Jidda Project - Ethiopian Highlands

Jidda wereda (administrative district) is about 20 miles long by 10 miles wide and crossed by a single unsurfaced road. It is an area of rolling countryside with clusters of houses and small hamlets amongst the fields and just one town, Sirti, which has a weekly market. Away from the road travel is mainly on foot or horesback, though a 4-wheel drive vehicle can get to some places in the dry season

It is a recently established wereda and the local government staff are working to give communities access to clean water, healthcare and education. The development programme is well thought out but behind schedule due to lack of resources.

SHAPE is helping to move things along by providing support in areas that are within our aims as a charity and that allow us to build up our relationship with the community and the staff provided by the government.

Our main implementing partner, SUNARMA (see www.sunarma.org) is a registered Ethiopian non-governmental organisation (NGO). They have a sister organisation which is a UK registered charity (see www.actionethiopia.org). SUNARMA is a sustainable resources organisation, working with rural families to build long-term solutions to the social and environmental pressure resulting from population increase and climate change. They had recognised that poor access to primary healthcare was an important contributing factor. For some of our work we are working directly with the local government's Health and Education departments to whom we were introduced by SUNARMA.

The wereda comprises 13 kebeles (similar to a UK civil parishes) and has a total population of about 50,000. We are concentrating on 'getting to know' the communites in 3 kebeles with which SUNARMA has been working for over 5 years. However, we are also responding to some needs across the whole wereda. For example, we visited the Health Posts in kebeles where SUNARMA is best known but are providing furniture for all Health Posts (see below)

For background information on Ethiopia (things we are often asked) and how we identified the project location click here and also see the photographs from our 2007 fact finding trip.

Our Current Activities

During 2010 - 2012 we are providing access to clean drinking water and funding equipment for schools and health facilities

The rest of this page about our current work is from our 'poster display'.

More photographs and some further details are given here in a series of pages from our our 'slide show'. Use the navigation buttons at the top right of each page to move through the pages and sections. We are updating this as work procedes.

Providing Clean Water

Almost a third of the diseases reported in the district are a result of dirty drinking water and poor sanitation or hygiene.

This pool, fed by a small spring, is the source of drinking water for several families within a radius of about a kilometre. It is also used by the farm animals.

Because the the people live in scattered farms and small hamlets, it is difficult to provide clean water close to all homes. Only 30% of the population have access to an clean water source.

In 20010-12 SHAPE will fund six hand-dug water wells with hand-pumps like that on the left.

To read more about SUNARMA's project click here. SUNARMA will manage the construction and the training of people from the community to maintain each well after it is 'handed over' to them.

The whole 'package' includes the construction of latrines and giving training in hygiene.

The communty's contribution to the project includes unskilled labour - digging the well (right) - and locally sourced materials.

Help for schools

Education, especially for girls, leads to a major improvement in health. It helps children to understand and avoid the diseases in their community, and to learn about new agricultural practices.

It can open opportunities for some to train as the next generation of teachers, healthcare workers and other vocations needed to provide services to the rural community.

This recently built primary school has two classrooms each taking up to 50 children in two 'shifts' - so up to 200 children in total.

In front of the building is a demonstration vegetable plot created by SUNARMA as part of their programme of diversifying agriculture to cope with the degraded land and increased population.

Teaching aids amount to little more than a blackboard and a box of chalk (which we were told was in short supply)

SHAPE wanted to help by providing something that we could see was being used in the long term (rather than consumables).

Last year the kids are perched on split eucalyptus trunks. In 2010 we funded combination desks and chairs (right) for two schools.

These were made to a government-approved design by a local workshop, so the funding also provides employment.

Supporting the Health Centre

The Health Centre for the woreda is in Sirti, the market town and administrative centre. When we were there in 2007 the two buildings - the photograph shows one of them - had recently been completed.

There was no budget for equipment, furniture or medical supplies and the staff were planning to make do with what was in the existing two-room clinic.

When we returned in 2009 much of the most important equipment was in place (the refrigerators bearing UNICEF logos) but there was very little furniture.

However, the health centre was operating and had a reasonable stock of basic drugs.

A staff of about 12 nurses, midwives and technicians led by a graduate Health Officer are the main healthcare providers for a population of over 50,000 people . There are no doctors in rural Ethiopia.

We sat down with the Head of the centre and discussed the many needs of his staff and the community they served.

Most of the things that reduce the effectivness of the service that they can deliver require long-term solutions and more funding than SHAPE could offer. Others require us to get a better understanding of how things work.

When we asked what the staff felt was the most important need for the Centre they were clear that it was effective facilities for disposal of clinical waste. There are no waste disposal services in rural Ethiopia - the agricultural community does not generate anything that needs disposal.

In 2010 SHAPE funded a waste incinerator and placenta disposal pit. These are standard items to a specification consistent with that published by the World Health Organisation. They were in use when we visted in 2011 (right).

In 2011 we are continuing to work with the staff, especially the midwives, to help them to continue to improve services.