Water Cistern Program in the West Bank
Family with new water cistern in Beit 'Ur Al-Tehta, in Ramallah District, West Bank. Photo: Middle East Council of Churches |
The Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees (DSPR) is a regional ecumenical organization and part of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) that was set up in the early fifties to help Palestinian refugees with their newly acquired status following the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The Department set up branches in five different regions: Gaza, Jerusalem and West Bank, Galilee in Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon with the clear mandate of working with the refugees, the poor, and the dispossessed.
Despite years of dialogue under the banner of the Oslo Peace Process, the overwhelming majority of territorial control of Palestinian land remains in the hands of Israel. The West Bank and Gaza Strip have been reoccupied and the Israeli army controls all movement of people and goods through a dense network of military checkpoints and roadblocks. The ongoing struggles have resulted in the death or injury of thousands, as well as severe damage to Palestinian infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, private or public property, and water. Palestinians suffer from a permanent water crisis due to the Israeli restrictions on the Palestinians’ access to the limited water resources available. Seventy-five percent of the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip’s renewable water resources are used by Israel – which means that one Israeli consumes as much water as do four Palestinians. The recent political conditions, the deterioration of the Palestinian economy, closures, and siege-conditions have all impacted and intensified the water shortage problem.
The Water Cistern Program in the West Bank is a project of DSPR/MECC a unit of the MECC with its head office in East Jerusalem. The goal of the program is to support communities or individuals in overcoming the problems of water shortage, water unavailability, insecure water supply, and unsafe water access by providing facilities that improve their access to potable water, while simultaneously providing economic support through the generation of employment opportunities for skilled labor groups. Fifty families will benefit directly – for a total of about 300 people.
The objectives of this program in the past year have been: 1) improving the access and use of water resources for 44 families in the Jenin area of the Occupied Territories of the West Bank; and 2) improving the socio-economic conditions for at least 900 skilled and unskilled laborers.
The water cistern program will help the labor sector to recover the huge losses created upon the recent closure and political conflicts, and it will help in improving the status of women and children through reducing the risk, time, and effort spent collecting water. The activities and process for program implementation include: 1) introducing the project to the target communities; 2) selection of the beneficiaries – this process takes into consideration the socio-economic conditions resulting from a conducted survey to better ensure that the most vulnerable families are known. Community members apply for assistance and recipients are then agreed upon by both the village councils and NECC-ICC; 3) each family receiving a water cistern is required to provide an in-cash or in-kind amount to cover the deficit between the allocated budget and the actual cost of the cistern. This contribution is typically covered by the participants through their provision of unskilled labor and/or food for the hired laborers; and 4) constructing the water cisterns. Two types of water cisterns will be used, the more traditional pear-shape cistern, and the rectangular cistern, for use in areas where the rock is either very soft or very hard.
The anticipated impacts of this program are:
- Enhanced socio-economic conditions of the labor sector within skilled and unskilled labor by creating jobs within the water sector;
- Enhanced social and economic conditions of the communities with emphasis on the most needy families by reducing the money paid to purchase water to 50 percent;
- Beneficiaries will have safe access to sustainable water resources, and this will reduce risks of walking long distances and threats from Israeli soldiers or settlers’ harassment;
- Enhance the local commercial market among material suppliers and material factories;
- Reduce the effort and time paid by beneficiaries, especially women, in providing water to the house, as the cistern will be used as a storage area for water close to the house;
- Save extra money as the beneficiaries can fill their cisterns before summer time when prices are very high, besides providing enough storage area for water, which allows the beneficiaries to buy large amounts of water for lower price;
- Enhance the capacity of women in the target villages as they will be part of the project and participate in its different stages; and
- Improve hygienic practices of beneficiaries as the amount of available water increases; the water consumption standards of beneficiaries will improve.
An integral component in the implementation phase is the monitoring and evaluation process that is performed at different levels of authority and in different timeframes. The involvement of the program participants in supervising the daily work helps in reaching a satisfactory level and quality of work.
Support for Church World Service helps make this program possible.
Read about the "Woman at the Well" olive wood ornament and card inspired by this project.
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