SEPARATE HUMANITARIAN ACTIONS

Construction of water wells in Africa

IFS-EMMAUS has been excavating water wells for the fourth year in the African countries of Niger and Uganda, whose population due to severe droughts is in a scarce of spring drinking water. The importance of the project was recognized very quickly by numerous citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the diaspora, and the result of all that is over hundred built water wells in a period of less than three years. According to the type of terrain and looseness of the soil on which water wells are excavated using two different techniques, narrow deep boreholes Ø 100 and Ø 1,000 mm.

Niger is a percentage-wise more saturated country with sandy soil, so due to the specifics of the terrain they use deep excavations with a diameter of Ø 100 mm and PVC linings are used as protection of filling the excavation, while Uganda is more suitable for digging wider one’s diameter of the well, so there were mostly used excavations with a diameter of Ø 1,000 mm, and the lining for them is made of bricks. Both of these excavation of water wells is made by hand due to the lack of mechanization, primitive and manual made tools. It increases to a large extent the time process of the construction of water wells.

On both types of wells was put fabric made hand pump for the water to which it is given one year warranty, which covers all servicing and restoring it to function in the event of failure. Each water well feeds from 15 to 30 members of one settlement with drinking water and we have no information yet by partner organizations who implement projects construction of water wells if there were any of the built wells dried up over time. That talks about the profitability of this investment.

Assistance outside the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina

During many years of work, IFS-EMMAUS through various humanitarian activities provide assistance to the people outside the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina such as was the assistance for: refugees from Syria, refugees in Bangladesh, aid for Palestine, Burkina Faso, Niger, Uganda, Mongolia etc…

Distribution of humanitarian aid in crisis situations is indispensable, so we also note the assistance, to the people of Albania and Turkey after the devastating earthquakes, aid to the people of Lebanon after the devastating port explosions, etc.

The year that is behind us, too, has not passed without providing assistance beyond the borders of our country, so in the midst of war events in Ukraine IFS-EMMAUS launched an appeal to collect financial assistance to this war-affected population. Based on the appeal made to us by Emmaus International and Emmaus Europe, whose members we are, was requested that all Emmaus groups be involved in order to collect as much help as possible.

Also, we sent another message of good and noble neighborly relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro that lately capture the attention of the general public. An agreement on cooperation with the partner was also signed with the organization from Montenegro, and not long after that were realized first activities through the project “Warm Winters” where for the population in a state of need of Montenegro was carried out the distribution of firewood.