Water and Sanitation

Women are in many cases the main care takers of the families in Somalia. They supply the household with water, food and are the key people that promote hygiene in their families. WOCCA supports families by giving women, children and men access to hygiene facilities like latrines. Usually slabs are provided and the families build latrines around them. This is an effective and relatively cheap way to reduce the infection rate of diseases like cholera. At the same time, WOCCA tries to give people better access to water by rehabilitating water sources and chlorination. Clean water is essential to reduce diseases.

The above is a picture of a lady of 15 years old who lives in one of the village in Middle Shabelle. She was attacked by a crocodile, but luckily she is alive although the ordeal left her wounded seriously. She had gone to the river to fetch water because that was the only source of water available in village. In the process of fetching the water from the river, the crocodile attacked her.

In as much as she was rescued, her life can never be the same again because she has been left with glaring scars on her leg which is a very sensitive part of her body. She now lives with the problem since she experiences difficulties that may not allow her to go to the river again due to the injuries inflicted. This is but just an example of the challenges that are faced by women in this region as they go about their daily activities as they try to feed for themselves and their children.

Objectives in Wash

• Increase access to clean water in the target areas by digging and rehabilitating wells as well as water catchments and train people on responsible usage of water.
• Chlorinate wells and any other water source in the target area with the help of all stakeholders including donors.
• Provide Sanitary and health TOT training for community members.
• Provision of sanitary supplies such as soap, leak cans, Jerricans, Chlorofoc and chlorine, water purification tablets, ceramic filters.

WOCCA'S Wash Sector

The WASH sector is one of the pillars that WOCCA relies on to save the lives of vulnerable people in the Somalia. The core objective is to improve the lives of the Somali people, especially women and children, through increased access to clean water. Improving hygiene and sanitation circumstances and increase access to more and better quality/clean of water allows people to advance their general health and prevent any outbreak which can be life threatening to vulnerable individuals such as children, elderly and pregnant women.

WOCCA’s wash strategy has two principles:

• Increase the access to clean and sufficient water
• Improve the hygiene and sanitation circumstances and practices

In the year 2011 Wocca has assisted 123,755 people in Wash living in 79 villages and town districts. The first strategic objective, the water supply existed of activities where Wocca

• Construction of new wells
• Upgrading of wells
• Chlorination of wells
• Giving out vouchers that people use to get water (emergency in drought affected areas)

The activities have helped in acute emergency as well as with the longer term. Apart from the improvement in water quality, hygienic circumstances are being addressed. This is done with the improvement of infrastructures by providing people with latrines as well as with hygiene awareness in combination with hygiene agents (soap, jerry cans and aqua tabs for water purification). In the table below you can see the wash activities of WOCCA that happened on 2011 and the number of people that benefitted from those activities.

Somalia is a country with no affective central government. This becomes mostly clear when there are acute emergencies like cholera outbreaks. In March 2011 an outbreak was realized in Aden Yabal. Wocca teamed up with INTERSOS, a medical NGO to confirm if there is a real outbreak as many international organizations and UN organizations are unable to work in certain areas.



One of the children affected by the cholera outbreak was Nur Shuriye Hassan who was 1.5 years at the time of the outbreak. People with cholera can lose up to 1 liter of liquid per hour through diarrhea and if untreated many children will not survive a night. As seen in the photo, Nur Shuriye is receiving a drip by one of WOCCA and Intersos staff. This increased his chances of survival at a critical time in his life and at this moment Nur is still alive and a healthy child.



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