My close brush with death - and the work I do to keep people alive
A life-changing experience which ignited a mission to bring clean water and sanitation to vulnerable children in Somalia.
Growing up, I attended a school far from my family. I will always remember when I was seven, my uncle and I embarking on the long and treacherous journey home. With no means of transport, we walked for three days under the scorching sun, our water supplies dwindling with every step. By the third day, I could walk no further and struggled to breathe. I could smell death approaching. Fortunately, God sent a saviour – a passing elderly man and his camel ladened with water.
That moment changed my life, instilling in me a fierce determination that no child, no family, should ever suffer from lack of safe water.
My life’s mission
Years later, my determination has shaped my life’s mission supporting children and families with access to safe water.
For the past five years, I’ve been a WASH Officer with UNICEF Somalia, working in Dollow to improve access to clean water and sanitation for children and their families displaced by conflict and drought. For many of the people who have come to this place…they know thirst.
An hour’s drive from where I grew up, waves of desperate families have arrived at the camps in Dollow, joining other vulnerable host communities. Water is life here, but it's a life constantly threatened. Two rivers, the Dawa and Juba, are our lifeline. In the dry season, shallow wells dug along the rivers dry up and what’s left turns salty. While in the rainy season, flooding damages the wells and contaminates the water.
Game-changing innovation
We can't just keep trucking in water when the river runs dry. Nor can we continue with a small number of water points or shallow wells serving the growing population of displaced people. We urgently need sustainable solutions now.
That's where innovation comes in.
I'm proud to be part of the UNICEF-supported Regional Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (R-WASH) and Regional Managed Aquifer Recharge (R-MAR) projects. We're using cutting-edge science – hydrogeology and geophysics – to map the water hidden beneath the dry, cracked earth. With new technology, we hope to drill deeper wells, tapping into sources that build resilience against a changing climate. And with innovative mapping and clever engineering, we’re working to capture floodwater and store it in aquifers for the dry times – with the potential to support over 210,000 people with access to safe water.
It's not just about drilling, piping and pumping. It's about people. Empowering communities, training local water utilities, ensuring that this precious resource is affordable and managed sustainably, equitably, for generations to come.
A dream come true
Every day, I see the challenges children are facing…the lost schooldays and the long walks they are obliged to make – their small hands struggling with heavy jerrycans. They are in constant danger of waterborne disease outbreaks. The scale of need is massive and with ongoing conflict and climate change, it’s only growing.
There is hope, however, in the form of new resources, additional technical support and ground-breaking technology from the UNICEF Sustainable WASH Innovation Hub, the Somali government, Dresden, Cardiff and Aarhus Universities.
Just last month, we pioneered the use of innovative transient electromagnetic (TEM) technology to map underground aquifers near the Dawa riverbank much faster than ever before. Using this knowledge, we were able to drill two wells with a sustainable supply of fresh water at up to 42 meters depth – the equivalent of 14 African elephants standing on top of each other. It was the first time TEM has been used in a humanitarian setting – and will soon be tested in Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Despite the often-overwhelming challenges of working in a fragile environment, there have been some incredible moments. Over the past year, my team has worked with the Somali government, the KfW Development Bank and other partners, to drill several highly productive wells filled with fresh, safe water. I’ll always remember the celebrations from the community, the relief on the faces of women who no longer had to walk for miles, the children giggling as they played by the waterpoints, the joy of the farmers now able to grow food. But to make sure we continue to assist the community in adapting to water security risks we need to ensure that MAR is a success technically, socially, politically and economically.
I’ll never know the name of the elderly man who saved me all those years ago, but in Dollow, his memory lives on in every child able to drink safe water. And that is a gift beyond measure.
Learn more about the potential of Managed Aquifer Recharge to accelerate the scale of access to safe water to children and their families.
