Sand Dam’s, Self Help Groups and Sustainable Development Goals
Volunteering with Jersey Overseas Aid
The alarm goes off at 4:30am Sunday morning and to be honest I’m not sure where I am or what day it is. It’s been a hectic few months at Jersey Overseas Aid or ‘JOA’ as we like to affectionately call our workplace. The whole team have been extremely busy conducting project assessments visiting Rwanda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Sierra Leonne, Zambia and Nepal. Our Monitoring & Impact officer has also been visiting our on-going projects to evaluate and measure their progress against frameworks and models. This is a vital part of the work we do along with project assessment visits, to collect as much information as we can, to support our new project funding decisions for 2022
We’ve also been preparing events here on island in Jersey too, celebrating the 50th Anniversary Year of Volunteering through our Community Work Projects against the backdrop of providing financial emergency responses to the world’s humanitarian crisis’. Not only to Ukraine, but also to the many partners we support worldwide such as OCHA, UNHCR and the British Red Cross in many parts of the world including, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan and the Central African Republic to name but a few. We also have been building our connections with our local Jersey Charities at our recent networking event and interviewing for a Junior Professional Officer, who will be based and work under the United Nations, so all in all a very busy start to the first quarter of 2022.
Today I’m off to Kenya to visit a project 2 hours southeast of Nairobi near the town of Tawa. The project is run by our partner, Sand Dams Worldwide (SDW) who, in conjunction with the African Sand Dams Foundation (ASDF) work with local communities to build sand dams in remote villages. In around 4 weeks’ time 12 volunteers, as part of our Community Work Program (CWP) from Jersey, will be following my journey to spend 2 weeks helping to build the dam in this region.
My visit over the next few days is to meet with SDW and ASDF, the local community volunteers (known as SHG’s self-help groups) and to check everything is in place for our Jersey CWP volunteers. It’s important that we minimise any risks, ensure volunteers will be as safe as possible and meet the local community, to connect with them and build trust, and to ensure our team back in Jersey are fully prepared with everything they need, both physically and mentally to support their well-being whilst working on this project and being a long way from home. We want to ensure that this trip is successful for everyone, both for the local community who have been working hard already, and to our Jersey volunteers. So, what is a sand dam and why are they needed? Why community self-help groups (SHG’s) and volunteers? What is the purpose of a project like this?
This project will support a subsistence farming community in the Ukambani region to build a sand dam to provide a reliable, year-round water source. Sand dams are sustainable, low cost, rainwater harvesting technique built into dry river channels to capture and store seasonal runoff so that water is available to local people even during the dry periods. Over the last 20 years, sand dams have proven highly effective at transforming lives in this part of Kenya. (Sand Dams Worldwide 2022). The project area suffers frequent droughts and unreliable rainy seasons exacerbated by climate change leading to environmental degradation, severe water shortages and failed/reduced harvests. Since most households rely on small-scale farming, these conditions result in widespread hunger and high levels of poverty. Over two thirds of families live in poverty, 20% more than the national average and about the same portion also has no access to safe water. During dry periods, people (typically women and children) can spend up to 12 hours each day collecting water, which is often unfit for human consumption. The constant search for water leaves them with little time to invest in improved agriculture, or for children to go to school, trapping them in a cycle of poverty and aid dependence. The sand dam is expected to address the key issue of water scarcity, and to transform their livelihoods.
The project will support one SHG and its wider community to have a new local and reliable source of clean water. SHG’s are self-formed groups of male and female farmers from the same village community who have joined together for the purposes of community development, motivated by Mwethya, a Kenyan philosophy of working together to achieve a common goal. The average size of a SHG is approximately 35 farmers and experience shows 70% are female. One sand dam will directly benefit approximately 254 people, i.e. the SHG members and their households. A further 1,000 people who live in the wider community are also expected to benefit either by access to the sand dam themselves and/or reduced pressure on existing water sources.
The 2018 report from the United Nations, ‘State of the World’s Volunteerism’ highlighted how ‘volunteering brings people in the community together to achieve shared goals. In the process, strengthening solidarity and relational bonds and building trust.’ Models have shifted from external intervention, now recognising that resilience and community development are improved when responsibility is taken within communities. This gives communities the power to think for themselves and act in ways that shape their experiences, grow, change, and build capacity and on-going resilience. I’m excited to meet the local farmers and community who make up the SHG in the village, learn more about the individuals who make up this group, their experiences of working together, their expectations and their hopes for the future. 70% of these groups are made up of women, who as well as running the home, caring for their families and small holdings, are giving up their time to build this dam for their community and improve their livelihoods. I’m interested to learn more about the social inclusion these projects provide and the effect on empowering people, especially women. The project is a collaboration of volunteerism, bringing together people from totally different cultures, who’s paths would have never ever crossed had it not been for stepping up and volunteering their time and skills from two very different parts of the world.
The Sustainable Development goals (SDG’s, the world of international development, as in so many other professions, acronyms are a plenty), also known as the Global Goals to end poverty, aim to fight inequality and injustice and tackle climate change by 2030. These goals were adopted by world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015. The 2030 Agenda for sustainable development plainly recognises volunteer groups as stakeholders to achieve the 17 SDG’s. ‘Volunteerism strengthens civic engagement, safeguards social inclusion, deepens solidarity and solidifies ownership of development results’ United Nations 2015.
Volunteerism, by its very nature is an important tool for sustainable development. Volunteerism brings communities together to participate in their own growth, enhance their knowledge base and gain a sense of responsibility for their own community. Volunteers help to deliver basic services, transfer skills and foster exchanges of good practices and add valuable international and local expertise and exchanges. Many of the SDG’s call for long term attitude and behaviour changes, for example the way we live together. Volunteers facilitate changes in mind sets by raising awareness or championing those changes and inspiring others. It’s important to remember that volunteering is symbiotic, as much as one gives through the act of volunteering, what is then received both on a personal and/or professional level is invaluable. It is never one sided, it unties everyone from all walks of life.
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