Maude Froberg, Aporado
The lemon-yellow butterflies, hovering in billowing clouds above the long and winding roads in Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor), tell it all: the rain has arrived, and with it, the water people need for drinking, washing and farming.
However, for the people living in these mountainous parts of the youngest nation of the world, challenges remain. Here, more than half of the population lacks access to safe drinking water.
“Everyday, I had to walk several kilometres up and down the hill to fetch the water at the source,” says 75-year-old Isabelle, one of the inhabitants of Aporado village, while miming how she balanced a water bucket on her head. “Of course, it was hard, very hard,” she recalls.
Yet she tells her story with a smile, and she has her reasons. They are to be seen just behind her. Here, the Cruz Vermelha de Timor-Leste (Timor-Leste Red Cross) has constructed a water reservoir which is fed by a newly captured source upstream, and a tap stand. Further down the road, a latrine is also under construction.
International Federation water and sanitation delegate Marcus Bolleurs says, “Cruz Vermelha de Timor-Leste has 15 very experienced water technicians. They are all well recognized in Timor-Leste and within the region. Some of them were deployed in Banda Aceh after the tsunami.”
Timor-Leste Red Cross staff learned many of their water and sanitation skills from programmes run by the International Committee of the Red Cross between 1975 and 1999.
Putting in the hardware is not enough, says Mr. Bolleurs. To ensure that projects are sustainable, the Red Cross involves the community at all stages, from design to implementation, and in the operation and maintenance of the water and sanitation facilities.
Now more than 3,000 households benefit from Red Cross water projects, including those that resulted from partnerships with the Austrian Red Cross.
As the Red Cross jeep struggles over a hill, their first stop, the village of Aporado, sitting at 1000 metres above sea level, appears between thin veils of clouds. Timor-Leste Red Cross water technician Joao Pinto Soares and Austrian Red Cross programme coordinator Martin Krottmayer climb out of the vehicle and the villagers come to greet them.
Chairs are lined up around a table. The scene is set for a health information session. A flip chart is put up and coloured pens spread out on the table.
“Today, we will talk about how to disseminate health messages in a different form,” explains Mr. Krottmayer. What do you think would be the most appropriate way to inform people about, let’s say, how to remember to wash your hands?
In a place like Aporado where living conditions are hard, awareness of personal health and environment sanitation, and good habits are crucial. If people are not careful, a high number of water or hygiene related problems like fever, diarrhoea and vomiting will persist.
Community-based first aid can be as simple as talking about washing hands before eating or the danger of consuming unboiled water or dirty water. The import thing is to tailor the health education to a particular village and not deliver a standardised message. It takes time to change people’s behaviour. That is why the involvement of the whole community is important. As the Red Cross team is travelling on to other villages, they are to meet something they have prepared for, but yet not encountered.
In Aramehu village, when the session on health is almost over, a man raises his hand.
“Excuse me,” he says, “but I am a little bit worried. You see, lately many chickens have died in one of the neighbouring villages and, before they died, something was dripping from the beaks… And the dog also died.”
For a moment, there is silence. Then people start whispering. Although Timor-Leste has not yet had an outbreak of avian flu and human influenza, the worry is there.
The Timor-Leste Red Cross is one of the first Red Cross or Red Crescent societies to include information and advice on bird flu in its basic health curriculum.
Mr Pinto Soares and International Federation health delegate Marja Pihlajamaki remind people that there are many endemic poultry diseases such as Newcastle disease. Dr. Pihlajamaki says the chicken deaths will need to be reported to the World Health Organization (WHO), which can do tests to determine the cause. Until the results are known, people can put preventive measures in place: careful handling of poultry, personal hygiene and vigilance. They repeat that the disease cannot be spread by water.
Fortunately, the villagers did not have to worry about any bird flu this time. Later, the WHO reported that there was no sign of avian flu among the dead birds. This was most probably an example of Newcastle disease that, even though often fatal for birds, does not infect humans.
However, the experience clearly shows that in raising health levels, accurate advice must reach even the remotest villages, where people have the power to prevent the spread of disease.