liters of water, which does not need any draft animal and does not take me more than 15 minutes. Most of the time my wife fetches the water from the Birkas now. I have opened a tea shop since we have the water available at the village and I am better off now”.
Women and girls were generally responsible for fetching water from long distances and spend quarter of their time per day on it. Now women and girls get time for involving in household income generating activities and going to literacy classes. The project initiated alternative basic education classes for the adult people and majority of the persons attending are women.
Similarly, the project assisted the development of the small scale irrigation farming by providing water pumps and other technical assistances. Dama’ Yusuf Mursal, mother of six children, lives in riverine Kebele called Hilologududo, 17 Kms from Gode town. Dama’s family was one of the households who received water pumps from the project in 2010. She relates her story of how the water pumps helped her family and livestock survive the last harsh drought of 2011.