Manipur state recorded poorest performer of total sanitation campaign

Imphal, August 30 2010: The Communication and Capacity Development Unit (CCDU) Manipur, which has been singled out as the poorest performer among the states of the country in implementing "Total Sanitation Campaign", one of the flagship programmes of the Centre, is being run single handedly by a director.

The CCD Unit set up five years back in 2005 with the sole purpose of implementing the "Total Sanitation Programme", a flagship programme of the Union government.

Manipur was singled out as the poorest performer of the total Sanitation Campaign among the other states of the country with only 9000 individual household latrines (IHHL) completed out of six lakh targeted under the scheme till the end of fiscal year 2009-10, an official source said.

Observing the poor performance, the state was motivated by Plan Approval Committee (PAC) of the Department of Drinking Water Supply of Union Ministry of Rural Development by suggesting exposure visits of its officials to West Bengal and Sikkim where the scheme were successfully implemented.

The state Community and Capacity Development (CCDU) unit, which was set up under the aegis of the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, has been in operation since 2005 in the state.

It has been set up for the purpose of implementing the "Total Sanitation programme" in the state.

The importance of this programme cannot be overlooked as it is one of the flagship programme of the Union government.

The staffing pattern of CCDU has been designated by the Government of India.

The Plan Approval Committee in its meeting held on April 23, 2009 at New Delhi accorded approval to the staff pattern proposed by the Annual Implementation Plan (AIP) 2009-10 of CCDU, Manipur and also approved to the filling up of staff on deputation and contract basis, official sources said.

The approved staff pattern includes appointment of a Director with monthly emolument of Rs 35,000, State Coordinator with the same emolument and an Accountant (Cashier) with a monthly emolument of 30,000 on deputation and engagement of three Consultants, two Data Entry Operators, one Peon, and one Security Guard on contract basis.

Despite the fact that the approval was given one year and a half back, at present only the post of Director has been filled on deputation by L Swamikanta Singh, a Senior Engineer level officer from the PHED Department, and he has been single handedly running CCDU since his appointment on December 1, 2008 .

The hitherto unmoved government has started moving with the placing of a proposal for filling up the required staff of the CCDU as per approved pattern,an official source said.
ends

World Water Council Offers Support to Pakistani Flood Victims

In response to the tragic flood disaster in Pakistan, the World Water Council has offered its full support to the Pakistani authorities for relief and reconstruction efforts.

Marseille, Friday 27 August 2010 - In a letter to the Minister of Water and Power in Pakistan, Raja Pervez Ashraft, the President of the World Water Council, Loïc Fauchon, expressed his deepest sympathies for the victims of the worst flooding in the country's history. Offering to assist the Pakistani authorities, he pledged the full support of the Council and its members. Says Loïc Fauchon: "The World Water Council stands ready to work closely with the Pakistani government and the international community to support relief and reconstruction efforts."

The humanitarian catastrophe leaves a fifth of Pakistan under water, and millions of people struggling without proper shelter, food and clean water. Speaking at a news conference after touring the affected areas, Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon described the situation as "heart wrenching": "I have visited the scenes of many natural disasters around the world, but nothing like this". Many fear the outbreak of water-borne diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea will threaten the lives of those millions that just survived the flood peaks. The recent UN donor conference confirmed that over $460 million of aid will be needed for immediate relief and further pledges are required to mobilise this amount.

The immediate hazards in the aftermath of a natural disaster are often of the same nature: lack of potable water, disruptions in water supplies and sewage systems, food shortages, infectious disease outbreaks and lack of shelter. Major concerns exist that the devastation to farmland and irrigation systems will mean that large numbers of Pakistani farmers will not be able to produce a crop during this year and next, severely undermining the food-security situation in the country. Rapidly reconstructing large parts of the water and sanitation infrastructure to resume adequate water supplies to cities and farms will be key to avoiding a lasting drama. The World Water Council therefore calls upon the international community to mobilise additional funds to help in the reconstruction of the devastated infrastructure.

The World Water Council stands ready to assist Pakistan in the relief and reconstruction efforts through mobilising the knowledge and expertise from its 400 member organisations. As in the past, World Water Council members are engaged in sending relief goods and teams of engineers and relief specialist. In his letter to Minister Ashraft, Mr. Fauchon vowed the World Water Council to support Pakistan in the weeks and months to come.

details at
www.worldwatercouncil.org
www.watermediacenter.org

Baseline Data to Guide Handwashing Intervention in Peru


A new technical paper from the World-Bank administered Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) found that only half of care-givers in 3,526 households in rural Peru wash hands with soap at times of fecal contact, and that 10 percent of children under five presented diarrhea symptoms in the previous 48 hours - although on average 55 percent of caregivers did not seek medical advice. An average of 20 percent of households surveyed had no sanitation facilities of any type.

WSP is testing approaches to learn what works to create and sustain handwashing with soap behavior change. To establish the causal effect of project interventions on specific health and welfare measures, the project is conducting an impact evaluation (IE) using a randomized-controlled experimental design. The study, Scaling Up Handwashing Behavior: Findings from the Impact Evaluation Baseline Survey in Peru by Sebastian Galiani and Alexandra Orsola-Vidal,includes pre-intervention (baseline), concurrent (longitudinal), and post-intervention (endline) surveys administered by WSP-contracted firms in each project country (Peru, Senegal, Tanzania, and Vietnam).

"This study offers new, relevant data that will help us determine the health impacts of these hygiene interventions and shed some light on the role of behavior change," said Bertha Briceno, senior impact evaluation specialist for the project.

For more information, visit this feature story, contact Bertha Briceno, wsp@worldbank.org , or visit www.wsp.org/scalinguphandwashing.

Download Full Document: http://www.wsp.org/wsp/sites/wsp.org/files/publications/WSP_PeruBaselineStudy_HWWS.pdf

Climate Change Debate Rises with Pakistan Floods

By Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 16, 2010 (IPS) - "If this is not God’s wrath, what is?" 40-year-old taxi driver Bakht Zada said of the massive floods in Pakistan that have swept away his life earnings.

Speaking to IPS from Madyan city in Swat district in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Zada might pin the blame for Pakistan’s worst floods in 80 years on forces beyond humankind, but environment experts are debating whether they are linked to a much more earthly phenomenon – climate change.

Three weeks after unusually heavy rains began to pour on Jul. 12 – some areas received up to 300 millimetres in a 36-hour period – Pakistan’s floods have affected 14 million people and killed 1,600, apart from damaging huge swathes of agricultural land, the mainstay of the economy.

The government, international humanitarian agencies and local charities continue to grapple with the disaster, which first hit the north-western part of this South Asian country and is now affecting the Punjab and Sindh provinces. The United Nations has appealed for 459 million U.S. dollars, of which 175 million dollars has been pledged.

Against this backdrop, experts have been trying to make sense of recent instances of extreme weather phenomena. Apart from the floods here, floods in China killed more than 1,100 people, and drought, a heat wave and wildfires hit Russia, in signs that seem consistent with the warming of the planet due to enormous amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

"Global warming results in catastrophic weather events. The recent floods are a result of climate change, undoubtedly," insisted Simi Kamal, a geographer and water specialist.

"Above-normal temperatures in the Indian Ocean give rise to increased precipitation. And in the north of Pakistan, when moisture-riddled wind currents collide with the mountains and are pushed up into cooler altitudes, moisture is released in the form of cloud bursts," added Khalid Rashid, a mathematician and physicist who studies changes in global weather patterns. "This is what seems to have happened this year."

Others are cautious about making categorical conclusions about links to climate change, but agree that weather patterns have been changing, becoming more extreme and more unpredictable.

"Climate scientists cannot be certain whether the current floods are an extreme weather event of the current climate pattern or a change in it," said Ayub Qutub, an Islamabad-based specialist on water management.

Even R K Pachauri, chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says it would be scientifically incorrect to link any single set of events with human-induced climate change. But he agrees that there is enough evidence to show an increase in the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts and extreme precipitation events worldwide.

In fact, he told IPS: "The floods of the kind that hit Pakistan may become more frequent and more intense in the future in this and other parts of the world."

Danish Mustafa, a Pakistani water specialist who teaches geography at the King’s College in London, acknowledges that "rather unusual" monsoon patterns from the Arabian Sea are becoming more frequent.

Ejaz Ahmad, deputy director of the World Wildlife Fund Pakistan, links weather changes to "change in land use patterns, heavy deforestation in the northern part of Pakistan and the conflicts" rather than to climate change. Still, he agrees that there have been more "weird" weather events of late.

"Pakistan experienced a dry spell last March with hardly any rainfall and wheat production was seriously damaged. Then it rained in areas which do not come under the monsoon range such as Gilgit-Baltistan, Broghil,. Similarly, the frequency of cyclones has also increased," Ahmad explained. "A year ago we received the Yemyin cyclone and then this year we had the Phet cyclone. In the past, we would experience cyclones (only) in decades."

Kamala adds that rising temperatures help hasten the melting of water sources like the Himalayas, north of Pakistan, that are the world’s third largest repository of snow and ice. "Our region (South Asia) is among the climate change hotspots, and floods and droughts had been predicted by international experts," he pointed out.

Originating in the Tibetan plateau, the Himalayas also feeds the Indus River basin after turning south from India. The river, now swollen because of the floods, runs along Pakistan’s entire length before discharging into the Arabian Sea, a journey of some 3,180 kilometres.

"Global warming is going much faster, causing catastrophic weather events," explained Kamal. "I’m not sure if this can be stopped now. I’m not even sure if we can adapt to the change as quickly."

Already, Kamal says, Pakistan’s lack of preparedness has added to the toll of the floods. The Indus basin has always been prone to floods, prompting her to to ask: "Why are we always taken by surprise? Why don’t we build scenarios, and based on them plan ahead for floods?"

But Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Islamabad, says some preparations were put in place by the Pakistani government or "the toll would have been much higher."

Still, there are lessons to be learned. "We need the telemetric system on the Indus rivers to function that also need to be extended to monitor flood waves in real time," suggestsed Mustafa. "The local-level capacity will have to be strengthened to be the first line of defence in providing flood protection and then relief. The distant central government cannot do it." (END)

INDUSFLOOD RELIEF

Himal Southasian fund collection drive in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank Nepal. The floods raging through Pakistan at the moment have affected more people
than the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the 2006 Asian tsunami, and the 2010 Haiti
earthquake combined.

Himal Southasian and Standard Chartered Bank Nepal have set up a fund in
Kathmandu for people from Southasia and elsewhere seeking to support the
ongoing relief efforts in Pakistan . Please avail this facility to send money
to the victims of flood along the Indus. No administrative charges will be
applied to your support; every paisa will be transferred to trusted
organisations in Pakistan for the benefit of the flood victims.

Please send support to:*
Account title: IndusFlood Relief – Himal Southasian/SCB Nepal
Bank: Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd.
Branches Accepting Deposit: Any Branches of SCB Nepal network
SWIFT CODE: SCBLNPKA

(Credit card payments may be made straight to the accounts below at any of the
branches of Standard Chartered Bank in Nepal .)

Account number for Rupees (from India and Nepal): 01-1859293-02
Account number for USD (from elsewhere): 01-1859293-51

Please refer to the Indus Flood Relief page on www.himalmag.com for details.

Protesting Dalits smear themselves with human excreta

Savanur (Haveri dist), July 20, DHNS

What can be said of a system that forces a community to inflict upon themselves the lowest form of humiliation, just so they are allowed to live in their own homes?

A basic right, taken for granted with no second thoughts for many, is a struggle for the Bhangi community in Savanur. The community members went as far as pouring human excreta over themselves, so that their voices are heard and as a sign of protest against those trying to evict them from their homes.

Reason

For the past 70 years, four families of the Bhangi community, who work as night soil workers, have been living in huts built on land belonging to the Savanur Town Municipal Council (TMC).

At a meeting some time ago, the TMC decided to evict the families and build a commercial complex in its place. Ever since, the TMC has employed various devious ways to force the families out of their homes.

Starting with an oral directive, the TMC has resorted to cutting water connection to the families, dumping waste in front of their homes, barging into their homes, insulting their women and threatening them.

The community members, who are treated as the lowest among the dalits, submitted an appeal to the sub-divisional officer in January against their eviction and have ever since submitted numerous appeals to the government over the past seven months.

Finding no sympathisers in the system for their cause, the community members finally resorted to this extreme form of protest on Tuesday.

The families submitted an appeal to the Assistant Commissioner on Monday demanding
temporary water connection. But they were asked to pay the TMC Rs 2,000 for each connection.

Helpless, the community members took out a mock funeral from their homes in Kamala Bangadi to the TMC on Tuesday. At the TMC, three members of the community poured human excreta over themselves and begged for water to clean themselves.

Officials apathy

As if this was not heart-wrenching enough, none of the officials at the Town Municipal Council came forward to receive their appeal.

A verbal duel ensued between TMC officials and Dalit Sangarsha Samithi activists. TMC Executive Officer H N Bajakkanavar defended the TMC, saying they never tried to evict the Bhangis, but added that TMC would provide houses for them under various housing schemes.

He also said only illegal water connections were cut off. However, the DSS pointed out that several illegal water connections in the town were untouched and only those feeding Bhangis were cut off. “This is harassment against a community that is still treated like untouchables,” they said.

When no official accepted the appeal from the Bhangis, the latter cleaned the toilets in the TMC premises.

They then went to the Revenue Department and submitted their appeal to Tahsildar Prashanth Nalavar.
ends

Minds in the Toilet

There's a sewage crisis, so hold your nose and think hard.
By Johann HariPosted Monday, Oct. 20, 2008, at 6:39 AM ET

Read exclusive excerpts from Rose George's The Big Necessity on Slate.

Every day, you handle the deadliest substance on earth. It is a weapon of mass destruction festering beneath your fingernails. In the past 10 years, it has killed more people than all the wars since Adolf Hitler rolled into one; in the next four hours, it will kill the equivalent of two jumbo jets full of kids. It is not anthrax or plutonium or uranium. Its name is shit—and we are in the middle of a shit storm. In the West, our ways of discreetly whisking this weapon away are in danger of breaking down, and one-quarter of humanity hasn't ever used a functioning toilet yet.

The story of civilization has been the story of separating you from your waste. British investigative journalist Rose George's stunning—and nauseating—new book opens by explaining that a single gram of feces can contain "ten million viruses, one million bacteria, one thousand parasite cysts, and one hundred worm eggs." Accidentally ingesting this cocktail causes 80 percent of all the sickness on earth.

I once had a small taste of the problem. A few years ago, I was trudging up a hill in Caracas, Venezuela—through a vast barrio cobbled together from tin and mud and leftover plastic—when I saw a plastic bag filled with feces hurtling toward me. It splattered all over my chest and into my mouth. This wasn't an attack on a gringo intruder. In many of the slums that scar South America, there are no sewers, so the only way to dispose of your excrement is to squat over a bag and throw. It's called the "helicopter toilet."

Today, 2.6 billion people live like this: "Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket or box. Nothing," George explains. In an epic work of reportage—taking her from the sewers of London to the shores of Africa to the bowels of China—George investigates the slow road away from this shit-smeared existence.

Her journey opens by tramping down at midnight into the place where that road began—the sewers of London. This city beneath the city can be deadly: Stinking clouds of hydrogen sulphide—the "sewer gas" that forms when sewage decomposes—will suffocate you if you get caught in them. Before these tunnels were built, London had "on-site sanitation." This is a polite way of saying people shat in a covered-up, set-aside space, and their feces were collected and sold to farmers as manure.

But in the early 19th century, London's population rapidly doubled, and the city's buildup of excrement became unsustainable. The cost of having your private cesspool emptied spiked to a shilling, twice the average workers' daily wage. So, people took to emptying their cesspools into the Thames, which soon ran brown. By 1848 cholera outbreaks were killing 14,000 people a year, and then came the "Great Stink" of 1858. London reeked so badly people were vomiting in the streets. The drapes of the House of Commons were soaked with chloride in a (failed) attempt to disguise the stench.

At last, the order came to find a better way—and one of Rose George's heroes entered history. Joseph Bazalgette was the chief engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and along with Hamburg's municipality, he pioneered the great life-saving urban sewers of our time. "His sewers have saved more lives than any other public works," George notes with pride.

But there is a catch. Much as we want to flush and forget, the excrement does not disappear. Ninety percent of the world's sewage ends up untreated in oceans, rivers, and lakes. The costs of Joseph Bazaglette's invention—at the other end of the pipe—are now becoming inescapable. Much of our sewage is pumped, barely treated, into the oceans, where vast dead zones are emerging, killed by our germs. The rest infests water closer to home. For example, in 1993, an outbreak of shit-borne cryptosporidium in Milwaukee killed 400 people and made 400,000 sick. It turned out the city was pumping its "treated" sewage—actually treated for only some toxins, not others—into Lake Michigan and then slurping its drinking water out the other end.

In her search for answers to what to do with our swill, George lyrically dives into the toilet bowl, sloshing about like Gene Kelly singin' in the rain. "Of all the people of the world, the Chinese are probably most at home with their excrement," she explains. They defecate openly, chatting away with their friends in toilets with no dividers. Perhaps for this reason, the Chinese have been more creative than anyone else with their crap. Since the 1930s, they have been turning it into electricity.

ends

PRESS RELEASE


Coordinated action worked for H1N1: time for the same approach to diarrhoea

Geneva 19 August 2010 - A week after the World Health Organization announced the welcome news that the H1N1 flu has ended its pandemic phase, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) reminds the world's decision-makers that deaths from diarrhoea remain extremely high[1]. These deaths are closely linked to inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene practices [2], and are mainly among children under 5 years old in the world's poorest countries.

WSSCC will take this reminder to two major global gatherings next month, an international meeting of leading water experts in Stockholm and the UN Summit of world leaders called for by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly.

"H1N1 was rightly seen as a threat to global health, and coordinated international attention has been successful in reducing the risk. Significant levels of resources, both time and money, were directed to addressing the issue. There was also considerable public debate, including extended coverage in the media," said Jon Lane, WSSCC's Executive Director.

"By these standards, diarrhoea has been neglected. The H1N1 virus has killed at least 18,300[3] people to date. During the same time, diarrhoea has killed about 2 million people. We would love to be able to announce that we are overcoming the threat of diarrhoea, but sadly, that is not the case. Yet we know that some simple measures, including access to toilets and hand washing at key moments, could make a huge difference. It's time the international community put significant time and money into this issue, and treated it with the urgency it deserves."

The same groups who took part in the successful response to the H1N1 pandemic have a role to play in addressing diarrhoea: global health decision makers, the UN system, donors, national governments, civil society, and the media. The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council has members in 160 countries representing each of these constituencies and seeks to raise awareness about the contributions that good sanitation and hygiene can make to health, wealth, and dignity. WSSCC also works in other global initiatives that advance the cause of sanitation, hygiene, and water supply for all people[4].

Note to editors

The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) is a global multi-stakeholder partnership and membership organisation that works to save lives and improve livelihoods. It does so by enhancing collaboration among sector agencies and professionals who are working to improve access for the 2.6 billion people without safe sanitation and the 884 million people without clean drinking water. Through its work, WSSCC contributes to the broader goals of poverty eradication, health and environmental improvement, gender equality and long-term social and economic development. WSSCC has coalitions in 35 countries, members in more than 160 countries, and a Geneva-based Secretariat hosted by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). Visit www.wsscc.org for more information.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] More than 1.8 million people per year , according to the latest WHO global burden of disease figures for low-income countries.

[2] According to WHO and UNICEF, around 2.6 people worldwide lack access to basic sanitation and more than 800 million people do not have access to safe drinking water.

[3] Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 - update 111

[4] For example, WSSCC is a key partner in Sanitation and Water for All, a new global initiative that held its first major public event in April 2010: a High Level Meeting of Ministers of Finance that was organized in Washington D.C, USA, at the time of the World Bank Spring meetings.

ends

Arsenic-free water for rural India

Source: WaterLink International

High levels of arsenic in the groundwater in areas of northeast India and Bangladesh are a recognised public health problem. However, the Isolux Technologies Division of MEL Chemicals, Inc. teamed up with an Indian engineering firm in 2009 to supply 39 arsenic treatment systems customised to the requirements of rural Indian villages.

Water supply in rural northeast areas of India and neighbouring Bangladesh is usually a single source of water for each village. Rural villagers, often lacking electric power, rely on this common village well as their only source of drinking water. If this well has a high level of arsenic, the entire village suffers. Instances of disease related to long-term arsenic exposure are relatively common.

For many years, the typical village water source was surface water (generally a lake or river). The waterborne diseases typical of untreated surface water were common. In the 1970s and 1980s, with funding from a number of international aid groups, millions of tube wells (typically of the order 100 feet deep) were drilled to provide what was thought to be a clean water source for rural villagers. Unfortunately for the villagers, in many cases one type of illness was simply traded for another. By the 1990s, it was recognised that the aquifer underlying most of northeast areas of India and neighbouring Bangladesh is high in naturally occurring arsenic. Arsenic levels in excess of 100 ppb are relatively common. The result is that millions of people in this area now exhibit the symptoms of chronic arsenic poisoning: skin lesions, neurological disorders and cancers.

Governmental agencies and various aid groups have struggled to find an adequate solution to the problem for years. Drilling deeper wells (of about 1000 feet) will avoid the arsenic contaminated aquifer, but this is too expensive and time-consuming to be a universal solution. Most of the treatment technologies common in the US are not applicable because of their relatively sophisticated control systems and occasional backwashing requirement.

The Isolux Technologies Division of MEL Chemicals, Inc. has developed Isolux technology for arsenic removal using its patented zirconium hydroxide media. MEL Chemicals, Inc. has been producing zirconium chemicals at its facility in Flemington, NJ for over 50 years. In combination with its British affiliate, MEL Chemicals, Ltd, it is the world's largest producer of zirconium chemicals. In addition to being NSF Standard 61 certified, Isolux technology has a number of advantages that make it a possible solution for rural villages in India: (1) it does not require backwashing or ‘fluffing' of the media bed; (2) it does not use any external controls; (3) all of its systems are designed around a cartridge replacement concept (cartridges can easily be replaced by an unskilled person in less than an hour); and (4) Isolux's 20-gpm unit which holds four arsenic removal cartridges appears to be an ideal size for most village wells.

In late 2008, the Indian State of Bihar awarded a contract to DNA Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd (an Indian engineering company) for arsenic treatment systems for a number of rural villages. DNA Infrastructure approached Isolux to provide their 20-gpm units for this project. Between the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, a total of 39 rural villages in the Indian state of Bihar were provided with an arsenic-free drinking water source using Isolux technology combined with a solar-electric powered well pump.

Despite years of effort and many projects including that described here, the problem of arsenic contaminated groundwater in northeast India and Bangladesh remains one of the world's most severe public health crises. As a US company, MEL Chemicals has found that it is almost impossible to independently develop and implement projects in India or in most Asian countries. Differences in language, customs and business practices are very difficult to surmount, particularly when dealing with a relatively new technology such as arsenic adsorption. The key to success is to find a local partner such as DNA Infrastructure who can provide the bridge to successfully resolve the problem.
ends

An appeal

Pakistan: adding insult to tragedy

The Flood affected communities are struggling for their survival. Their habitats have been destroyed, they have lost their livelihood. In such circumstances in the patriarchal societies adolescent girls do not get proper attention to fulfill their specific needs, they are ignored by the Humanitarian support programs and even local philanthropists as their needs are not taken as an important issue. Diarrhea and other water related diseases are very common, the water has become contaminated, access to safe sanitation lacks.

The young women and adolescent girls have little access to nutritious food. This program is focusing on these specific issues of young women. This program will supplement the ongoing support programs by UN agencies and other Support Programs in the area.


AWARE GIRS is membership Organization and it has membership from the flood affected areas. The members from the target area have asked the organization to work for addressing the specific needs of the young and adolescents women. AWARE GIRLS is young women led organization working for the rights and development of young women of the Province. The young women can feel the sufferings and problems of young women. AWARE GIRLS has already worked for Internally displaced Young women by providing them support KITS, raising voice for Gender Cluster, and developing Research Report for Mainstreaming Gender in Humanitarian work in the North Western Pakistan.

In the Gender neutral relief, rehabilitation efforts the specific needs of Adolescents Girls are ignored such that the use of unhygienic cloth for sanitary purpose during menses period may cause of spread of further diseases among the affected population. The young women have a little access to the relief and support provided by the Relief organizations because of patriarchal culture.
There is an urgent need to move from gender blindness to gender sensitivity in helping the victims of this disaster. it is imperative to ensure that a gender perspective is included in the disaster management programs so that the relief efforts are able to properly address Young women’s needs such that;

* Fulfilling women specific requirements, such as sanitary pads /towels and clean white cloth and underwear,

· Providing Contraceptives, blankets and clothes,

· Toiletries: toilet rolls, soaps, shampoo, Towels,

· Nutritional supplements (multi vitamins, iron etc)

· Clean drinking water

· Ware cleaning tablets

We have developed a KIT fulfilling these specific needs of young women. One KIT Costs 30 USD. We are Generating resources to approach 5,000 Young women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and fulfil their needs.

Gulalai Ismail
Chairperson
AWARE GIRLS
aware_girls@yahoo.com
www.awaregirls.webs.com

Officials of five districts put on alert

Sunday, August 08, 2010

By Jan Khaskheli

Karachi

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) has reportedly put district administrations of Kashmore, Ghotki, Shikarpur, Sukkur and Dadu on alert to keep a watchful eye on the raging flood at Guddu which may cause a breach near the Ghauspur embankment anytime.

“We have asked DCOs from Kashmore to Dadu to put the officials concerned on alert to deal with any situation efficiently. It may be the worst situation,” said a PDMA spokesman.

According to the PDMA official, the water level at Taunsa was 950,000 cusecs which will remain the same in the next three days. “The next three days are very crucial and may cause devastation in Sindh,” he said.

Mohammed Younus Marri from Kashmore told The News that presently three main towns — Old Ghauspur, New Ghauspur and Karampur — and the adjoining villages were under threat and the inhabitants were being evacuated on a war-footing. He said that in case of a breach, Kandhkot and parts of Shikarpur district might be affected by the flood.

He said that continuous rain has affected the evacuation process and relief work in Kashmore and Ghotki districts and other areas.

Government officials claimed that minor leakages in the embankments were understandable because the floodwater has touched the muddy walls after a period of 15 years.

Ishaque Meerani, who was monitoring rescue activities in Kashmore, said that the rising water pressure at the Torhi Bungalow embankment near Kandhkot caused a minor breach, which was being plugged. He said that while he was travelling from Guddu to Torhi Bungalow embankment, he saw hundreds of families crying for food, as they had received nothing so far from the government or any other side. The people, who had ration with them while for safe places, have now gone out of the food stock.

He said that though majority of people from katcha area in Kashmore district had been shifted to safe places, still a small number of people were there, who were reluctant to leave the area.

The News received reports from different areas that owing to the flow of 100,000 cusec at Guddu crossing and rising level in Sukkur barrage, katcha areas of Dadu, Jamshoro and Matiari districts came under water on Saturday morning. Standing crops on hundreds of acres in katcha area and the river bed have been inundated by the flood water. Local people said that due to illegal encroachments on land along the embankments, its bunds have weakened.

The government functionaries have also started to plug leakages in the embankments in Matiari and Jamshoro districts.

Meanwhile, the Sindh Irrigation Drainage Authority (Sida) Flood Information Cell figure released on Saturday said that at Guddu downstream water level was 102,2145 cusec, Sukkur 926,035 cusec and at Kotri downstream 132,660 cusec.
ends

No flood, rain worries for Benazir Basti residents

Tuesday, August 03, 2010
By Jan Khaskheli

Karachi

Standing in front of her beautiful house in the newly developed Behen Benazir Basti in the village of Bachal Jam Jokhio, Benazirabad (Nawabshah) district, 50-year-old Mai Aakulzadi told The News that she was lucky to have got the house, which saved her from floods this monsoon.

Mai Aakulzadi was among the lucky ones to have escaped the floods which have demolished a number of makeshift homes and left many people homeless in low-lying areas. “The heavy rains always destroyed our abodes in the past and we had to rebuild them on our own,” she said. “Life was harder then,” she reminisced, adding that those days now seem to be over for them.

Mai enjoyed the monsoon rains after a long time, realising that she lives in a house that is not vulnerable to flood and, by extension, devastation. “Previously, our houses were never able to survive heavy downpours,” she said. “Even during light showers, the roofs of the houses would begin to leak and we, fearing the roofs would cave in, had to live in ordinary shelters in the open.”

Like Mai, all the beneficiaries of the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Housing Cell (SBBHC), in Benazirabad district, are equally pleased with living in secure houses in monsoon, said Ismail Zardari, Project Manager, Research and Development Foundation (RDF), which is implementing the low-cost housing project.

These houses have two bedrooms, a veranda, an open courtyard, a kitchen and a toilet. The PPP-led government has identified deserving women, who are being given the low-cost houses in three districts where the scheme is operational i.e. Benazirabad, Tando Allahyar and Hyderabad.

The RDF is currently working on 1,700 houses in 48 villages of the three districts; 1,100 in Benazirabad and 300 each in Tando Allahyar and Hyderabad. Building one such house costs between Rs2,25000 to Rs2,42000, depending on the requirements and expenditures of the area.

“The fact that most of beneficiaries have not been troubled by the rains this year has immensely encouraged the project management,” Ismail said.

Ziaul Islam, director of the SBBHC, claimed that they have not received a single complaint regarding any technical fault in the newly-built houses. However, he said, the rains have affected the pace of building more houses. The possession of as many as 10,000 houses, of which 6000 houses are almost complete, would be handed over to the deserving persons by the end of this year.

“We have planned a strategy to keep handing over the possession of the houses to the deserving people through EDO revenue and other relevant officials as soon as work on a small number of the houses is completed rather than waiting for all the houses to complete and then giving them to the people at once,” he said.

Meanwhile, Benazirabad Revenue EDO Rashid Zardari, who monitors the project in the district, said that work on 400 houses has been completed. The EDO hoped that new houses would bring improvement such people’s lives.

RDF Executive Director Masood Mahesar said that they have taken the suggestions of the beneficiaries while constructing the houses to avoid any possible technical fault. Male members of beneficiary families are working together with the technical staff and have contributed a lot in the building process, he said. Mahesar felt that it was an important aspect of the project.

ends

Upcountry floods bring hope for tail-enders

Sunday, August 01, 2010
Jan Khaskheli

Karachi

Heavy rains and floods which wreaked havoc in upper areas of the country, have brought hope for those living in tail-end areas, who derive their livelihood from the Indus at Jamshoro, downstream Kotri, as water flow downstream Kotri crossed more than 90,000 cusecs on Friday.

Kotri gauge station operators reveal that the water flow has been increasing with the passage of each day since the beginning of monsoon in the upper parts of the country.

Last year, the water flow could not cross 80,000 cusecs downstream Kotri and the flow remained only for 15 days. However, the flow has already crossed the maximum flow level of last year and more water is expected as the high flood in the Indus is likely to reach Jamshoro within a few days, the station operators said.

One elderly man, Allah Jurio, said that it was a joy to see such high level of water in the Indus after several months. He said that shrimps are coming to upstream after the River water falls in to the sea in Thatta district. Some youths sitting at the river bank were using traditional trolling ropes to catch fish who claimed that they were catching enough fish for their use. Hardly one week earlier, the youths said, the water released downstream Kotri was 5,000 cusec and it is increasing after every day. Moreover, officials say that this year the river may receive heavy flood and inundate more katcha area.

The capacity of the Jamshoro Bridge is 750,000 cusecs, but during the devastating floods in 1956 the water passed under the bridge was measured 950,000 cusecs. Moreover, in 1996 when 500,000 cusecs streamed under the bridge, that was the last time when water flew downstream Kotri in such a large quantity. After that water flow had been less and this, as many local activists and NGOs believe, caused depletion of natural resources and forest and created livelihood issues for people relying on fishing, cultivation and livestock grazing.

Meanwhile, communities living in the Indus Delta region, at lakes, wetlands and famous Ramsar sites are getting more water through their natural feeding canals. The Manchar Lake in Dadu district a wide area of which had dried and fishermen had to migrate due to this is also receiving 5,000 cusec water only from the River Indus

One Ayoub Mallah from Phulail Villager at Baqar Lake, Sanghar District, told The News that the lake has received sufficient water and rains have recharged wells, water ponds and flooded grazing fields near the sandy mountains. The rain water has created hope for the local herdsmen.

The traditional lake, which is called the Chotiari Reservoir now, had touched dead level few months back. However, locals say that the lake is now receiving water through Nara canal and other natural feeding resources after heavy downpours.

Moreover, the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) activists in the Indus Delta celebrated the arrival of water by throwing rose petals. They expressed hope that water would help sustain their lives and sources of livelihood. A PFF spokesman said that according to information they received from people living near several water bodies in the province the fishermen, farmers and herdsmen have rejoiced after the increase of water in the Indus.

The farmers are preparing their harvesting tools, fishermen their fishing nets and shepherds heading their herds towards grazing fields.

Scheme for low-cost sanitary napkins to rural girls approved


By Aarti Dhar

The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry on Tuesday approved a scheme for providing highly subsidised sanitary napkins to adolescent girls in the rural areas to promote menstrual hygiene. The scheme, to be launched in 150 districts across the country in the first phase, will cost Rs.150 crore for the current financial year.

Approved by the Mission Steering Group – the highest decision-making body – of the National Rural Health Mission, at its sixth meeting here, the scheme envisages covering 1.5-crore girls in the age group of 10-19 years every month. Of this, the approximate number of APL girls is 105 lakh while that of the BPL category is 45 lakh. The napkins will be supplied to the below poverty line (BPL) girls at a nominal cost of Re.1 per pack of six while those girls living above poverty line (APL) will have to pay Rs.5 per pack.

Limited access

In India, menstruation and menstrual practices are clouded by taboos and socio-cultural restrictions for women as well as adolescent girls. Limited access to safe sanitary products and facilities is believed to be one of the reasons for constrained school attendance, high dropout rates and ill health due to infection.

Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Bihar, Rajasthan and Puducherry have already taken similar initiatives to promote menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls.

The 150 districts identified in the first phase include 30 from the four southern States, Maharashtra and Gujarat and 120 from northern, central and the north-eastern States. In the first year, the Centre will procure the napkins and supply these to the States that will in turn send these to Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) in the districts for distribution on a monthly basis or to the schools which will become distribution points for students.

As an incentive, ASHA will get one pack free every month in addition to Rs.50 per meeting she holds on a Sunday for creating awareness regarding menstrual hygiene among girls. Subsequently, States can choose to involve self-help groups for manufacturing and marketing sanitary napkins. At least 50 districts with a strong network of SHGs will be involved in the manufacture of napkins in the first phase itself. The ASHAs will procure sanitary napkins from the sub-centre for which she will be given Rs.300 from the untied fund. Each month, ASHA will replenish the imprest fund with the amount collected through the sale of napkins.

Safe disposal

For safe disposal of the napkins at the community level, deep-pit burial or burning are the options being considered. Due environmental clearance has to be obtained from the States for this. Installing incinerators in schools that can be manually operated is another option. Consultations are on with the Ministry of Environment and Forests for use of environment-friendly raw material and disposal mechanism.

States have been given the option of leveraging funds for incinerators through the Total Sanitation Campaign of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

The scheme will be expanded to other districts after the outcome of the first phase is evaluated. In that case, the States will be asked to contribute 15 per cent of the cost. The scheme can also be transferred to the Ministries of Women and Child Development and Rural Development at a later stage for self-financing and self-sustaining that will reduce the budgetary support.