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Notebook of the initiatives

To make a project autonomous

The example of ACF

We met in Khartoum, Mr Patrick David, person in charge for ACF Sudan.

Introduction :
The association "Contre the Faim" (= against the hunger) is an ONG of French origin working, in general, in the urgency, to provide for the needs for the populations suffering from malnutrition.
The lack of water is a direct cause of malnutrition. The bad quality of water, it, in is an indirect cause because it causes diarrhoeas which cause they same a dehydration and a food deficiency.

Sudan is a country which knows a civil war since 1983, the conflicts are localised in the Southern part of the country. Continuations with the massacres perpetrated in the area, the populations of the South massively migrated towards Khartoum where they came squatter in many districts under very precarious conditions often.
Dice 1990, in front of the threat of 2 million Southerners in the northerner capital (the Southerners are African, mainly Christian, and the northerners are Arab, mainly Moslem), the totalitarian mode places from there decided to much further move these populations from the city with strict town-plannings.
But that represented (and represents always today) big problems of infrastructures and among those, water because it had there no system of water conveyance.


Hydrotour : Hello Patrick David, thank you to give us your time and to present the projects to us which you have for water. At which time ONG ACF it did start to be interested in the problems of water in Khartoum? From the very start of the war?
Patrick David : The war started in Sudan in 1983, it seems important to me to specify that this war is not that a war of religion, it is the resultant of several problems:
- Ethnic,
- Economic (south with oil and water)
- the management of the Nile (the wandering tribes of the South refused the construction of the channel of Jongleï because that would have obliged them with sédentariser once the drained marshes)
- and finally the religion
With this situation was added 7 years of secheress that Sudan underwent between 1981 to 1987, of which most dramatic is that of 1984.
We intervened for the first time in Sudan in 1985 in the area of Nuba where the conditions were dramatic. Then starting from 1988 ACF intervened in Khartoum to fight against the Cholera.

Hydrotour : You initiated a project of water 5 years ago with the periphery of Khartoum in the districts of moved. Can you speak to us a little about it?
Patrick David : The project was initiated in 1998 in a district of 1000 hearths (6000 people) where water arrived in barrels drawn by asses at high prices and under conditions from poor hygienes.
Three priorities were essential then:
- Drilling of a well
- Installations of latrines
- Training of the population to the rules of hygienes.

Hydrotour : ACF works in the urgency, that does occur once that the technical realization is finished and that people have water at their disposal?
Patrick David : Once the situation urgently last, the problem of ACF is to be able to leave with the local populations the management of the project and the installations. And it is not easy matter to achieve! A well builds too quickly without the participation of the population becomes the well of ACF and its management and maintenance are and must remain (according to the buildings) spring of ACF. It is the syndrome of dependence, nobody does not want to be occupied some. Many wells are except service after 6 months and these experiments are to be avoided.
It is necessary thus to develop a cultural approach (a hand pump for example is sometimes not adapted because people do not see from which leaves water) and participative and all that in the urgency, because if we intervene it is that the situation is catastrophic. We work also much the Community policy and we always seek to know what really the inhabitants and the women want.
Afterwards, it is necessary to take time to be withdrawn from a project, the Community policy can prove to be dangerous, because a badly disposed person can do everything to hood.
In this direction the project that we will visit is a success, 3 years after the withdrawal of ACF, it continues to turn and develops on the co-operative mode.

Hydrotour : Which is the secrecy of their success?
Patrick David : The success of this project and many others depends on the economic viability of the project once that it is autonomous, without ONG. Here, everyone can be made money while starting with the well, which releases a benefit directly reinvested for the community, to the water retailer and even with the consumer who pays his water less expensive.

Hydrotour : Before passing to the project in itself, can you say to us, according to you, which is the place of water in the durable development?
Patrick David : It has a fundamental place. Water is a basic need and a factor of social bonds. It solutions should be found new and innovating because it is necessary to fight for water and this on three axes:
1. At the technical level (search for new techniques...);
2. At community level and social (the populations must have left fascinating);
3. And finally on the level of the management of the conflicts which can emerge in the competition for water (as well with the niveu of the countries of the individuals).

Hydrotour : As French, old of the international co-operation, having côtoyé terrible situations of famine and epidemic, do you have a word to say to the children who follow us?
Patrick David : I congratulate them to follow your project. It is particularly important that they take by themselves conscience of the problem of the water which starts in France and Belgium. Water is an invaluable good, it is necessary to protect it and respect it. It is not because one has the chance to have water tous.les.jours which it should not be fought so that all the children have this same chance. I thus encourage them to fight so that all the families of the world have water.


Presentation and visit of the station of pumping with the executive committee of the co-operative :


ACF arrived in 1998 with this project of well. They carried it out and two years after, they passed the reindeers to us.
District 27, where we are, passed from 6000 to 21000 people in 5 years for two reasons
- water close to the well is less expensive and of better quality;
- with water one can make cob and bricks and thus build houses.
From the very start, at the time of the construction of the well, a local committee was elected by the community. It was a question of finding 6 people voluntary not remunerated (they perceive just a small amount at the time of each assembly), ready to receive a formation and to invest themselves in the management of the well. In more of this committee it was necessary to find members ready to invest themselves in other parts of the project.
Various types of formations were thus exempted:
- Administration of association and co-operative (since it is in co-operative that the well evolved/moved).
- Management of the well
- Data processing
- Analysis of water
- medical Promotion (use of water, rules of hygienes, analyzes medical situations...)

Today, the project turns with 5 employees:
- the cash clerk who perceives the money paid by those which take water
- the mechanic
- the assistant mechanic
- a guard of day (which is also the dispachor) and a guard of night.

Normally when there is a technical problem the reaction of the co-operative is rather fast thanks to the presence on the spot of two mechanics. If it acts of a more serious problem requiring the purchase of material, the mechanic must refer about it to the committee which makes the final decision. This can sometimes cause the closing of the well during one or two days.
In this case the donkey-edges must go to another well to find water.

The donkey-cans : Composed of two welded barrels one with the other, they have a capacity of 200L and are generally carried out by children or teenagers and are drawn generally by an ass and sometimes by a horse.
In order to preserve a good quality of water, the co-operative developed a system of certification of the cleanliness of the barrels. Once per month, the donkey-edges must come to make wash the interior of their barrel and a marking of the barrel makes it possible the guard to reject any donkey-cans which was not washed in the month.
The price of a barrel to the well is fixed by the government at 50 Dinars Sudanese (either 0,15€) and it is resold between 300 and 600 dinars (1or 2€) according to the distance.

The station : Tous.les.jours a pump extracts more than 210 m³ ground. Water is sent in a water tower which can contain 32m³. It is analyzed monthly and a chlorine adduction is made according to its quality.

Projects :
Beyond construction and maintenance of this station of pumping, we have creates a seedbed which we irrigate with the water which is lost at the time of the filling of all the containers. The plants which push there are resold in the village.

The project of latrines is finished and relates to nothing any more but the newcomers.

With the money of the benefit of the well we could restore and increase the school of the village.
We now hope to buy an electric generator to allow the distribution of electricity.

Our last project is the construction of another station of pumping. We besides have just received a purse of the Embassy of France of 60000€ (note: this money comes from the Funds of a company of Development placed at the disposal of the embassies of the countries of the priority zone of solidarity).

In spite of our financial autonomy we do not have alas yet the enough solid kidneys to be able to finance our large projects alone and we are always in the search of funds. Opinion with the givers…


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Photographs


Three members of the executive committee and Geoffroy in the seedbed


Plantation of shrubs in the seedbed


Sight on the water tower since the seedbed


The channel which recovers the water of ruisselement and directs it towards the seedbed


Towards 01h pm, the pump closes and all the world gives up its station. Here the barrels remains in file without their asses.


A child has just brought his barrel


The new project in full realszation

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