Red Cross Blogs

Posts tagged ‘water and sanitation’

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The Kenya Red Cross is managing Ifo II West refugee camp in Dadaab and providing essential health and nutrition services, psycho-social support, security training and hygiene promotion services in Ifo II East. At the request of the UN Refugee Agency it is also taking on other health, water and sanitation services that were previously provided by other agencies.

The photo gallery below shows some of the health and sanitation work the Red Cross is carrying out in Dadaab.

Donate to the East Africa Food Crisis Appeal

Read blogs and stories about our work in East Africa

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When a devastating earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, the British Red Cross was quickly on the scene helping communities recover. Two years on, we are still there. Why? Because recovering from such a huge disaster takes time. At least, it does if you want to improve people’s lives permanently.

By adapting our approach to the local context, working directly with the affected communities and ensuring that the work we do is sustainable, our programmes can continue improving people’s lives long after we have left. By taking a long-term view, we are helping people in Haiti rebuild their lives in a way which reduces their vulnerability to future disasters.

Rising to unexpected challenges

When responding to a disaster, we need to adapt to new challenges. In Haiti’s South Department, the British Red Cross ran a livelihoods programme from October 2010 to October 2011, giving grants and training to the most vulnerable people. However, shortly after the programme began, a cholera outbreak spread to the region.

One of the only organisations to respond to the outbreak in the south, we quickly began treating people, delivering medical supplies and spreading hygiene information. Many remote communities in the south could only be reached on foot or by donkey. Despite this new challenge, we continued to help people through our livelihoods programme – reaching over 3,000 households.

Luciana Pierre Jean was displaced from Port-au-Prince after losing everything in the disaster. Using cash grants and training from the Red Cross she improved her small commerce business. She says: “The way I run my business now is different. I make more profit and I can use the profit to buy things that I need for my baby and myself. The Red Cross has helped me so much. I am not just surviving now, I feel like I am progressing.”

Our programme in the south has now finished, and we have given thousands of vulnerable families the ability to continue providing for themselves once we’re gone. In addition, by training local government medical staff and Haitian Red Cross staff and volunteers in cholera treatment and hygiene promotion, we have ensured that they can continue working to prevent and cure cholera.

Handing over responsibly

In the Automeca and La Piste camps in Port-au-Prince, the British Red Cross has been running water and sanitation-focused projects since July 2010. As in the South Department, it soon became necessary for us to provide cholera prevention and treatment services too.

Before the earthquake, many people in Port-au-Prince had limited access to the services we now provide in the camps – basic necessities such as clean facilities and water. Before our programmes in the camps finish at the end of this month, we are working with the Haitian government and other agencies to ensure that vital services continue to be provided. This way, improvements to people’s way of life can be sustained until more permanent resettlement is possible.

Another way to make sure that benefits are long-lasting is by working with local communities. In the Delmas 19 area of Port-au-Prince we are working with the community to regenerate their local environment. This includes addressing shelter, livelihoods, health and hygiene issues. By enabling the community to determine the pace of recovery, what’s needed and when, we can help them recover in a sustainable way.

As Luis Sfeir-Younis, programme support officer for recovery, says: “You have to take the time to work with communities, or it is superficial and the impact doesn’t stick. We want to make communities stronger and more resilient”.

The British Red Cross will continue working in the Delmas 19 neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince until at least 2013. Luis says: “We have a strong understanding of the multi-faceted problems this community faces. Using this information we are helping vulnerable people rebuild their lives.”

We’re no longer taking donations for our Haiti recovery work, but you can help us to provide immediate aid when disasters like this strike by donating to our Disaster Fund.

Find out more about the ways we help communities recover

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In the UK, we accept toilets as an essential part of life, but it’s not often we sing their praises. The most publicity the humble lavatory gets is probably in the form of toilet humour. What goes on behind the bathroom door is shrouded in embarrassment, secrecy and a wide array of euphemisms, ranging from spending a penny to powdering your nose.

Hardly surprising then, if we sometimes forget how serious sanitation is. The fact is: toilets help save lives. From the gold-plated WC to the bog-standard public loo, they all ensure potentially harmful human waste is disposed of safely.

Most UK residents can take for granted that they’ll never be more than a few minutes from a functioning toilet. However, even before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti only had one toilet for every 1,000 people.

What do you get if millions of people don’t have sanitation?

With the worst sanitation in the western hemisphere, there are millions of people across Haiti without access to a toilet. Poor sanitation, compounded by the earthquake’s destruction, had devastating consequences; the cholera outbreak that began in Haiti last year has already killed 6,000 people.

The British Red Cross responded to the outbreak by setting up a cholera treatment center and oral rehydration points. It also started a cholera prevention education campaign that had reached over 214,000 people by the end of July 2011.

Once local communities made the connection between lack of sanitation and disease, demand for toilets was high. So, to complement the cholera response and recovery work it was already undertaking, the Red Cross started a programme to build toilets in the rural communities of Les Anglais, Coteaux, Chardonnieres and Port à Piment.

Why did the community build a latrine?

Jean Eubert Amardy, a Red Cross field officer, says: “People just go to the bathroom anywhere, and this leads to unsanitary conditions. Building latrines is one of the best ways to counter disease and keep people healthy.

“In some ways, the cholera outbreak that highlighted this situation has provided an opportunity to make a difference to the local sanitation situation and to tackle the causes of cholera and other diseases, and not just the symptoms.”

The project has built toilets for both vulnerable households and schools. It has worked with local communities to find affordable solutions that take into account environmental factors such as soil type.

Edma Maguerite has been hosting family members displaced by the earthquake. Local workmen employed by the Red Cross have just finished building her a composting latrine. She says: “We have never had a toilet so we are very satisfied that we will soon be able to have our own. This will make a big difference to our lives.”

Find out about our work to improve water and sanitation in Haiti

Read stories from survivors we helped after the earthquake

Discover how we help people rebuild their lives after a disaster

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David Peppiatt, our international director, reports back from Liberia where tens of thousands of refugees have fled from fighting in the Ivory Coast:

Last week I spent five days visiting some of the most remote communities along the Liberian border with the Ivory Coast, where the complexity of the situation, with its ethnic divisions and history of violence, became increasingly evident.

Given the political events in Abidjan, with Gbagbo arrested, I wondered if it would lead to people wanting to return. But most people we spoke to are too frightened and it’s not surprising given what they’ve experienced.

Many refugees fled terrible violence and conflict in recent weeks and months and it’s uncertain when they will feel safe enough to return.

One of the issues in this current crisis is that you can’t just meet the needs of the refugee population without addressing the needs and vulnerabilities of the communities who are hosting them. When it comes to accessing food and water, the needs of Liberians along the Ivory Coast border are great and are being exacerbated by the influx of refugees.

Liberia is rated on the UN Human Development Index as 162 out of 169 countries, meaning it has high levels of poverty and one of the worst rates of life expectancy at birth in the world. The hospitality Liberian communities have shown to refugees is therefore even more impressive.

During the Liberian civil war, many Liberians sought refuge in communities in the Ivory Coast and there’s something remarkable about the reciprocation of that care in time of crisis – families are sharing everything, their food, homes and water with their neighbours from across the border.

Almost everyone we spoke to said their main concern was to feed their family and it’s clear there’s a real scarcity of food.

With the influx of refugees, there are now an additional 110,000 people in an area where getting enough food to eat is already a major challenge. Responding to this need has to be a priority for the Red Cross.

It means we’ll have to prepare for the next 6-12 months to support the refugees and the host communities. It’s not a separate issue, as around 90 per cent of refugees are living in host communities. We visited one village in Nimba county of 1,500 that has exploded to 15,000 creating huge pressures on food and water.

When you see such high levels of need in food, health and shelter it can seem overwhelming.

But we need to focus on the key areas in which we have expertise and can make a difference, such as: first aid; water and sanitation; restoring family links; and distributing tools and seeds to help families address their food needs.

But health needs for example, need to be met by another agency and we need to co-ordinate with other agencies.

By the end of the week, it was clear to me that many Ivorian refugees feel very uncertain what the future holds and that the humanitarian crisis is by no means over.

I know we’ve been asking a lot of our supporters recently with so many disasters and so many appeals for money. But it is clear to me that this is a crisis in which your help can make all the difference. Please visit our website and make a donation today.

Images © Sarah Oughton/BRC

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I had a great shower this morning. Showers are the best in my book – I’m definitely not a bath person. And when it comes to drinking water, I prefer still to sparkling. As for toilets, I’ve done enough travel through Africa to tell you I like mine with a fully functional flushing system and with no squatting necessary.

Some may think I’m a tad fussy. In fact I couldn’t really blame one third of the world’s population for calling me a bit of a diva. Because a lack of water to meet basic daily needs affects an unbelievable one in three people on every continent of the globe.*

Today, on World Water Day, I’m asking you to think about every time you use or consume water. How easy is it for you to access water? How much do you use throughout your day? And every time you turn on a tap, buy a drink or flush the loo, think about the difference between your day and that of the men and women of Afghanistan.

Because in this country that’s been rocked by decades of conflict, 82 per cent of people in rural areas and 67 per cent of urban populations do not have access to safe drinking water. Meanwhile, over 90 per cent of the rural population and almost 70 per cent of urban dwellers do not have access to safe sanitation facilities.**

As a result there are high rates of diarrhoea and dysentery, which can be fatal without the proper treatment, especially for the vulnerable such as young children and the elderly.

However, an Afghan Red Crescent Society community-based health programme, which has been running for three years, is beginning to see huge improvements in people’s health.

This programme, which is supported by the British Red Cross, is a first for Afghanistan in that other projects are typically focused on a single issue. But here, staff and volunteers from villages in Balkh province are working across the areas of health, hygiene, water and sanitation.

The involvement and ownership of community members in various activities, such as health and hygiene promotion campaigns is key to the success of the programme. We are now seeing improved access to safe drinking water, sanitation facilities and increasingly positive health and hygiene practices throughout the community.

Around 240 volunteers have been recruited from the villages and one of the most progressive and exciting aspects of the programme is the fact that 50 per cent of these are women. Recruiting female workers in Afghan society can be a major challenge due to conservatism.

In each village a Shora (health committee) is set up and plays a vital role in establishing the needs of the village, supporting health and hygiene promotion campaigns and ensuring the maintenance of the wells and latrines.

So far 43 wells have been built, 192 latrines constructed and 12 mechanics trained in maintaining and repairing the facilities.

Mohammad Achbar, 28, from Deh Hasan village, said: “I have four children – the youngest is three years and the oldest 12 years. Thirteen months ago I heard about the Red Crescent project which digs wells and builds latrines and I’ve found it very good.

“In the past we had to go to the toilet in the open. Now we have a latrine, the door and windows are closed and there are no flies. Our health is improving.

“Also, before we used a shallow well with two buckets on a looped rope. I would transport the water myself in a jerry can. But with the improved well it’s quicker and I have more time. We now have access to clean water and it is always ready immediately.

“We had a discussion in our community about where the latrines and wells would be located and the decisions were made peacefully.”

The programme is making a huge difference and the older generation particularly appreciate the construction of wells, as they previously struggled to travel 2 km or so to collect water in iron buckets. Also, as communities’ access to clean drinking water and sanitary latrines improve, so water-borne diseases, particularly diarrhoea, greatly decrease.

In a country which receives a lot of bad press, this is a positive story about a programme which is giving people back their dignity.

Visit our website for further information on Afghanistan

*World Health Organisation
**UNICEF

Image 1 © IFRC

Images 2 & 3 © Greg Rose

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