February 2007 ISSUE
Goodworks
EBA Celebrates Anniversary with Ethiopian Project
BY BRIAN C. ADENEY
EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd.
______________________________
 |
SAFE WATER |
EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd. notched its 40th anniversary in 2006, and we wanted to do something special to celebrate the milestone.
We wanted to link our anniversary celebration to our core values, which include improving our communities. We also wanted this celebration to be meaningful to each staff member – something that would bring staff together for a special purpose in the company’s 40th year.
EBA aligned with a small international aid group that does work in Ethiopia. Partners in the Horn of Africa is a registered Canadian charity operated by several private citizens from Alberta and British Columbia, and it has been operating in Ethiopia for four years. It delivers relatively small scale aid projects, such as an orphanage for HIV orphans, footbridges for villagers to cross rivers in the rainy season, small schools and projects supplying villagers with clean water.
Partners in the Horn has no administration costs. All operating expenses are paid personally by its directors, which means 100 per cent of donations are applied directly to the projects in Ethiopia.
All projects are suggested by Ethiopian volunteer groups who are required to “buy into” projects by contributing 15 to 20 per cent of the cost, usually through labour. And Partners has chosen to work in some of the most remote and challenging parts of the country, where few other agencies are active.
These unique features allow Partners in the Horn of Africa to deliver needed projects that make a real difference in the lives of Ethiopians.
The Project
Our project involved designing and overseeing a system to protect year-round
springs in the Wollo district of Ethiopia. EBA provided both capital funding
and technical support.
The Wollo area is prone to drought. Lack of water and poor water quality are chronic problems. Ethiopian women often walk long distances to obtain dirty water from sources shared with cattle and other animals. By protecting springs and segregating users, much can be done to combat water-borne diseases.
Five villages with their main water supply contaminated were identified for the EBA project.
Specific spring protection works involved the hand construction of small containment reservoirs. These collect water from the “eye of the spring” and direct outflows to taps for specific needs, including drinking water, bathing water and water for animals.
It was important to EBA that we brought the Ethiopia experience as close as possible to all EBA staff. I travelled to Ethiopia in early 2006 to scope out the project and gather the information required for the design stage. In May 2006, Katherine Johnston, a hydrogeologist from the Whitehorse office, travelled there to monitor the construction phase.
Throughout the year, employees who travelled to Ethiopia to work on the project have shared their experiences with other staff. Pictures and words have been posted on EBA’s intranet, in-house presentations have been made, including presentations at EBA’s office Christmas parties.
EBA also asked employees involved to take the time when they were in Ethiopia away from the project, so they would gain a better understanding of the country. EBA wanted communications with employees to go beyond technical aspects of the project and focus on Ethiopia: the country and the people.
EBA’s envisioned results of the 40th anniversary celebration were
That employees of EBA will have made a real difference in the lives of a number of people in Ethiopia by providing safe drinking water to several villages That the employees will have accomplished something as a team that they can all be very proud of That a few employees will have gained an incredible experience by travelling to Ethiopia to be involved in the project That employees will have learned something more about the world around us and will have made a deeper personal connection with the spirit of global community.
We have realized these results and more. The company encourages you to read further to gain a better understanding of Ethiopia and the incredible people that inhabit this beautiful but challenging country.
All five of the spring projects are complete and Partners tells us we’ve made a huge difference in the lives of thousands of people in Ethiopia. It fact, each spring was officially opened with a village ceremony lasting several days.
The springs have become focal points for the communities they serve. A local woman compared the old water to the new this way: “We used to drink tella (crude homemade beer) but now we drink teuj (honey wine).”
Travelling Through Time
Ethiopia is referred to as the “cradle of humanity.” In addition
to several millennia of fascinating history and culture, the settlement of
Harar was the location where paleontologists discovered Lucy in 1974 – the
3.2-million-year-old, 3.5-foot skeletal remains that became known as
the missing link between ape and man.
The bones were on display in the basement of the Ethiopia National Museum and will be part of a travelling exhibit in North America over the next few years.
Prior to the project work, I spent five days visiting historical church sites at Lalibela and Blue Nile Falls at Bahir Dar. At Lalibela, 11 rock-hewn churches were carved below ground out of volcanic rock in 1230 AD and connected with tunnels. Blue Nile Falls was nothing like the IMAX movie I saw a few years ago, as it was the dry season when I visited and a recent hydroelectric project has diverted upstream flows around the falls.
Ethiopian food primarily consists of injera, a large, thin, rubbery pancake with various vegetable pastes and yefigel tibs (fried goat), which you dip into and eat with your hands. In some cases, a communal platter is served and the men feed the women by hand, and vice-versa.
I can thank Mussolini’s brief occupation of Ethiopia in the 1930s for spaghetti being on some menus. As water quality can be a concern, it is safest to drink beer (there are several good local brands) as it is distilled water or pop.
A Critical Need
Only 25 per cent of Ethiopians have access to safe, potable water. This means
there are many water-borne diseases, which contribute to the country’s
high sickness and morbidity rates. Life expectancy is on the order
of 45 years.
Water is currently obtained by several methods. Deep drilled wells and shallow dugout wells are used in the lowland areas. Water is collected from natural seeps and springs in the highlands.
Young women carry 20-kg water jugs on their backs for five to 10 km several times a day, to obtain water of marginal quality from natural seeps and puddles also used by domestic cattle and wild animals. Geographically, Ethiopia is about 60 per cent larger than Alberta, yet its population is 20 times ours at over 75 million. The average family has seven children, and the population growth rate is about the same as that of Fort McMurray – about three per cent per year.
Project Setting
North Wollo, one of the country’s poorest areas, has been severely
affected by devastating droughts over many decades. The area produces
barely enough
food for self-sufficiency during average years and suffers greatly during
drought cycles.
Ironically, record rainfall during the summer rainy season in 2006 caused extensive flooding throughout Ethiopia, including Wollo, and resulted in over 1,000 deaths and over 200,000 homeless.
The project area is about a 10-hour drive north of Addis Ababa on a rough road, shared by vehicles, travellers, school children and animals. The remote villages served by the water projects are an additional two-hour treacherous drive up into the Highlands from Kobbo, plus a walk where roads do not exist.
The region is a fascinating part of Ethiopia with steep highlands combined with ingeniously terraced farmlands. The logistics of getting people and supplies into the area is extremely challenging, due to the rugged terrain, poor roads and lack of communications.
As a result, these villages have not received international aid. The people living in these communities truly believe it is an act of God that has brought Partners and these projects to their area.
The local school literally emptied when we arrived and the children were excited to practice their English with visitors. English, in addition to native Amharic, is now taught in school there.
The dry season typically lasts from November to May and offers the best opportunity to evaluate permanent springs. The project team inspected 10 potential protection sites, and flow measurements and other field data were collected at each site. The spring water is groundwater that is many years or decades old, so water quality is not a concern until it comes in contact with livestock.
Local community leaders, among them the priest and the school principal, provided the most reliable information on long-term flow conditions.
Design and Construction
Tesfaye Tefer, an Ethiopian engineer, managed the design
and construction of the spring protection sites. Schooled
at Addis
Ababa University,
Mr. Tefer
was extremely resourceful in remote construction projects,
including roads and water infrastructure.
Preliminary designs, cost estimates and construction schedules for five springs were completed by March and reviewed by EBA hydrologists. Construction materials were brought to the spring sites by donkey during the review period and included hand shovels, rocks, sand, cement, rebar and piping.
The goal was to complete five spring protection sites prior to the start of the rainy season in July, with priority on those springs serving the most people and having the best access.
In addition to providing water taps to fill containers for drinking and washing water, Mr. Tefer installed concrete basins for women to wash laundry and a downstream trough for livestock. Any excess water is diverted down slope and used for irrigation.
Community Focal Points
Spring sites were completed and opened between May and August 2006. At
the new Mendina spring, the project team was greeted with singing,
dancing and
many thanks from the community members. After a brief meeting with
the community, the project team was hosted and treated to injera, tella
and araki.
The generosity shown by the people who live in these communities was remarkable, considering how little they really have for themselves.
It is very difficult to explain how poor these communities really are. There is no electricity, water, sanitation, or health services. In fact the spring protection works are the first real infrastructure in the area. Rather than go to school, many children are required to stay home to help gather water (particularly women), farm and tend to livestock.
The benefits of this project to Ethiopian villagers are obvious. However, the excitement within EBA has been equally enormous. In fact EBA has approved similar funding for 2007, to support further spring protection works, repair an important bridge crossing, and improve an elementary school.
On a personal note, the experience has been truly life-changing for me. A day does not go by when I do not think of the incredible people I met and the challenges they endure. It was also fascinating to share engineering expertise with an Ethiopian counterpart.
I hope to support and participate directly in similar initiatives, down the road.
Brian C. Adeney, P.Eng., is senior project director of the Environmental Practice, Prairies & Arctic Region, EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd. in Edmonton. He has 24 years of environmental/engineering consulting experience and an interest in how engineers can support needs in the broader community. His last story for The PEGG was In the Wake of Ivan The Terrible, November 2004, filed after he conducted hurricane relief work in the Caribbean.
MORE INFORMATION
Partners in the Horn of Africa
www.partnersinthehorn.com