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SOLIDARITES:
Water expertise has been
at the core of our action for 25 years
SOLIDARITES is an international humanitarian association that
has operated for over 25 years with populations victims of armed
conflicts and natural disasters. In emergency situations, SOLIDARITES'
volunteers strive to meet the vital needs of the population:
to drink, to eat, to find shelter. For the sake of continuity,
the Association implements post-emergency and reconstruction
programmes to help local populations recover their autonomy.
Since 1980, SOLIDARITES (a non-profit organisation incorporated
under the French 1901 Law) has mobilised 1,200 volunteers and
170,000 donors. Every year we provide aid to more than
one million people. In 2006, the Association's main
office in Paris comprises some thirty permanent salaried employees,
and 140 expatriate volunteers operate in our missions along
with over a thousand nationals involved in our programmes. The
Association is managed by a Board of Directors with an Executive
Committee. Its Director General is Alain Boinet and its president
Pierre de la Bretesche. SOLIDARITES has received the support
of many public figures for its humanitarian action. Our humanitarian
action budget approximated 25 million Euros in 2005, thanks
to the support of 60,000 donors and many partner institutions.
Today, the teams of the SOLIDARITES Association are present
in Sri Lanka, in Indonesia (Sumatra), in Afghanistan, in Pakistan,
in Sudan (Darfur), in Burundi, in Niger, in Liberia, in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, in Ivory Coast, and in Haiti.
SOLIDARITES also operated in Iraq, in Albania, in Serbia et
in Kosovo, in Macedonia, in Bosnia, in Lebanon, in Rumania,
in Rwanda, and in Angola.
Complementary competences and
trades:
SOLIDARITES has developed various interrelated fields of expertise,
from emergency to post-emergency and, subsequently, reconstruction
situations: these can be classified in three complementary
trades that we exercise through a comprehensive approach,
depending on the needs of vulnerable populations, concurrently
and/or successively: food safety, reconstruction and mainly
access to drinking water and to purification facilities
– a domain where SOLIDARITES has special expertise and
broad experience.
- Food Safety:
we perform emergency food distribution operations and, subsequently,
post-emergency rehabilitation programmes dedicated to agriculture,
animal farming, and fishing activities.
- Reconstruction:
we help implement emergency programmes to build shelters and,
subsequently, post-emergency rehabilitation of houses, schools,
healthcare centres, roads, bridges, irrigation channels, dams…
- Water and sanitation:
in this essential domain of our activity, we provide the following
services:
- In emergency situations,
water purification (using mobile stations), transport (trucks),
and distribution in sufficient quantities (an average of 20
litres per day and per person), with flexible tanks (bladders),
booms and jerrycans. We perform potability tests for wells,
and deep drillings to supply populations with drinking water.
We also set up latrines, showers, clothes' washing areas, and
distribute hygiene kits that enable populations gathered on
accommodation sites to have access to basic hygiene facilities.
- In post-emergency situations, we drill and
develop deep wells equipped with hand pumps (for example, in
Afghanistan, in Sudan and in Indonesia), we tap and develop
springs, build rainwater tanks, set up water fountains. We rehabilitate
and build latrines, and conduct campaigns to sensitise populations
to hygiene rules.
- In reconstruction situations, we rehabilitate
or build urban or rural catchment units and drinking water supply
systems, comprising large-capacity purification stations. We
set up water management committees, and train local people to
maintain and to manage drinking water access facilities and
sanitary conditions. But water is also vital for farming, i.e.,
for food safety. Hence, we also build or rehabilitate hydraulic
infrastructures (irrigation channels, reservoirs, dams, etc.)
designed for agricultural purposes.
Our water-access and sanitation programmes are conducted by
volunteer specialists: hydraulic technicians and engineers,
civil engineers, rural engineers specialised in agricultural
hydrology, hydro-geologists who are experts in locating groundwater
and in drillings, operational technicians specialised in drillings,
sanitation technicians specialised in water analysis and treatment.
Thus, by meeting the needs of the most deprived populations
and by simultaneously offering them resources to reconstruct
their lives, SOLIDARITES fully assumes its humanitarian mission:
at the core of its action is the will to provide permanent access
to drinking water.
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