In search of the precious commodity on earth

The topography of Kola Nurena kebele in Sodo woreda of Gurage zone is largely mountainous which is covered with vegetation. Despite these natural endowments, water is scarcely available in the area, which appears to have made life increasingly more difficult. The only accessible source of water in the kebele is indicated to be Lebu River that flows through the valleys which makes fetching water very tiresome due to the long distance they have to cover and the difficult terrain they tread on. Men usually use donkeys to fetch water as it would be very wearisome to carry Jeri cans filled with water while walking such a long distance up and down the hills. They have to rise up early in the morning to walk for more than eight hours just to bring back home the precious commodity.  

        The natural setting of Kola Nurena kebele in Sodo woreda of Gurage zone 
        (Photo: Aklil Tsegaye)

About 100 community representatives from the kebele held a community conversation on 6 June 2013 to voice the critical problem of access to water supply in their area. The community conversation was organized by FANA Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) in collaboration with the woreda administration and WASH Ethiopia Movement. The participants indicated that they have to travel about 10 kilometers a day to find the amount of water they need to use for household consumption. 

Birhan Amare, a resident in the area, pointed out the health impacts of the poor quality of the water they use for drinking purpose as there were times they had to sell their cattle to cover the medical expenses due to repeated exposure to infectious diseases. He also said that apart from the three months raining season in the area which is reportedly getting shorter and shorter recently, the springs dry out during the remaining long period of the year which makes their suffering increasingly unbearable. “How could one live without water?” he remarked.

The participants of the discussion indicated that they have started using toilet facilities they constructed since two years back, though they could not practice proper handwashing due to shortage of water in the area. They also pointed out that they could only take a bath not more than once in a month. 

Even though some of the participants indicated to wash their hands whenever necessary, many others contested this claim saying that they might wash a couple of times a day mainly before eating, with a bowl of water repeatedly used not to waste the hard earned amount of water they usually have. Others even indicated to use just soil as an unlikely alternative to clean their hands. 

The community representatives pointed out their effort to treat the water through distillation before they use it for drinking or cooking purpose. They said that they use the same water source for both themselves and their cattle, but those who arrive at the spot ahead of others are the ones who would be able to use the scarce water available at the source usually early in the morning. As a result, their cattle are only able to drink water once in two or three days while every household has to also use the amount of water they could collect at once for two subsequent days before they have to travel again to fetch more water.

A vast hectare of land given for agricultural investment in their area was pointed out to pose yet another challenge for the community as they were not allowed to follow the route crossing the land to the distant water source, which added yet another burden to the existing challenges. 

                          Worried about the availability of water (Photo: Aklil Tsegaye)

Participants indicated to have reported the increasingly difficult situation they have encountered to access water to the kebele administration which has not yet been able to respond to their problem accordingly. They also expressed their readiness to contribute to any intervention effort intended to alleviate their water shortage both in financial terms and human labour. Some of the private business owners originally from the area were also reported to have expressed their willingness to contribute to water development projects in the area as they did in the case of the construction of 19 kilometers road from across the area to the nearby town. 

Memre Meaza Sima, a priest from the local parish of Saint Mary church, also expressed the critical shortage of water in the area which extends particularly in the long dry seasons that would make it very difficult to find the small amount of water needed during the mass ritual ceremony being carried out at the church.

Students from Menkir Gebre-Mariam elementary school who took part in the community conversation indicated the impacts of the shortage of water in the area on their educational performance as they do not usually drink water the whole day until they come back home as there is no water source in their school compound or in the nearby area. Even though there is toilet facility at the school they do not have water to wash their hands after using the toilet. 

Earlier efforts to tap the ground water with a pipeline was indicated to have been short lived as the water would dry out immediately particularly in the dry season. The increasingly critical shortage of water in the area was noted to get worse from time to time driving people away to other areas looking for better living conditions.

Ato Belayneh Seifu, head of Sodo woreda water and energy bureau, indicated the rate of access to safe water in the woreda within 0.5 kms in towns and 1.5 kms in rural areas to have reached 80% and 28% respectively which made the average access rate of the woreda 34%. He added that the current rate of access is far short of the 71% target set to be achieved by 2015. In line with the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), Ethiopia has set the targets to reach 98% rural, and 100% urban access rate to safe drinking water which would make the combined national access rate 98.5% by 2015. With two years remaining to reach these targets, the National WASH Inventory indicated that the national water supply access rate was 58.25% in 2004 E.C. with 55.21% in rural and 78.71% in urban areas.

Ato Belayneh acknowledged the serious water shortage problem in the area which demands the construction of at least ten water points at different locations in order to effectively tackle the existing shortage. He outlined the strategic directions set by the woreda administration to improve access to safe water in their locality, which includes the participation of the community, development partners, the private sector and the relevant government bodies, with the later playing more of a coordinating role to bring all the actors together to effectively tackle the problem. He recognized the contribution of development partners such as German Agro Action, CCF, Care Ethiopia, Kalehiwot Church for the achievements made so far in the woreda to improve access to safe drinking water. 

The kebele has a total population of more than 2000 people who do not yet have access to potable water sources within 1.5 kms radius as stipulated in the national strategic direction to improve WASH conditions in the country.