Contributor: Andie Long

Flood-damaged homes in Manatí are still empty. Photo: Bryan Lebehn for Mercy Corps

Wilfran Zamora Nieto has become a leader in Manatí's emergency preparedness work since his farming fields remain underwater. Photo: Mercy Corps staff

Wilfran Zamora Nieto used to spend his days tending field of yucca, cotton, lettuce, radishes, cilantro and onions. But since extreme rains inundated his Colombian town in 2010, his land has been underwater, and he’s dependent on help from family in other parts of the country to support his wife, two children and grandson.

Wilfran is one of many residents in Manatí — and throughout the department of Atlantico on the Caribbean coast — who hasn’t been able to make a living since devastating floods washed through the community. Already working in Colombia, Mercy Corps not only provided emergency supplies to displaced families in the wake of the disaster, but with funding from Xylem Watermark, is empowering communities to better prepare for recurring floods and related disasters.

Local communities are attending training workshops and disaster preparedness seminars, establishing groups to lead during emergencies, formulating response plans, and learning how to become more involved in the urban planning (and rebuilding) process. We have also provided pumping equipment to remove stagnant water leftover from the floods and water purification units to ensure safe drinking supplies.

Since he has been unable to tend his crops, 38-year-old Wilfran has been leading the local soccer league and maintaining that field. As a community leader, he immediately got involved when Mercy Corps helped establish the local Community Disaster Prevention Committee, and is eager to learn more about assessing the risks in Manatí and taking the right steps to protect their lives: “Mercy Corps managed to engage the community in these efforts, and now we can look forward to a better future.”

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Air Manis' village Water Committee maps out how to get the community involved in rehabilitating their water supply and distribution system. Photo: Mercy Corps staff

Hoses connect natural hillside springs to provide water to village houses below. The rudimentary system is vulnerable to disruption from earthquakes and flooding. Photo: Mercy Corps staff

The Water Committee has surveyed and identified at least ten springs that are in need of protection from disaster. Photo: Mercy Corps staff

Padang is one of the world’s most vulnerable cities to earthquakes. Indonesia’s capital city is situated on a highly active fault line — the same one that triggered the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. And it is inevitable that another quake will hit in the future.

But residents here are not waiting around for disaster to strike.

With help from Mercy Corps and funding from Xylem Watermark’s Disaster Risk Reduction Water initiative, communities in the West Sumatra province are working to evaluate their risks and strengthen their villages to protect more than 900,000 residents from potential earthquake and flood damage. The program is one of six projects being implemented by Mercy Corps and the water technology provider around the world, helping people in Ethiopia, Tajikistan, China, Nepal and Colombia as well.

“Sweet Water”

It’s hard to miss the blue, yellow and white plastic hoses that snake across the paths in Air Manis, a village on the western coast of Padang. In fact, the village name means “sweet water,” which is carried from natural springs on a nearby hill to houses below through this rudimentary system. Residents are lucky to have access to this plentiful clean water source — and until now, have taken it a bit for granted.

“For drinking, bathing and washing, we have more than enough water right now,” says Nanda, the Secretary of Air Mani’s newly established Water Committee. “Forty to 50 percent of households have open wells with good enough drinking water quality, but most people prefer the spring water because it tastes better.”

After the Water Committee completed a Hazard, Vulnerablity and Capacity Assessment (HVCA) late last year, however, it became obvious that at least ten springs need protection — and the village needs a better system for collecting and distributing the water.

“If a tsunami sweeps through [and floods] all the wells in the village, it would force us to rely on the springs as our [only] water source. We need to do something with these springs as a contingency plan in case of a disaster,” says Pak Doni, the Vice-Coordinator of the Water Committee.

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Tika Devi Chaudhari built a family latrine, only the second in her village, and is encouraging more to adopt the cleaner, healthier practice. Photo: Tulla Magar/Mercy Corps

As part of her village women's group, Jagati Khuna is working to increase awareness of sanitation issues. Photo: Peter Crawford/Mercy Corps

Toilets are a luxury in Kanchanpur District. In fact, throughout this rural area of southwest Nepal, few people have access to even rudimentary latrines. Forced to relief themselves in the open, their villages face significant health risks, including the rampant spread of diseases like cholera and typhoid.

Inadequate sanitation is not the only challenge for the Tharu, one of the largest native indigenous groups, who reside here; flooding poses a near-constant threat as well. So Mercy Corps is working with Xylem Watermark, the global water technology provider’s corporate citizenship and social investment program, to strengthen seven high-risk communities with Disaster Risk Reduction Initiatives that that will directly reach more than 80,000 people — and indirectly benefit more than 370,000 individuals — by the end of the year.

In two villages, women are the key to tackling issues of sanitation and hygiene for their communities.

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Gisel Kordestani, director of New Business Development at Google for Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, speaks to attendees. Photo: Mohammed El Baba for Mercy Corps

This summer, I attended an event in the Gaza Strip with 100 computer-science students and budding entrepreneurs about the latest open-source software and development tools, showcased by engineers visiting from Google. The attendees had come to find out how they could integrate these tools to create better products and start profiting from their ideas.

The event kicked off the Arab Developer Network Initiative, or ADNI, which is partly funded by Google.org — the philanthropic side of the Silicon Valley juggernaut — and the Source of Hope Foundation. The initiative aims to build a critical mass of young Palestinians who can create and run successful web-based businesses through technical and business training, peer-to-peer learning, mentorship and seed funding.

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Photos and stories from the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa — a region that includes Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia — have brought to light suffering on an almost unimaginable scale. One of the largest refugee camps in Kenya, which was built to sustain 90,000 people, is now housing more than 400,000, with thousands more refugees arriving every day.

The immediate needs are great, with more than 12 million people at risk of starvation in the midst of the worst drought the region has seen in sixty years. As funds have started to trickle in from around the world, nongovernmental organizations like ours are able to expand our operations to save as many lives as possible. But in this age of media myopia, we can’t afford to let our attention waver.

This disaster did not happen overnight. For years, the Horn of Africa has been getting progressively drier. The past two seasonal rains have failed, and some areas haven’t seen rain in three years. The drought is expected to grow and worsen over many months and we need to look at not only short-term solutions to meet families’ needs, but also begin investing in long-term solutions that will enable communities to better withstand dramatic fluctuations in regional weather patterns.

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