Water

Water - we all know it's the source of life. In Iraq, water is pretty scarce. You wouldn't know if from the amount of pavement watering that goes on in the summer months, but the reality is that in certain areas we suffer huge water shortages. Add to this the increased demand due to heat and the need for additional water for religious washing; and suddenly safe water provision is critical.

One of the areas that the Danish Refugee Council has developed expertise in within Iraq is water infrastructure. This means that our water and sanitation (WASH) teams not only work at providing latrines, showers, household water tanks, hygiene items and so on, as is standard in this kind of work; but we also take on large scale construction projects to develop the water infrastructure. The WASH team in my areas have been doing quite a bit of this recently. Last week, they triumphantly returned to the office from Western Mosul with a bottle of water from a pumping station which we have rehabilitated. It had just been turned on, and is now supplying about half of Western Mosul with water.

A few months ago, we took on a project to build from scratch a water pumping station and treatment unit on the banks of the Tigris to supply our camp with water, and the surrounding villages. This kind of work has the double whammy effect of assisting displaced people, but also helping the country as a whole to recover from years of conflict and damage. It helps to mitigate the tensions between those who are displaced and the communities they are taking refuge in; as all benefit, rather than just those who are displaced. We are currently operating this plant ourselves, but we are also training government workers who will take on management of the plant in a few months time. The team have put significant effort in to writing manuals in the local Arabic language, equipping the teams with the right kind of tools and doing hands on training so that when we leave the unit continues operating well.

A couple of weeks ago I took our Regional Director on a tour of our work, including the treatment plant. This was the first time I had seen it since it had been completed. I had hoped to visit earlier, but ISIS had made some territorial gains in the area meaning it was not safe for us to visit for a few weeks. We had to remotely manage our staff there, who incredibly were still working despite having to hide out in the office in the compound sometimes to avoid being caught up in cross-fire. Thankfully the area has been re-secured by Iraqi forces and so now we are able to visit, and our staff can travel freely between home and work again. Even more wonderfully, the local Sheikh was able to prevent any looting of the compound during the instability and so we had no repairs to do once we could access it again.

It really is quite an impressive piece of engineering. It pumps out 200,000 litres of treated water every hour, and runs for around 10 hours a day currently. The only way to describe it is to show you some photos.

The intake unit on the Tigris - draws the raw river water in to the water treatment unit. To the left of the foreground is the old intake unit for the previous water treatment plant which was destroyed by ISIS as you can see.

Overview of the water treatment unit showing multiple pipelines.

Looking down in to some of the holding tanks.

Chlorination system in the white tank, large blue tanks in the background are the holding tanks.

Making a house a home

For most people fleeing their homes one of the most urgent needs is shelter. If you arrive at a camp this is for the most part sorted for you (albeit not particularly adequately a lot of the time). However, many displaced people do not live in camps. This happens for many reasons: they might not be able to physically reach a camp because it's too far, they might not be allowed to enter certain areas due to ethnic tensions, they might prefer to try and find somewhere to live out of the camp context to try and maintain some normalcy to their lives.

One of the projects in my area therefore is working with families who are displaced but not living in camps, to try and improve their shelter conditions. In Iraq, due to the pre-crisis context, there are huge numbers of unfinished construction works. Most people here build their own home at some point, and many people were doing just this when the latest crisis struck. At this point construction generally halted - either the families themselves moved away, often overseas; or there was simply suddenly no money to continue. Villages, towns and cities are therefore full of displaced people squatting in unfinished buildings. These are buildings which are at different stages of completion, but typically will be missing windows and doors, will be made simply of breeze-blocks that would have been concreted over later, are not connected to power or water, have no kitchens or bathrooms and may be missing internal walls among other issues. Often several families will be living in a single building together, and will pool resources to try and make things vaguely habitable. They may have received NFI (non-food item) kits of mattresses, blankets, kitchen utensils etc that they can use in the house. Different charities have provided different things like putting in pit latrines outside so that people at least have a private toilet, or providing tarpaulins to cover windows and doors to try to weather-proof the building a little.

DRC (my charity) has been working on some slightly more substantial upgrades to houses in certain areas. As always, there's never enough to go around, and so the selection criteria that were agreed with the donor for the project are pretty strict. We are focusing on over-crowded buildings which can reach a certain level of upgrade at a cost of up to $2,000 per building. Selecting contractors to carry out the work turned in to an enormous saga (possibly the understatement of the year), and so last week I was thrilled to go and see the work in action which I have been discussing and planning with the team for so long.

We are working primarily on putting in proper windows and doors, connecting houses to electricity and water, putting in very basic kitchens and bathrooms, installing stair rails and ceiling fans. The difference that it makes for such a relatively small amount of money is phenomenal. Families say it quite literally transforms their lives as they feel safer, gain personal space, and are able to cope with the extremes of weather better. I particularly loved seeing some little touches that families were able to make that were turning their houses in to homes - hanging empty food tins with plants in them, pinning up a mirror or some plastic flowers. People have almost zero belongings and yet were still able to take pride in their homes, and to add personal touches here and there.

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of the context.....

Iraq Landscape

Digging cess pits

New kitchen 

Kitchen Cabinets

I loved these hanging tins of plants on the outside wall of one house

New shower

Adding railings to stairs and landing

New safety railings