ACT Special Feature

Water is essential to life. The mission of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International is to save lives and support communities in emergencies worldwide. Therefore, ACT is also about life, and a key way of supporting life is by ensuring the access to water of people caught in emergencies. Here are some examples of ways ACT assists people around the world through water.

Recent ACT Datelines and News Updates relating to water

Kenya: ACT response to drought and famine

The Rural Agency for Community Integrated Development and Assistance (RACIDA), a partner organization of Norwegian Church Aid, one of the ACT members working in response to the severe drought conditions in Kenya, delivers desperately needed water to El Wak in northeastern Kenya. Local people help unload the water and pour it into smaller containers to be distributed equally among the villagers. The water is used for consumption by people and their livestock, their most valuable asset.
Photo by Kirsten Engebak, Norwegian Church Aid-ACT

Water harvesting: A resident of El Wak in northeastern Kenya stands beside the plastic sheeting donated by the Government of Kenya which is used to hold quantities of water trucked into the region by ACT International partner RACIDA (implementing partner of ACT member Norwegian Church Aid) and the Red Cross.
Photo by Kirsten Engebak, Norwegian Church Aid-ACT

Niger: Food crisis caused by drought and locusts

Since the food crisis last year, ACT members working in Niger have helped farmers install irrigation systems in vegetable gardens as part of finding new ways of growing crops. This will help them better deal with the effects of future food crises.
Photo by Ingvild Langhus, Norwegian Church Aid-ACT

ACT member HEKS (Swiss Interchurch Aid) and its local parter, Tanakra, are helping farmers dig "half moons," a traditional farming method for sloped land that gathers rainwater and prevents runoff. Millet will be planted in these "half moons."
Photo by Ingvild Langhus, Norwegian Church Aid-ACT

Pakistan: October 8, 2005, earthquake

Millions of people were forced from their homes following the powerful October 2005 earthquake. Many thousands took up residence in temporary tent camps. The ACT member in Pakistan, Church World Service (CWS) Pakistan/Afghanistan, is working in several of these camps. Assisted by another ACT member, Norwegian Church Aid, CWS has installed water and sanitation systems in a number of camps - water points where residents can get water for drinking and latrine and washing facilities.
Photos provided by Church World Service Pakistan/Afghanistan

Digging for a water pump at Maira camp

Children gather at the water point in Maira camp

Latrines at Shohal Najaf camp

South and southeast Asia: Tsunami recovery

India: For those who make their living from water - the sea - ACT members are working to help restore livelihoods following the December 26, 2004, tsunami. Fishermen in eastern coastal villages in India have received boats, motors and fishing equipment, which has allowed them to return to sea, to work, and their way of earning an income to support their families.
Photo provided by Lutheran World Service-India

Indonesia: Fishermen and villages and towns that depend on the fishing trade, like Meulaboh, are being helped in other ways as well. Many residents of these fishing communities died in the tsunami. Despite their traumatic experiences, most fishermen want to continue the work they know best–fishing. Following the tsunami, the number of fish sellers at Meulaboh's market fell to one-third of what it used to be. Little by little, the marketplace is recovering and becoming more lively. The new well built by ACT members Norwegian Church Aid and Church World Service Indonesia makes the work of fishermen easier, because now fish can be treated in a more hygienic way.
Photo by Petteri Kokkonen, FinnChurchAid, ACT

Haiti: Water for rural areas

Following flooding in Haiti in 2004, The Lutheran World Federation (LWF)-Haiti, ACT’s member there, responded in a variety of ways. After some of the immediate and basic needs were provided for, LWF-ACT began to look for solutions to one of the longer-term problems – the difficulty in finding accessible, clean water in some of the rural areas. In Mapou, a mountainous area, LWF constructed a system that sends water from a spring high in the mountains through plastic pipes to supply thousands of people below. This supply of water makes their lives much easier, as they now have access to water that is closer and cheaper than before.
Photo by C. Coffey, LWF Haiti/ACT

Nearly every emergency or disaster is related to water in some way, whether it's the severe lack of water of a drought or inundation of water in a flood, or whether water is used in positive ways to keep people alive or if water's destructive power can ben seen in a tsunami.

Here are some recent ACT Datelines and News Updates on water-related emergencies: