After 15-Year Absence, Water Returns to Georgia Village

Community members provided the labor to help return drinking water to Marabda after a 15-year absence. Photo: Mercy Corps Georgia

For the past 15 years, the 120 families living in Marabda have been literally thirsty for a better life.

Their village, on the site of a famous Georgian battleground, has been without running water for a decade and a half due to a damaged main canal and a faulty water distribution network. The community members have been forced to truck in water from a neighboring village 12 kilometers away.

Now, thanks in part to a Mercy Corps-led community investment program, water is beginning to flow once again to Marabda.

After discussing community needs and organizing a working committee, the people of the village established a plan and a budget to repair the damaged water system. Community members came together to clean a nearby water reservoir and to repair the main canal system. Each of the families assumed responsibility for bringing the water into their own yards and homes.

The program responsible for these improvements is known as the Community Investment Program – East, or CIP-E, a three-year program initiated and funded by BP and its partners in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and South Caucasus Pipeline projects. It's meant to support sustainable social, economic and environmental development of the communities along the pipeline route by getting communities involved in infrastructure rehabilitation, agricultural improvement, microcredit and sustainable or alternative energy projects.

CIP-E is led by Mercy Corps and is being implemented by a consortia of Georgian NGOs including Elkana, Curatio International Foundation, Technical Assistance in Georgia and Constanta Foundation.