By Mohamed Hassan| BORESHA Project
24th June 2019
Somalia is a fragile state characterized by three decades of protracted conflicts, lack of central government, recurrent natural disasters such as cyclic drought, floods and man-made catastrophes like environmental degradation and deforestation. These have negative impacts on the lives of the most vulnerable Somalis especially women, children, elderly and people living with disabilities.
Barabarai village (Doolow Somalia) is located on the eastern part, 35km near the main road passing Luuq to Mogadishu. The population’s livelihoods depend on livestock rearing and farming along the Jubba River which is approximately 3-5Km on the northern part.
Just as the people rely on livestock for their well being, the animals also depend on adequate rainfall to replenish water sources and to grow pasture and other types of animal fodder along the Jubba River. In recent years, due to recurrent droughts the rainfall has been inadequate, resulting in dried up water sources and decreased pasture and animal fodder, leaving the livestock with insufficient food and water. As a result, most animals were lost during the last consecutive drought seasons leaving the livestock owners vulnerable and often not able to pay for the basic needs, insufficient animal herds can leave them with inadequate coping mechanisms to overcome the droughts with extended dry seasons.
To help the vulnerable communities in Doolow, one of the project activities is the re-stocking of 2000 goats, to be distributed to the most vulnerable who lost their livestock as a result of cyclic drought. The prime objective is to improve the livelihoods and community resilience through increasing herd size by distributing 5 goats per HH, this will enhance livestock production of meat, milk and source of income by selling in case of emergency. In coordination with Doolow district administration and the representative from Ministry of Livestock Jubaland based in Doolow, treatment and vaccination of livestock prior distribution was undertaken.
Fatuma Mohamed, a mother of 7 children, is among the female headed households. Before the project, Fatuma had 13 goats after losing 37 in the last successive droughts of 2016 and 2017. The distribution of goats where Fatuma was a beneficiary, was during the long rainy season of Gu’ (April to May 2018) while the availability of water and pasture was abundant. Fatuma was very happy to receive the best asset that can restore and improve her livelihood. Due to the favourable environmental condition coupled with good husbandry, almost all animals conceived and 4 out 5 goats she received gave birth to healthy kids.
When we visited Fatuma on the second week of September, 2018, she was very happy and playing with her children. “I am very happy and grateful now for the animals received from BORESHA through World Vision Somalia, I am better off now since I have enough livestock, enough milk for the children and my elderly mother and sometimes source of income by selling the milk to the nearby bigger village of Gedweyne to purchase sugar and other food items for my family. She was grateful to the EUTF funded project and welcomed the support since it was timely and necessary during a difficult period.