For two years, Human Appeal has been disinfecting the entire water network in the Gaza Strip including water reservoirs, wells, and desalination plants. This project helped to improve hygiene, provide access to clean water in homes, and prevent outbreaks of COVID-19 and other waterborne diseases.
This project, in partnership with UN OCHA, helped the entire population of Gaza people to have access to safe clean water for household use over the last two years. In all, we chlorinated 288 water wells, testing water in 580 locations, and performing lab chlorine tests, with 100% pass rate. Through this project, which continued until February 2022, we also maintained 41 chlorinators and 11 water wells, and we reconstructed the stormwater facility at Beach Camp, helping to protect 64,000 people from flooding during winter.
We’re currently looking for funding from institutions to extend this project.
During testing, we take random samples, including as far away as 2 kilometres from the chlorinators to ensure the consistent safety of the treated water.
Additionally, we distributed 200 PPE kits to water network workers, protecting them, and the wider population, from the spread of COVID-19.
This project has been instrumental in helping to contain the spread of COVID-19 during its peak transmission months by providing disinfected safe-to-drink water across the Gaza Strip, where, ordinarily, 97% of groundwater is contaminated and unfit for drinking or safe cleaning.
How much is your admin fee?
In this project, cost just 50 pence to provide one person in Gaza with disinfected water for two years, providing them with a sustainable clean water source for household use, and helping to protect them from the spread of COVID-19.
When you donate £1, just 9p goes into keeping Human Appeal running.
Another 13p goes back into raising funds – that allows us to be ready to raise awareness at a moment’s notice when tragedy strikes.
Finally, and most importantly, 78p out of every £1 you donate goes straight to helping the most vulnerable people.
How does our admin fee support this project?
The small admin percentage of your donation enabled our programme officers to apply for funding from UN OCHA, resulting in a project that benefited over 2 million people, at absolutely no cost to our public donors. This is just one of the ways that our admin fee pays for itself.
Our admin fee also enabled us to hire water experts, and continuously ensure that all water was safe to drink – with safe chlorine concentrations to ensure that any bacteria or viruses are eliminated.
It helped our staff to run this project, allowing us to test water samples and keep the project safe.
It’s also what keeps us accountable, allowing all our projects to go through financial regulation, monitoring, and evaluation, so that we can report back to partners, regulators, local authorities, and to you.
Charity is a gift, offering endless mercy to those who give, as well as mercy to the vulnerable people who receive it. Our admin fee helps us to get your donation to where you intended it. That’s why we like to think of it as the stamp on the envelope of your mercy.
Let’s hear from Dr. Mahmoud, our award-winning Senior Global Water and Sanitation Advisor on how our admin fee made this project possible, and kept it safe.
My role is to oversee water and sanitation (WASH) projects, ensuring that we meet all regulations and maintain the utmost quality. I work to promote innovation and learning, building the technical capacity of our field offices and our partners across the globe, so that we can design and implement WASH projects that are safe, high quality, and effective.
I have over 19 years of experience, a PhD in Sustainable Water and Energy Technologies and an MSc in Environmental Engineering. I was a research fellow and lecturer at the Institute of Sustainable Energy Technologies, University of Nottingham, and, in 2015 and 2020 respectively, I won the international Globe Energy Award and Global Water Award. I’ve also worked on numerous international project and I’ve been published in 19 impactful academic and research journals.
How this project transformed lives
97% of groundwater in Gaza is highly contaminated that it’s unfit for human consumption. More than 28% of households aren’t connected to the wastewater network, and over 120,000 m3 of partially-treated or raw sewage is disposed into Gaza’s seawater on a daily basis, which created health complications, especially for anyone swimming at the beach making visiting the coast – a popular activity in Gaza – dangerous.
The lack of clean water in Gaza has devastating knock-on effects: it makes it difficult to halt the spread of COVID-19, it forces families to spend a significant portion of their income just on water, and it has made it all but impossible for farmers to make a decent living. Unclean water impacts families’ daily washing, cooking, and drinking, and sewage, as well as affecting agriculture and infrastructure.
The World Health Organization (WHO) indicated that all water in Gaza should be disinfected with chlorine to eliminate any microbiological contamination, which cause severe diseases.
On the administrative side…
Our disinfection of Gaza’s entire water network allowed over 2 million people to use all water sources in Gaza safe in the knowledge that it was completely clean, helping them to clean their homes, clothes, and food. It also positively impacted the health sector through significant reduction in the cases of waterborne diseases in Gaza’s clinics.
In the coming weeks and months, Human Appeal Palestine plans to expand its WASH interventions to cover wastewater hygiene awareness, and to connect homes to the wastewater network to reduce the flooding of sewage in the streets.
Over the last few years, institutional funding, like that which we received for this project, has been in decline in Gaza. The fact that our Programmes team was able to secure funding for two exceptional WASH projects in 2020 reflects the quality of our projects and our staff.
