Snapshot of Afar
Friday, October 23, 2009

An impactful and compelling firsthand account of daily life in the northeast region of Ethiopia

By Jenn Weiss, PCI Staff

It is hard to overstate how hot it is in Afar.  Sweat beads start to form on the brow by 7 in the morning, and the air retains the extreme heat of the day until well after the sun has gone down. In addition to the acute heat, Afar, a region in the northeast of Ethiopia, is also very arid, with a rocky, desert-like terrain. There is alarmingly little water, hardly any trees, and an awful lot of dust. People who live in Afar survive by raising livestock, primarily goats, sheep, camels, and cattle. To do so, they must travel great distances to take their livestock to pasture and search for water. Because of this, much of the population is nomadic; moving with all of their possessions and livestock every few months to search for new grazing land. 

While life in Afar is a challenge for anyone, women in Afar have it especially tough.  In addition to the traditional duties of cooking, keeping house, and raising children; women are also responsible for building the family’s house each time they move, a precarious shelter constructed of sticks, straw, rags, and plastic sacks. Women are also responsible for fetching water, which may be a day’s walk away, and herding the livestock, a task often  delegated to children; it is not uncommon to see a child as young as four years old alone in the bush herding 30 goats.  In addition to these responsibilities, women in Afar suffer from a number of human rights abuses, including forced early marriage, where girls as young as nine are made to marry men two-three times their age; female genital mutilation; and a lack of access to education.  Less than 1% of women in Afar have completed primary school.

It is against this backdrop that PCI is implementing the ‘Hope for Women’ project, which seeks to protect and promote women’s rights in the Afar region.  PCI is implementing a range of activities to support this goal including training local clan, religious, and government leaders on women’s rights; providing small incentives, such as pencils and notebooks, to encourage girls to attend school; and enabling women’s economic empowerment through the formation of savings-led self-help groups. The income generated from these groups is loaned out for individual or group-level small businesses, which often includes buying staple items in bulk and then selling them to their community. 

The popularity of this project is tangible as soon as you meet with local officials and project participants.  In fact, a main reason for the project’s success is the close coordination and collaboration with local authorities, including the Office of Education and the Women’s Affairs Office. A recent conversation with the Director of the local Education Office, and the Director of the local Women’s Affairs Office in Chifra, one of the towns where Hope for Women is implemented, confirmed this: “The first thing PCI did when coming here was meet with our offices. From then on, we worked together hand in hand to prioritize and implement all activities.  Many projects here are not successful because they do things without consulting us.” This is a key reason for the project’s local acceptance.  As the head of the Women’s Affairs Office stated, “When the PCI car pulls into town, people exclaim, ‘oh, here comes the women’s car!’  They do not see it as a PCI or government project. They see it as a project that will benefit the women in the community.”

The impact of the community mobilization on women’s rights has been remarkable.  Since the program began 2 years ago, 16 local religious and clan leaders publically renounced female genital cutting and promised it would no longer happen in their community. Such a public declaration is akin to law; the community is now in agreement that female genital mutilation will stop. The project has made similar gains in changing social and cultural norms around girls’ education. The basic incentives given to girls to attend school, “are no longer needed,” said the local Education Official. “Parents and community members now see the value of sending girls to school, and we will continue to mobilize parents to send their girls to school.” 

However, although this project has been catalytic in many ways, the needs remain great throughout Afar.  Because the Ministry of Education has seen such an increase in enrollment among girls, they do not have the desks or textbooks to support them; currently, school children sit on rocks instead of chairs, and they only have one textbook for every seven pupils. In addition, the lack of water in the community remains a dire problem, with greatly deleterious impacts on the health and well-being of the community; clean water and sanitation is a major issue, as evidenced by the recent outbreak of cholera. Even simple pit latrines are scarce, and many communities lack a borehole in order to access water. Instead, they must travel long distances to collect water, or pay significant sums of money to buy water as it is available.  In addition, without even simple irrigation systems in place, growing vegetables to address household nutrition needs remains unachievable.

PCI is uniquely poised to continue to make a difference in the lives of women, children and families in Afar, and has the essential support of local government to ensure new initiatives are successful. In fact, when asked how PCI could improve its partnership with the local governance, the Women’s Affairs Director simply stated, “We have so many needs.  We only ask that PCI work with us to address other issues, so we can continue moving forward.” As PCI was driving away, the Chief of Chifra came running up to the car.  He had heard that PCI was expanding the Hope for Women project to three additional villages, and was concerned that the priority was shifting away from Chifra. PCI’s Country Director, Mr. Walleligne Beriye, assured him that Chifra was always foremost in our mind.