Blog - ECHO in the field

60 year old Nazi Chokeli in front of her flooded cellar in Baka village

Tbilisi, 14 May: We drive on a narrow winding road up the mountain. The ride is bumpy; part of the road has been washed away by yesterday’s torrential rains.  To the left and right, green meadows and walnut trees, the sky still grey with clouds. ‘Every spring, parts of Georgia are flooded and at risk from landsides. Every summer we face drought ‘explains Ketevan Lomsadze, ECHO’s project officer based in Tbilisi.

Following the alarming news in the local media and reports from the Georgian Red Cross about floods and landslides in rural areas on 13 May, we drove around 60 kilometers  the following day to the northwest of Tbilisi, close to the town of Dusheti in the Mtskheta Mtianeti region.  17 villages have reportedly been affected by the floods in his part of the country. ‘This is one of the poorer areas of Georgia,’ continues Lomsadze ‘when people lose their crops or their poultry, they lose everything’.  Our first stop is the small village of Baka and the poverty is immediately apparent.

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Every small town in the countryside of Burundi is teeming with activity. Each day, men and women stream into the roadside market centres most balancing loads on their heads, some pushing bicycles heaving with fresh produce.

Green banana, orange-flesh sweet potatoes, leafy traditional vegetables, tomatoes, and sugarcane, are just some of the produce that are constantly ferried to the markets. Buyers are not in short supply either.

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05/04/2012 – For 9 years now, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has hosted the Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development (DIHAD) conference and exhibition. The annual event brings together donors, government representatives and humanitarian aid agencies from around the world to share best practices and discuss challenges in the field under the context of relief work in conflict stricken countries caused by man-made crises and natural disasters. Read the full entry

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28/03/2012 – Twenty-five young people from around Europe have been working hard in 15 different countries to improve their aid-work skills for the past four-and-a-half months. They’ve chosen a career in emergency aid work and over these past few months they have taken their first steps in Africa, Asia or Haiti.

The 25 are part of the European Humanitarian Volunteer Programme, a pilot programme part-funded by ECHO, and managed by Save the Children UK in partnership with the Institut Bioforce Développement and the Network of Humanitarian Assistance (NOHA). The programme identifies and trains young Europeans in preparation for a career in aid work.

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Maria, a young 21-year old woman expecting her first child, walks around the market in the town of Iligan in the southern province of Mindanao. The market is well stocked with dozens of different types of rice, many varieties of fresh vegetables and other goods on sale.   But instead of money, Maria is clutching a small booklet of vouchers worth PHP 1,000 (€20) to purchase fresh food to buy the additional nutrition she needs for a woman in her condition. The vouchers were issued to her by a consortium of NGOs led by Action Against Hunger (ACH), a leading NGO in the use of vouchers, who in this instance received ECHO funding to provide supplementary feeding to hundreds of pregnant women and young mothers such as Maria.

She is one of tens of thousands who were hard hit by flash floods which struck villages and towns on the northern coast of Mindanao just before Christmas 2011. Like thousands of her neighbours, Maria and her husband lost everything during the floods that were unleashed by a typhoon.  “My husband I barely survived by holding on to branches of a tree” Marie recounts. “When the floods hit it was the middle of the night and we could just hear the screams of people as they were washed away.” Read the full entry

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Adow Aden eats boiled pulses in his makeshift hut in Laghboghol village, 60km south of Wajir

The worst drought to affect the Horn of Africa in 60 years is now behind us, but hunger is yet to depart. Most of the Horn region received good rains towards the end of 2011, giving some much needed respite.

Water is now readily available. Grass and shrubs are sprouting again. The few animals that survived the drought now have some food and will soon regain their health and productivity.

But this recovery may only be temporary unless the underlying causes of high vulnerability to natural shocks are addressed. This is why it is too early for the herders in Laghboghol village in northern Kenya, to celebrate. Read the full entry

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We travel on a dirt road surrounded by the breathtaking views of 3 majestic Guatemalan volcanoes, presiding over Lake Atitlán. Being so close to one of Guatemala’s most visited tourist attractions, it is striking to see how little of that tourism revenue has trickled down to improve the lives of nearby communities. In Sololá department, water systems are scarce and tarmac secondary roads almost inexistent. A few kilometres can take hours on bumpy and often muddy roads.
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The rising hills and the dipping valleys of the DRC are picturesque from the little cabin. Its nose slices through the low clouds with ease, although the turbulence increases with each.

This flight will only be 30 minutes. We will fly from Bukavu to Kitutu in Mwenga territory of South Kivu province. Kitutu is just 150 kilometers south west of Bukavu.

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29/02/2012 – Angela Pollitzer, ECHO Desk officer, Brussels recounts her visit to Lao in February 2012. She visited local projects with Dr Marie Theres Benner, ECHO’s regional health coordinator based in Bangkok. Their visits were part of a mission to monitor the prevalence and trends in diseases in communities in one of Lao’s poorest provinces. Read the full entry

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06/03/2012 – A few hours after arriving in Narita airport, I was on a bus on my way to central Tokyo as our guide Eriko enthusiastically pointed out eminent landmarks in her broken English. Sun rays flickered off Tokyo Bay and high-rise buildings blocked the horizon. On the surface, the capital seemed unharmed by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that hit the country on 11 March 2011. Yet up close, people still spoke with disbelief and sorrow about the disaster that shook Japan and the world when over 15 000 people died and thousands were reported missing. ‘Our turn is coming, so we try to learn from people living in the areas that were hit,’ a Tokyo resident told me.

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Number of views: 800