Clean Drinking Water for 1250 Villagers in Morocco

Clean Drinking Water for Nomadic and Fishing Communities

High Atlas Foundation has had many efforts between 2012-2016 in meeting community members through participatory approach to help reduce the problem of scarcity of clean drinking water in Jrifia’s commune, in Boujdour Province, which is a part of the Moroccan Sahara. Toward this end, HAF and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Boujdour have created a partnership agreement to implement a clean drinking water initiative for the entire municipality.  We are seeking to partner with local and international organizations to secure clean drinking water by helping building wells in 2 rural fishing villages and 6 nomadic villages in the Jrifia municipality.

According to the series of participatory community meetings with the benefiting villages, the local people suffer from health problems and poor hygiene and are in an urgent need of awareness raising and prevention education. In Aftissat and Elkraa rural fishing villages, the rarity of water and poor hygiene have led to the appearance of disease.

Every year during the hot summer season, the nomadic rural villages register many cases of death which lead to avoidable (and tragic) human and material losses. Every year, two to four people die from thirst. Each Khaima “household” loses cattle, sheep, goat, and camels. The number is higher for those who do not have transport to bring water from Boujdour city, which is between 70 to 200 km far from the rural nomadic villages.  Furthermore, women, infants, and children are effected every year during the dry season, especially during their pregnancy and after giving birth.                                                                                                                                

This project will be benefiting 3,500 fishermen in the two rural fishing villages, and 7,800 Khaima “households” in Albadia rural nomadic villages of the rural commune of Jrifia, Province of Boujdour (50,500 people total). Also, the project is aiming to improve the socio-economic living conditions, conduct health and awareness workshops, capacity building of local people and improve human development in general.