October 7th 2023
- Absolute urgency…
- Where to go, solutions….
APDA currently has 64,000 kilograms of concentrated animal feed having just sent 8,000 kilograms to northern Eli Da’ar. This will then feed 3,556 breeding goats for 2 months, keeping them in health and milk in a household where almost all the goats have died (households with less than 10 remaining goats and having malnutrition qualify for this assistance). Animal medicines are also in stock. This is a great double strategy of bringing milk to the house as well as preventing utter destitution during the long dry season.
8,100 kilograms of ground barley is the purchase process planned to feed 270 malnourished pregnant and lactating mothers with 15 kilograms per month for 2 months.
APDA needs to
- Keep running after cholera in every way to stop it in remote areas where health institutions are not available
- Continue with the malnourished and by any means, try to find food…..
- As can be easily imagined, people are finding it so hard to put their children back into school with the daily priorities they face. It is costing on average 9.28 USD for a child to have basic school stationery with the uniform or whatever else is needed.
- Continuing development activities
Indeed APDA continues its development commitments having restored water to people in the Tigray border hills where TPLF had sabotaged the community supply; working now to construct a dam that will prove to rejuvenate pasture in otherwise drought-prone Kori; providing maternal health and safe delivery to 1,705 mothers in their mobile homes in the past quarter and referring a further 937 mothers to higher care in health centers and hospitals in the past quarter; having currently over 11,000 Afar literacy students of whom the majority are females; training and demonstrating marketing and horticulture to a further group of women from northern and central Afar that they learn livelihood diversification and so on….
This continuation remains essential that Afar have hope and a future.
Mothers receiving start-up money in north-western Magaale that they join the growing number of women earning in these districts where the market was utterly disrupted under conflict
- Positioning APDA for another 5 years
As previously mentioned, APDA is working through the process of securing a strategy plan for the coming 5 years, 2024 to 2028. Below are the objectives that are being discussed given the critical situation the Afar people are currently in:
Vision: Afar pastoralists have adequate opportunity to enjoy basic human rights and reach their full potential.
Mission: Empowerment of the Afar society to achieve the vision
| Societal goals Reduction in poverty & inequality / opportunity to appropriate development | Opportunity of improved social and economic livelihood appropriate to their defined need is attainable and sustained for targeted Afar pastoralists | Afar pastoralist females know and can exercise their basic human rights leading to responsible decision – making | Afar pastoralist community leadership capable of directing social and economic change that they are able to sustain | Development cooperation, government services and policies are practical to needs of Afar pastoralists | A future driven through appropriate, quality education enables Afar children and youth to achieve using their intellectual potential |
| Program goals to be achieved | Sustainable continuity to basic social and economic services in geographically remote areas assured: food/ economic security; capable, equipped field staff; access to enabling, essential materials | Female needs and demands met at community level through all – inclusive programming | Community leaders are demonstrative of vision, values enhancing traditional means of coping through cohesive government. | Development programming appropriate to Afar pastoralist lifestyle and circumstance in collaboration with government planning | Afar language leads in proper grammar and prolific writing. Learning available for all ages improves life-skills. Capable teachers |
| Internal processes needed to sustain achievement | Pro-active community development committees. Adequate water and sustained pasture Livelihood diversity to crop – growing and marketing where possible. Constructive training building toward quality implementation Immediate response to disasters | Interaction between community leadership and the change process. Care in female training, upgrading and employment. | Enabling and mentoring of senior leadership to uphold traditional knowledge and value systems. Recognition and recording of traditional systems comparative to modern | Strong and overall advocacy in government/ UN system for appropriate development and humanitarian response. Working in tandem with Samara University to research appropriate methodology | Writing, publishing and distributing appropriate learning material. Enabling teacher – motivation as well as community commitment to education. Attaining sustainable system of hostel learning for remote communities. |
The process now is to work out how to score these objectives in terms of monitoring indicators, milestones going forward and the means to assess progress.
Any comments on this are most welcome!!!
