Howaida Kamel, Cairo Community Manager
Compared to other countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Egypt is much better off with regards to access to freshwater resources, primarily thanks to the Nile. With the majority of the country’s population densely situated along the river basin, government statistics show that 99 percent of the country’s population has access to water, and access in urban areas is 100 percent. However, these statistics drown the many other political, social and economic issues that surround the water sector.
According to UNICEF estimates, approximately 9.1 percent of children mortality is caused by acute diarrheal disease and other waterborne diseases. While the government claims that water is accessible to everyone in urban areas, only around 92 percent of urban households have access to safe water sources, and this statistic only includes households that are formally registered with the government. In the informal sector, when plumbing is available it is often linked to individual underground water sources that are generally untreated and unfiltered. Lack of planning in these areas exacerbates pollution and environmental degradation of these sources as they become contaminated with urban waste and sewage leakages.
While many local communities have started addressing the issues of health and sanitation, especially for children, little has been done to address the impacts of water quality. Even last month, Prime Minister Hisham Kandil stated in a national address that the cause for the high relevance of diarrhea among Egyptian children was not poor water quality, but Egyptian mothers’ “unclean breasts”. While lack of education about hygiene and sanitation is another major issue, the general public is also left ignorant about the quality of their water sources and simple methods to kill most bacteria and other contaminants, like boiling water.
Government reforms to the water sector in 2004 also made efforts to increase awareness about water conservation and sanitation in the public education system. However, poor curriculum development and other bureaucratic procedures have made it difficult to implement a unified water education program. As a response, the Wadi Educational Science Center (WESC) began implementing its own educational program to educate students about water problems in Egypt and around the world, water conservation methods, and environmentally friendly, sustainable solutions. The initiative began in 2005 with a core group of 60 students, both boys and girls, from sixth grade and above, meeting at WESC for a three-day, intensive workshop coordinated by WESC staff alongside water consulting engineers, outside experts and guest speakers.
What makes the WESC program so successful is that the learning is not limited to the core group: the 60 students are then given training on how to deliver the knowledge they have learned, and they travel to selected villages along the Nile Valley and Delta. These students become the teachers, and conduct forums that engage village children, school officials, parents and community leaders, and help facilitate a dialogue on how to address issues of water management, consumption and conservation in the village. The idea is to encourage all participants to take an active role in identifying and creating solutions for water issues as they experience them in their daily lives. Because of the essential nature of water as a resource, WESC operates under the philosophy that it is important for the community to collectively manage and protect it.
By the program’s completion in 2007, it managed to directly deliver information to approximately 7,200 villagers in 25 different villages around Egypt. Moreover, it disseminated its materials and information to other NGOs. While initiatives like these are singular in number, their impact can be large thanks to the way information is transferred.