الجمعة، 29 سبتمبر 2017

success story Wafa: I came to love school and understand lessons better than before.


success story 
Wafa: I came to love school and understand lessons better than before.

Touching stories from facilities where solar energy systems were installed under Enhanced Rural Resilience in Yemen Project which is funded by the EU and implemented by the UNDP in partnership with ADWAR.

Media center/  ADWAR organization

ADWAR team visited in a number of remote areas in Toban and Tor al –Baha districts in Lahj governorate and Khanfar and Lodar districts in Abyan governorate before and after installing solar energy systems in a number of service and health facilities that are targeted by Enhanced Rural Resilience in Yemen Project funded by EU and implemented by the UNDP in partnership with ADWAR Organization for Youth Development.  ADWAR plays the role of supervision and evaluating effects during visits and meetings with direct and indirect beneficiaries and local residents. During the team's visits, the team saw the difficult situations that local resident live and their need to the most basic services which are not found of halted due to the conflict, power outage, lack of alternative solutions to supply power in order to offer services to local residents.

Most of the facilities visited and targeted by the team of Enhanced Rural Resilience in Yemen Project suffered either from halted services in some areas or suffering due to the lack of solar energy in different facilities, such as health centers and offices and schools. During our field visit to these facilities, the team talked to the local residents and we touched their sufferings due to the power outage. Some residents briefed the team on the great benefits of the solar systems and the return of services to the different facilities and other successful stories.

In Abu Bakr Al-Sedeek School in Lodar district, Abyan governorate, where temperature sometimes reaches 40 Celsius, the team visited the school after one week from installing the solar systems and found the fans running in the classrooms in the morning when female students are studying. The fans in the classrooms were not working since the last two years due to the power absense.

The female students told us that they now want to stay more in the classrooms and study, unlike the previous period when there was not power and fans were not working.

We asked Wafa –Wafa is a female student studying in grade three – whether the working fans in the classrooms helped her to understand lessons and receive information in better way or not. She answer: before the fans work, she was always asking her teacher to go out of the classroom before the lecture's time finishes and she did not understand lessons because she was always thinking when the lecture finishes to get out of the hot classroom. In the classroom, she felt suffocating due to the increasing number of female students in the classroom and there was not power to run fans that help in refreshing air and lowering temperature in the classroom. Now she likes the school and would like to study for longer time in the classroom.

The school principal explained to us that the school morning routine and bell were suspended for more than two years and he is so happy now to hear the bell again to remind students of the lecture start and end times.

During the team's stay in the health center in Ja'ar area in Khanfar district after one week from installing solar system, they noted that many patients come to the center now instead of travelling to the district center. The team noted also the medical labs equipment working in the health center and making medical tests to the local residents. The equipment in the medical center was suspended for a long period of time due to the power outage, lack of generators, the expensive oil derivatives and no government supply.

The director of the health center told us that there is shortage in oil derivatives. Amal, a nurse working in the health unit explained the sufferings that faced women during labor which forced nurses in the health unit to resort to tradition ways in labor or traveling to remote hospitals in the district. Therefore, death cases were reported because of the cessation of services in the area's health center. She confirmed that the health center is now in order and, during the few previous days and after installing solar systems, the center makes labor surgeries for local residents. Amal performed a labor surgery herself for one woman in the center in a medical way. She also referred to the sterilization equipment that has been brought to order after the return of power.  She added that she is happy as she is now able to provide services to the locals and help them save efforts, time, expenses and sufferings.

The team also visited Public Society for Relief and Development which closed its doors and could not offer services. The Society is a NGO and one of the civil society institutions working on rehabilitating women in Alhota Lahej city on different fields, including handicrafts and sewing. When we visited the association before installing the solar system, we found the Society's training halls, which are equipped with sewing machines, closed. We also found some activities related to childcare and orphans whose fathers were killed in the conflicts the city witnessed or killed by terrorist attacks on government and private facilities and markets in the city. The same for women who lost their husbands. The association headquarter has become the place where they meet to learn some handicrafts and sewing popular clothes after the training they receive in the Society. The women sell their handicraft works to cover the family needs and overcome difficulties imposed on them by the situations and death of their husbands.

We spoke to some local residents during our visit to the health center in Al-Shaqa’a area in Toban district in Lahj governorate about the cessation of the services of the health center for more than two years due to the power outage caused by the conflicts the province witnessed. This forced local residents to travel to the district health center or to Aden province to receive treatment or vaccinate their children. Some locals do not afford travel expenses and could not transfer patients to health centers which made diseases double. One of the local residents said he did not vaccinate his children because of not having travel expenses to the district center.

Abdullah, one of local council of the countryside, said that the local residents have suffered a lot due to the cessation of the services in the health center, but now the solar system installed in the health center brought services again to order and helped us to receive patients and provide vaccine to children. This enabled residents in the same village and neighboring villages to benefit from the services offered by the center.

The center offered regular and continuous children vaccination because the refrigerators in the health center are working again by the installation of solar systems. Abdullah expressed his thankfulness to the donor organizations represented by the EU and UNDP as they brought the health center in the village to order again after it was suspended for more than two years due to the power outage. He, along with residents, feels grateful for these organizations.

The team also visited the health office in the Toban district in Lahj hovernorate after ten days from installing the solar system and found that the office is offering vaccine for children and keeps the vaccines in center's refrigerators for longer times till the district center supply it with another batch of vaccines.

Those who are in charge of the government health office face difficulties in providing vaccines and keeping it cold due to the lack of power.


The Director of the Health Center, Dr. Tarazan, said they were taking vaccines from the province and distributes them in the same day and they restored to using pieces of locally made snow in order to keep them cold. Sometimes the snow melts and does not last for long as some vaccines which must be cold before delivering them to remote area.

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