Story by: Bashir Abdifatah
People often struggle to survive in the drought-stricken area of Somalia’s Gedo Region. The majority of the people from Gedo region rely on livestock, agriculture and Small and Median enterprises to meet their basic food and health needs. Approximately half of the population sells animals or Animal product like milk and uses the money to pay for food, health services, and school fees. Others in the region use the milk and meat from livestock to feed their families.
The little money that is derived from the selling of milk and meat is what is used to sustain their lives and that of their families. Just as people rely on livestock for their wellbeing, the animals are also dependent on adequate rainfall to replenish water sources, to grow grasses and other types of animal fodder in order to keep on producing. Recurrent conflict, insecurity and drought have however led to lack of quality animal health services in the region. In addition, in recent years’ rainfall in the region has been inadequate therefore leaving the livestock with insufficient food and water. Insufficient food and water also caused the animals’ immune systems to fail, leading to an increase in livestock diseases.
Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs)
DRC BORESHA project supported the establishment of new CAHWs and capacity building of existing animal health professionals in Gedo region and particularly in Belet-hawa district, the number of qualified veterinarians often does not suffice to provide quality animal health services since they are few. Since the people in Belet-hawa rely on livestock to meet their basic needs, inadequate animal herds can leave them with insufficient coping mechanisms in order to overcome the predictable extended dry season. In order to deal with this risk, community-based animal health services approach was developed. Selected by the community and trained by professionals on basic veterinary clinical skills and business management. The Community animal health workers provide basic services and give husbandry advice to livestock keepers. Livestock treatment, a work often regarded male work and considered to be difficult to women, Zamzam Abdi, a charismatic, cheerful and easy going 33-year-old mother of four children is determined to break the norm and works hard to save her community assets (livestock).
Photo by DRC Somalia, BORESHA Project -CAHW in Belet Hawa Somalia
Meet Zamzam
“Becoming a community animal health worker (CAHW) and working for my community is an achievement that I am very proud of, it gave me a sense of purpose and a mission in life, knowing that I have the ability to contribute towards the wellbeing of our livestock gives me immense satisfaction. I provide treatment to sick animals with basic illnesses, I also receive numerous phone calls from different neighborhoods to diagnose animals’ health problems,” Zamzam stated.
In an effort to build resilience among pastoralist communities through strengthening animal health services, BORESHA has been working with the local authority and the private sector in order to improve the animal health services in Belet-Hawa. Zamzam was among 30 other CAHWs among them were five women that were trained on the following: Community mobilization, livestock diseases surveillances, clinical examination of livestock health problems, drug administrations and reporting livestock treated, drugs administered, and alerting disease outbreaks.
According to Zamzam, community in her neighborhoods bring their suspected animals to her and she offers clinical examinations, prescribe drugs and do drug administrations. Since she was trained livestock health problems responded has increased and people now use to call her whenever their livestock become sick: “As CAHWs we take our responsibility very seriously, we are not only keeping animals alive by way of Treatment but we are also making them healthier and much more productive. Families in my community are now getting more milk, safe meat because I gave awareness of drug withdrawal period, better income and certainly my family is one of those” says Zamzam.
She continues to narrate “livestock are the backbone of our families and communities, from milk, meat and to sell them for health and school fees, during this difficult time of drought my community assets are threatened and I feel the pressure, because it is this time when livestock illness is on peak and livestock body conditions are dropped so they become susceptible to health problems. However; As a community I can confidently say that we are now better prepared to weather the storm in case of drought or other emergencies,” Zamzam Added.
In Somali nomad culture livestock treatment, vaccination is often regarded for males and in reality, it is male dominated work. Zamzam and her female workmates have taken on this new challenge to change the mindset of their community and show them how beneficial it will be when women intervene, because in urban areas most of small herds are owned by women. “of course, it is a challenge and we felt,” answered Zamzam when asked the challenges “it is a challenging environment, sometimes people they refuse our services because they want male professionals to treat their livestock,” She added. But she is determined and confident she will overcome those challenges, “it is not all people, our community are now changing and they believe us and more than males in my neighborhood I was called for livestock treatment and health problems,” said Zamzam.
Zamzam and her colleagues work hard to provide animal health services in the town and sometimes outside the town. They have so far responded 37 cases of sheep, goat and cattle and camel diseases.
she is now among a group of 12 CAHWs preparing to undertake the mass animal treatment and Deworming campaign in the area that is targeting over 50,000 animals over a period of 20 days. They are also supporting the local pastoralists with the Multi-vitamins and endo & ecto-parasitic Drugs. Multi-vitamins are given to weak animal. The services they provide are improving the health of animals in the towns and villages, raising the average income, nutritional status and lives of households.
“As a woman who owns livestock in the town and outside, there is nothing as painful as having no control over the health of our animals and worst of all watching them die in front of your eyes, the pain is unbearable and heartbreaking. I have personally lost animals due to preventable diseases, I only wish that this training had come much earlier” said Zamzam. “However, all this has changed now, I am very grateful and appreciative of the opportunity to become a CAHW, going forward I can only predict good things for my family and my community.