After a decade of civil war, the situation in Yemen has been called one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time. Amid the conflict, widespread poverty, disease, food insecurity and overburdened healthcare systems, one of the key challenges involves providing water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) assistance.
Clean and safe drinking water is essential to public health, but access in the country is challenging. Many Yemenis live in villages and camps that have poor WASH facilities. To make matters worse, flooding in some parts of the country has further disrupted the supply of clean water to communities.
As a result, in recent years Yemen has experienced millions of cases of cholera—the largest outbreak of the disease in living memory. More than 16 million people in Yemen—half of them children—now urgently need WASH assistance.
Villages Lack Safe Water Source
Women and children didn’t always need to walk long distances to gather water for their families in the remote villages of Al Kharbh subdistrict, Sana’a governorate. There used to be a borehole and water supply system that delivered clean water directly to their villages. However, after fuel became too scarce to continue powering the supply system, the generator stopped working and the old borehole collapsed. There wasn’t another water source near the villages.
The communities faced a dilemma. Walking long distances to another water supply through a conflict area was dangerous. The journey was particularly risky for women and girls, who were in danger of gender-based violence. For children, it meant missing school and falling behind on their education. Carrying heavy jerry cans full of water was physically exhausting, too.
On the other hand, people can’t live without clean water. When, in moments of desperation, people resorted to drinking stagnant, contaminated water from open wells and puddles, they suffered from acute watery diarrhea, cholera and kidney disease.
International Medical Corps’ WASH team assessed the situation in nine villages that lacked access to clean water and consulted with members of the community. Their goal was simple: ensure that everyone in the villages could get water from clean and sustainable sources.
International Medical Corps constructed a new borehole and installed an integrated submersible water pump for the nine villages. With 45 solar panels to ensure uninterrupted power to the unit, the system has a capacity of 24,750 watts and can provide 138,600 liters of clean drinking water per day. The submersible water pump also features a chlorine-dispersing mechanism to keep the water free from pathogens.
The new water system has changed everything. Now, nearly 3,660 people can access clean drinking water. But the work didn’t stop there. The WASH team helped people in the community to form a water management committee and trained them to operate and manage the project. We also provided water-quality monitoring kits, protective gear, chlorine powder and pool testers through which local people can ensure the water is fit for drinking.
With clean drinking water now available in their village, women and children don’t need to travel long distances through dangerous areas. Incidents of cholera and acute watery diarrhea have fallen, and children no longer have to miss school. In fact, following the installation of the solar water project, the school dropout rate in one of the villages has decreased from 25% to less than 1%.