Provide Lifesaving Relief to Drought Victims

When Said began his work at International Medical Corps in 2011, Somalia was in the throes of famine. Severe food shortages caused by the worst drought to hit the horn of Africa in 60 years would go on to claim the lives of more than a quarter of a million people, most of them children.

As a water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) coordinator during the crisis, Said’s work was critical in preventing deaths from waterborne and sanitation-related diseases. Together with the International Medical Corps emergency response team, Said started in Galgaadud region then slowly ramped up programs that pushed further and further into more remote and volatile parts of Somalia.

“Our goal is to reach the most vulnerable people in hard-to-reach areas where needs are the greatest,” said Said. “We are very hands on and a part of the communities we serve.”

Today, Said serves as a field coordinator, managing all of International Medical Corps’ program sites in South-Central Somalia. While his responsibilities may have changed, his commitment has not and it is needed more than ever as three consecutive failed rainy seasons have left the country hanging again, on the precipice of famine.

The underperforming 2016 Gu (April - June) and Deyr (October – December) rainfalls had disastrous impacts on crop production, pastures, and water availability in Somalia, with the Deyr harvest yielding the lowest amount of cereals in the country since 1995. With the failed Gu rains in 2017, communities in Somalia are being pushed to the brink. So far, the drought has driven 3.1 million people into crisis and emergency levels of food insecurity, including 388,000 acutely malnourished children, and displaced over 900,000 individuals since November 2016—people who now rely completely on assistance to meet their basic needs.

The absence of clean water in Somali communities has brought its own array of consequences. The surge in water prices due to a lack of regulation and reduced water supply forces individuals to drink directly from unsafe sources such as rivers or streams, leading to the development of waterborne disease like cholera. In 2017 alone, the World Health Organization reported 77,133 suspected cholera cases and 1,159 deaths across the country. The hundreds of thousands who have fled their homes in search of food, water or safety have exacerbated the spread of disease at internally displaced person (IDP) camps, where sanitation services are overwhelmed and open defecation is a common practice.

International Medical Corps has been on the ground in Somalia since 1991, responding to decades of political conflict and cyclical drought. To meet the WASH needs of Somalis affect by the drought today, we are rehabilitating critical water and sanitation infrastructure, disseminating information on proper hygiene practices, including handwashing with soap, safe water storage, household water treatment, and environmental sanitation, and distributing clean water and hygiene kits to those most vulnerable.

This year so far, we have installed eight wells with hand pumps across Timire, Jowhar, and Galkacyo districts, distributed 1,000 hygiene kits in IDP camps and communities in Jowhar, conducted hygiene awareness sessions with 17,081 people, and trucked 1.6 million litres of water to drought-affected villages across the country, benefitting some 19,000 individuals.

Under Said’s guidance, International Medical Corps will construct 92 ventilated latrines across Jowhar, Galkayo, and Baidoa by December to help address the poor sanitation conditions and build an additional 10 wells in Galkayo and Jowhar by January.

When reflecting on the work he has done with International Medical Corps over the last six years, Said said, “I am proud of the team spirit and our strong bond with the communities we serve. Where there is need, we always manage to respond, even if we have very little resources to do so.”

We thank the GlobalGiving community for their support of work with those affected by East Africa’s drought in Somalia and Ethiopia.