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Water issues still plague villages

© Reuters/ Sharif Karim

Lebanon, August 2006

By Toya Richards Hill
ACT International

People must rely on water that is trucked in, or on artesian wells that yield unpurified water, for basic tasks like cooking, bathing and flushing away human waste.

Villages in South Lebanon, where the infrastructure was hardest hit during weeks of shelling, are struggling the most to get water flowing again. That’s where a number of non-governmental organizations have particularly focused their work.

"Some places are really badly damaged," said Hans Bergman, project coordinator for the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) effort in Lebanon. Busted water pipes have to be repaired, if possible, or re-laid and fitted all over again, he said.

Bergman’s water and sanitation team is working in collaboration with the Inter-Church Network for Development and Relief in Lebanon (ICNDR), the humanitarian-relief arm of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC). Both NCA and MECC are members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International .

Water-storage tanks rendered unusable during the 34-day conflict also have to be replaced in many homes.

Bergman said NCA’s ultimate goal is to assist people who are without water services, regardless of their religious affiliation.

Distribution of water-storage tanks to hardest-hit villages

Many of the villages where the greatest damage occurred are Shiite Muslim communities, strongholds of the militant group Hezbollah. The towns cradle the border between Lebanon and Israel, separated by a deadly electrified fence.

• Together, NCA and ICNDR are distributing 5,000 water-storage tanks, costing about US$420,000; repairing, laying and fitting water pipes in ten villages, costing about US$118,000; and trucking water into 11 villages, costing about US$95,000.
• The effort also is providing 15 generators, costing about US$282,000; distributing 10,250 hygiene kits; costing about US$205,000; and providing other general services such as emptying septic tanks and purifying water, costing about US$97,000.

"Water, certainly, means life," said Ghayth Maalouf, ICNDR’s regional coordinator assigned to one of the two divisions of South Lebanon that includes Marjeyoun and Bint Jbeil.

Yet 90 percent of the villages no longer had access to their main sources of water, he said.

Water is slowly starting to flow again

Re-establishing water supplies "is one of the most important projects," said ICNDR regional coordinator Robert Nicolas, Maalouf’s counterpart in the other division of South Lebanon. Nicolas’ territory includes Saida and Nabatieh.

Slowly, water is slowly starting to flow again, an event being widely heralded in the villages where it’s happening.

The villagers are overwhelmingly pleased, Nicolas said. One municipal mayor called just recently and said, "I didn’t believe that an NGO could achieve what you have done," he said.

Toya Richards Hill is a reporter for Presbyterian News Service who has been seconded to the ACT team working in Beirut, Lebanon, by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (Presbyterian Church [USA]), a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International.

DanChurchAid is a member of ACT International - a global alliance of churches and related agencies working to save lives and support communities in emergencies.