Video transcript: Ethiopia drought response
Oxfam's emergency programme has included building special 'birkad' rainwater harvesting tanks to help communities collect and store clean water. Mohammed Semeter from Oxfam's local partner UNISOD introduces one of the birkads built as part of our drought response.
First of all, this village is called Gabre Khosin. It's one of the villages that we have implemented our Shinile drought response.
This is one of the birkads, one of the four birkads, that have been constructed in the district within this project. And this was completed in early March [2009]. It rained at the end of March and then we received this much water [video shows several feet of water inside the birkad] at the first rain. Since then, there's been no rain at all.
As you can see, we tried to strengthen as much as we can the quality so it can be sustainable for a long time.
This water will be used for only this community. Basically, mostly they are using it for drinking purposes only. And their animals are being used to fetch the water. But this will be used for only the community of this area.
And of course, this community did not have any water sources before. The nearest source before for drinking was 15 kilometres away.
