Shelters improve the lives of hundreds of Bedouins

6 May 2009

Oxfam's Sarah-Eve Hammond met with the Bedouin community in Um El Kher to understand the hardships they face and to find out about the difference Oxfam's new shelter project, run through local partner Rural Center for Sustainable Development (RCSD), is making a difference.

The traditional Bedouin lifestyle doesn't exist anymore. The Israeli administration which controls Area C of the West Bank, where most herders in the occupied Palestinian territories live, restricts Palestinian development and imposes rigid systems that severely constrain movement. The inability to move freely, to find grazing land and access markets to sell animals has an impact on the herders by increasing their vulnerability and threatening their food security. The romantic vision of herders moving from camp to camp to graze their animals has now almost totally disappeared in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Five main Bedouin tribes live in the West Bank and most of them originate from the Negev desert. Bedouin communities live in isolated areas around Hebron, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jericho and the Jordan Valley. These herding communities are especially affected by movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli government, lack of infrastructure, proximity to Israeli settlements, rigid building limitations, land confiscations and home demolitions. Consequently, they live in extreme poverty.

The village of Um El Kher lies south of Hebron. This Bedouin community of 140 people rely on herding as a main source of income. Bedouin here live next door to an Israeli settlement and are prevented from moving freely.

Usually, Bedouin communities move to warmer camp sites during the winter. "We do not do that anymore," says 32-year-old Salma. "We are afraid that if we leave for the winter camp our lands here will be confiscated and used by the settlers."

Fatma is getting her donkey ready to fetch water. Like most Bedouin communities, Um el Kher is not connected a water network. Water is bought from private water tankers or from nearby villages and Israeli settlements at an inflated price. There is no quality control over the water supplies bought by herders and very often the storage conditions of water supplies are unhygienic.

To add to their struggle, the ongoing drought in the country has severely affected herders. During the 2007-8 winter season, rainfall levels were less than half the average. As a consequence, fewer crops were available for animals to eat and water was scarce, forcing these impoverished Bedouin herders to spend more money on buying fodder and tankered water.

Sheikha is in her 50s. She has diabetes and high blood pressure and she hasn't been able to go to the health clinic in Hebron (about an hour from her village of Um el Kher) in four months. "It costs me 60 ILS (£10) every time I need to go. This is too expensive for us and we need this money to buy food."

Sheikha's food cupboard is almost empty and anyone can see there is not enough food for the 26 family members who live off one salary. "We get eggs from the chicken," says Sheikha's daughter, Salma. "We have bread and sabanekh [similar to spinach]. Ten years ago we had a lot of animals but my father had to sell them to pay off our debts."

With movement restrictions preventing herders from getting to their traditional markets to sell animals and a shrinking ability to use credit, food insecurity increases rapidly. It then becomes difficult for communities to find money to maintain and repair their shelters.

Shelters are made from old pieces of fabric and zinc sheets. They offer little protection against the weather.

With funds from the European Union Humanitarian Aid Department (DG- ECHO), Oxfam rehabilitated shelters that did not meet the minimum international housing standards.

200 families were selected from four Bedouin communities. Some families were given new weatherproof tents and new concrete shelters.

Some Bedouin tents were upgraded by elevating ceilings, extending existing rooms or adding an extra room to give a family more space. In other cases a new zinc shelter with windows and doors was created.

The rehabilitated shelters require less maintenance. This allows families to save money they can spend on food, health and education.

"Families are happy with the new shelters and the extra space", says Um El Kher's tribal leader. "We are now able to have a living space separated from the kitchen and kids sleep in warmer and cleaner tents. The zinc shelters have windows and shutters and it is amazing to be protected from the wind and cold, while being able to see the sun."

Mahmoud Takatqa and Hussein Alqam from Oxfam's partner the Rural Center for Sustainable Development pose in front of a newly completed zinc shelter with Oxfam's Project Officer Feda Husseini.

Mahmoud says: "We involved the communities in this project and discussed with them what kind of shelters would be best for their way of life. Very few organisations work with the Bedouin communities in the West Bank and this ECHO-funded initiative gave us the opportunity to show that small changes can have a big impact."

"One man, who had his tent rehabilitated with a concrete floor, told me it was the first rainy season in his life he did not have to dig up a trench around the tent to prevent flooding. There is so much to be done in communities like Um El Kher, but we feel this is a good start," concluded Hussein.