This project will sustainably transform the Markala community of 840 men, women and children through access to safe, clean water and the provision of skills to earn needed money, grow needed food and practice good public health. Ultimately, HOPE helps them to help themselves out of poverty and at this time enables them to protect themselves against COVID-19 and their other current challenges, eg. great global uncertainty, political conflict, regional locust swarms and deadly local landslides.
Ethiopia is one of the countries which is suffering from extreme poverty. It was ranked 176th in the Human Development Index among 188 countries surveyed by the United Nations Development Programs (UNDP) in April 2019. It is also reported that 43% of Ethiopians lack access to clean water (World Bank 2017). It is widely accepted that poverty is strongly connected to lack of water access and this hinders the improvement of peoples' lives, their health and food production.
In Ethiopia collecting water is culturally considered a job for women and children. Because it is time-consuming, it robs them of time to go to school and to pursue economic productivity. However, when there is access to clean water, this reduces water collection time and attendance at school improves and needed money can be earned. Significantly, there is also a reduction in disease transmission and creates transformational change in health, education, household income and gender equality.
After the end of the project, we expect to see improvements in health with fewer reported stomach aches and episodes with diarrhoea. Economically, women will have a significant role in earning money for their families; women will have the skills, confidence and means to start small businesses. Schools will report an increase in school attendance as children can complete their chores and still have time to attend school. Ultimately all of these will lead to self-reliance and sustainable change.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Excel file (projdoc.xls).
