By Sonia Al Ali
IDLIB, Syria, Aug 22 2024 – Pregnant women in northern Syria’s camps for internally displaced people fear about their health and the health of their unborn children because of a lack of basic medical care and a healthy diet. These conditions exacerbate the illnesses and challenges faced by women, particularly amid the region’s widespread poverty, food insecurity, and the remoteness of hospitals and health centers from the camps.

Pregnant women in the camps are susceptible to anemia, malnutrition, and giving birth to stunted children if they survive. The delay in obtaining care poses a significant health risk to both pregnant women and their infants.

Fatima Al-Aboud, a 26-year-old displaced woman living in the Ma’arat Misrin camp north of Idlib, is six months pregnant and suffering from severe anemia, which threatens both her health and that of her fetus.

“The doctor told me that I need to eat a balanced diet in sufficient quantities throughout my pregnancy to maintain my health and that of my fetus, but poverty and high prices have made me unable to buy fruits and vegetables rich in vitamins and proteins. I am also unable to afford the necessary medications for pregnant women.”

Al-Aboud does not hide her fear of giving birth to a child in poor health due to malnutrition or of her labor starting without a car available to transport her to the hospital, especially since the road between the camp and health centers is poor and rugged and it is more than five kilometers away.

Pregnant women face health risks in the camps. Credit: Sonia Al Ali/IPS

“I have many fears, as there are no comfortable places to sit or sleep inside the tent, and I cannot get physical rest during pregnancy. As a pregnant woman, I do not have a private space or clean toilets,” Al-Aboud told IPS.

The health risks faced by pregnant women increase due to the distance of health centers and hospitals from the camps, exposing them to the risk of miscarriage and even death during childbirth, along with the possibility of premature births.

The Syria Response Coordinators team, which specializes in gathering information and statistics in the areas of northwestern Syria, reports that more than 87 percent of the camps suffer from a lack of medical points and mobile clinics, and there are difficulties in transporting patients to nearby hospitals, knowing that the financial condition of most of the displaced is very poor and they are unable to secure the necessary treatment for any medical condition without exception.

Sara Al-Hassan, a 31-year-old displaced woman in a makeshift camp north of Syria near the Turkish border and a mother of three, lost her baby during childbirth.

“I started labor after midnight, and due to the distance of the hospitals from the camp and the lack of transportation, I relied on a nurse who lived nearby.”

She says that her delivery was difficult, and her baby was in critical condition and urgently needed an incubator. While being transported to a hospital, the baby passed away.

Al-Hassan confirms that she no longer wants to have children and relies on contraception to avoid repeating the experience of pregnancy and childbirth within the camps. She added that her life in the tent is harsh, as she lacks clean drinking water, bathing water, and food. She wouldn’t be able to provide for the needs of newborn babies as there is a significant shortage of personal hygiene items.

“Stress, anxiety, and overthinking dominate my life, and I feel helpless towards my three children who are living in difficult conditions, but despite that, I try my best to take care of their cleanliness and provide for their needs,” Al-Hassan says.

Dr. Ola Al-Qudour, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology from Idlib city in northwestern Syria, talks about the suffering of pregnant women in northern Syria’s camps.

“Thousands of Syrian pregnant women live in camps in harsh conditions, as most of them cannot provide the necessities of food and medicine. Malnutrition leads to health problems that affect both the pregnant woman and the fetus and exposes the mother to a decrease in milk after childbirth, making her unable to breastfeed her child.”

Al-Qudour points out that the lack of hospitals within the camps increases the suffering of pregnant women, forcing most cases to move outside, confirming that displaced women live in tents made of cloth, and those who give birth in the hospital often return to the tent after only a few hours due to hospital congestion, knowing that the first 24 hours after childbirth are the most critical in terms of complications, so it is important to keep the mother in the hospital for as long as possible.

She confirms that low levels of hygiene make pregnant women more susceptible to influenza due to a decrease in their immunity, and that pregnant women who don’t get enough sleep can also expose them to early labor as well as affect the growth of the child after birth. She also indicates that non-sterile home births increase the risk of infection in newborns and mothers.

The doctor emphasizes the need to provide healthcare services for pregnant women and newborns in the camps, including regular medical check-ups and early diagnosis of any health problems, and providing the necessary care and nutrition for mothers during pregnancy, childbirth, and afterwards.

With the continuation of the war and displacement, more than two million people still reside in camps in northwestern Syria, including 604,000 women.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says as many as “660 camps (44 percent of over 1,500 camps) across Idleb and northern Aleppo do not have water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) support, affecting over 907,000 people. Half of them are children.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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IPS UN Bureau, IPS UN Bureau Report, Syria

By CIVICUS
Aug 22 2024 –  
CIVICUS speaks with Chris Garrard, co-founder and co-director of Culture Unstained, about the campaign to end fossil fuel sponsorship of cultural institutions, which oil companies use to try to present a positive public image.

The campaign has achieved some notable successes, with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Tate group of art galleries ending BP sponsorship deals and the Edinburgh Science Festival rejecting fossil fuel funding. Recently, the Science Museum in London ended its sponsorship arrangement with the Norwegian state-owned oil giant Equinor. It’s now under pressure to reconsider its relationships with Adani and BP.

Chris Garrard

How significant is the London Science Museum’s decision to end its sponsorship by Equinor?

The museum’s decision to end its eight-year sponsorship deal with Equinor is a major victory for the campaign against oil sponsorship. The museum finally cut ties with the oil company because it had failed to align its business plans with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

The museum’s decision also highlights a significant shift in its policy because its director, Ian Blatchford, had strongly defended taking funding from fossil fuel companies in the past, stating in a Financial Times interview that he would still seek such sponsorship ‘even if the museum were lavishly publicly funded’. The decision to cut ties with Equinor contradicts his stance and hopefully represents a step towards greater ethical responsibility, in line with the museum’s scientific mission.

Alongside our allies, Culture Unstained played a key role in this campaign win. I was involved in protesting against Equinor’s sponsorship when it was first announced and ‘Wonderlab: the Equinor Gallery’ first opened to the public, so it was incredibly exciting to finally see this shift happen. Crucially, the campaign involved interventions by various groups over several years, including scientists, youth climate activists and young people from Norway.

Over time, pressure has grown on the museum to adopt new ethical sponsorship criteria that now require sponsors to have aligned their business plans with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C pathway, as assessed by the Transition Pathway Initiative. Its recent assessment clearly showed that Equinor didn’t meet this standard, which ultimately led to the ending of its relationship with the museum.

Why do oil companies sponsor cultural bodies?

Oil companies such as BP, Equinor and Shell sponsor arts and cultural institutions for two main reasons. Firstly, sponsorship deals help them to maintain what’s known as a ‘social licence to operate’. This is essentially a form of consent from wider society which relies upon a belief that they are responsible corporate citizens, and that what they are doing is ethically acceptable. By attaching their logos and brands to cultural institutions, they associate themselves with the progressive values of the arts, so when people think of BP, for example, they don’t associate it with climate impacts, polluting oil spills or toxic gas flaring in places like Iraq, but rather with culture, philanthropy and positive social contributions. It’s a form of cheap advertising and a way to clean up a toxic image.

This practice has been particularly widespread in the UK. BP, for example, had sponsored BP Exhibitions at the British Museum, the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery and BP Big Screens at the Royal Opera House, all of which helped to normalise its tarnished brand. Our research has revealed how sponsorship deals are strategically planned to project a misleading image of these companies as philanthropists and responsible corporate citizens rather than the major polluters they are.

Relationships with cultural institutions also give fossil fuel companies a strategic platform for lobbying. For instance, our research found that BP sponsored a Day of the Dead event at the British Museum just before the Mexican government auctioned off new drilling licences in the Gulf of Mexico – several of which were awarded to BP. So while the public enjoyed the cultural event downstairs in the British Museum’s Great Court, BP executives were meeting with Mexican government officials upstairs, using the event as the backdrop for their corporate agenda.

Now, in response to the growing opposition to oil sponsorship of the arts, fossil fuel companies are increasingly shifting their focus to sport and music sponsorships, and often using their subsidiaries or ‘green energy’ brands for these partnerships. This combination of greenwashing and artwashing is a new strategy of fossil fuel companies, and we’re determined to oppose it.

What have been the most notable successes and challenges of your campaign so far?

Our campaign has had some notable successes, particularly in recent years. Since 2016, around 18 major UK cultural organisations ended their sponsorship deals with fossil fuel companies such as BP and Shell. They included the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House, the Royal Shakespeare Company and Tate ending long-running sponsorship deals with BP and, on London’s South Bank, three major institutions – the British Film Institute, the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre – ending their partnerships with Shell, which has its headquarters next door.

This trend has also gained traction internationally, with groups such as Fossil Free Culture NL in Amsterdam successfully pushing fossil fuel companies out of cultural institutions such as the Van Gogh Museum.

However, despite these successes, the Science Museum has explicitly avoided stating that Equinor’s dire record on climate change was the reason for ending its sponsorship deal and, even now, continues to defend its deals with Adani and BP, even though neither company is aligned with the Paris Agreement goals. Adani in particular is the world’s largest private coal producer, and the Science Museum has cynically sought to deflect criticism by weakly claiming it is only being sponsored by Adani’s renewable energy subsidiary, even though there are clear links between Adani Green Energy and the company’s coal mining business. This is a clear example of greenwashing and the Science Museum is actively helping promote it. Nevertheless, we see this victory with Equinor as a first step, and we’ll continue to push for Adani and BP to be removed from the museum as well.

Meanwhile, the British Museum took a huge backward step last year when it signed a new 10-year sponsorship deal with BP, despite numerous large-scale protests and growing opposition for over a decade. One of the biggest challenges, particularly with institutions such as the British Museum, is their lack of transparency and accountability and, in some cases, their closeness to the government. Although the museum is supposed to be independent, it will often be used for cultural diplomacy. Its notable lack of transparency isn’t limited to decisions around oil sponsorship, but also extends to issues such as the return of stolen artefacts and failure to address its origins in colonialism.

While many museums and galleries have shifted away from fossil fuels and other unethical sponsors, some institutions will, when challenged, defend the records of their corporate sponsors. For example, even when presented with clear evidence, the British Museum has continued its partnership with BP while falsely claiming that BP is helping to lead the transition away from fossil fuels. Often, staff and workers at these institutions support or are sympathetic to our campaign, so the real obstacle to change is the concentration of decision-making power in a few people who aren’t properly accountable.

A different but important challenge is to ensure our campaigning in the UK and the global north is connected and accountable to those directly affected by the fossil fuel companies we are campaigning against. Whether it’s communities in Egypt, the US Gulf Coast or West Papua suffering from pollution and environmental degradation, or those already feeling the effects of climate change, we seek to build relationships of solidarity with them and find ways to offer them a platform.

What space is there for climate activism in the UK?

The space for climate activism in the UK is certainly under threat and needs defending. Recently introduced laws have restricted protests and free speech, and we’ve seen climate activists given lengthy and draconian sentences that discourage others from getting involved, speaking out and taking action. This is deeply worrying and many are calling on the new government to review and repeal these laws. What’s disturbing as well is that we’ve also seen attempts to stifle discussion of issues such as the genocide in Palestine, notably when Adani’s partnership with the Israeli arms company Elbit has been highlighted during protests at the Science Museum.

On the positive side, there are many in the climate justice movement who are constantly finding creative and imaginative ways to protest, in cultural spaces and on the streets. More importantly, there’s also a growing awareness of the need to adopt an intersectional approach emphasising not just climate action, but climate justice. For instance, a group called Energy Embargo for Palestine is currently campaigning against BP’s sponsorship of the British Museum, but linking different struggles and highlighting how fossil fuel extraction is connected to the repression of Palestinian people. It is essential to support and amplify such efforts, as our activism must constantly evolve and adapt to address complex and overlapping concerns. As the activist and poet Audre Lord put it, ‘There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives’.

Civic space in the UK is rated ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.

Get in touch with Culture Unstained through its website, and follow @Cult_Unstained and @TheGarrard on Twitter.

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By Bisma Qamar
NEW YORK, Aug 22 2024 – Imagine a world where every young person has the tools they need to succeed, regardless of their age, area of residence, ethnicity, college name, or the title on their resume. It’s a world where dreams are limitless, and potential knows no bounds.

Individuals often find themselves trying to fit into a puzzle piece where do not belong as the mere definition of success has been set on a few parameters one may feel obliged to achieve such as go to that high ranked school, get the right internship, make it to those networking events and land a perfect job – but what happens when one wishes to take a detour in their own path?

Self-awareness leads to Self-efficacy

Great emphasis has been given onto the crucial aspect of more inclusivity for youth as they are the future leaders for tomorrow, but why not equip them to become the leaders of today?

By understanding our self —our thoughts, feelings, strengths, weaknesses, values, and motivations—we build the foundation for believing in our ability to achieve our goals. Opportunities are everywhere, but the question lies how often do we know which and when to grasp?

On average, it has been seen individuals in the first 5-7 years post-graduation are seen to pivot in their careers most. In order to help young individuals achieve their true aspirations, instilling courage, building resilience, and developing self-awareness through effective career mapping tools, genuine mentoring, and making resources and platforms more accessible to them can have a great impact in shaping their journeys.

When youth are equipped with this knowledge, they can make informed decisions about their future, choosing paths that lead to genuine fulfillment rather than marking another tick on a pre-defined list of what they are told to follow by others, and that is where true empowerment lies.

Crossroads to Success

It becomes over whelming to stay focused and reflect on what is it that you truly want in a world full of endless opportunities, waking up to dynamic changes evolving them. The art of staying focused, specific and in alignment to one’s aspirations can lead to more effective career paths, in which youth would be able to emerge as true change makers in their respective areas.

This disconnect between one’s goals and the pathway chosen can lead to frustration, burnout, and a sense of unfulfilled potential resulting in a greater percentage of youth detouring from where their true potential really lies and giving up earlier than expected.

By allowing open dialogue, effective mentoring, offering diverse exposure and encouraging self-reflection in terms of one’s passion can greatly impact and empower a young individual to rise above and become the true authentic version of themselves.

Re-defining the norms:

As the secretary general stated earlier on the occasion of international youth day how crucial it is to make youth more included in all areas of decision making and how upskilling them with the relevant tools and knowledge is the way towards achieving creating an impact. Over the last decade, the word empowerment has seen to grow in importance and emphasis. It is now time to redefine what we mean by empowering others and are we actually putting it into action or have left it as another tick on the check list on the road of inclusivity.

Embrace the Detour

Taking that one step forward has always been the most hardest, as it carries the weight of expectations, fear of failure, fear of missing out and the constant chants of what will people think? In the midst of stepping towards that one forward and remaining in status quo is what truly shapes the future ahead.

As John Green stated “It is so hard to leave until you leave and then it is the easiest thing in the world”. Normalizing detours and motivating youth to challenge the status quo is what truly empowers them, rather than merely giving them the ability to make decisions and choose but with only the same colored balls in the box to choose from.

As we look towards building a more inclusive, innovative, peaceful and hopeful society ahead of us, we must acknowledge the fact that youth are no longer waiting to get a seat at the table, rather they are crafting their own tables to bring genuine change which would not be limited towards a few, but towards all and empowering youth for youth.

Bisma Qamar is a youth activist in the field of learning and development. As a specialist in communication & branding, she works on bridging the gap between talent and opportunities by upskilling individuals on personal and professional development across corporate organizations and academic institutions.

IPS UN Bureau

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By SWAN
PARIS, Aug 21 2024 – For the centenary of James Baldwin’s birth, an international array of literature fans are coming together in Paris at a festival that will honour the life and work of the iconic American author and civil rights activist.

The James Baldwin Centennial Festival, scheduled for Sept. 9 to 13, aims to be a “celebration” that will take place at multiple venues in the French capital, according to Tara Phillips, executive director of La Maison Baldwin, the organizers.

The non-profit group (founded in 2016 in Saint Paul de Vence, where Baldwin spent the last 17 years of his life) essentially wishes to preserve and promote the writer’s legacy by “nurturing creativity, fostering intellectual exchange, and championing diverse voices through conferences and residencies,” according to its stated objectives.

In the eight years since it was formed, however, La Maison Baldwin hasn’t always had smooth sailing, as some of its activities ran counter to the vision of Baldwin’s family on how to honour his uncompromising work and long-lasting influence. But now, with new direction, the organization has the family’s support, including for the festival, Phillips says.

Baldwin – the author of stirring books such as The Fire Next Time, Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni’s Room – remains one of the most revered (and quoted) writers today, decades after his death in 1987. Born on Aug. 2, 1924, he would have turned 100 this year, and the festival might have been held in his birth month were it not for the recent Paris Olympic Games.

According to Phillips, the event will comprise panel discussions, writing workshops, an art exhibition, student participation and an open-mic segment, among the various features.

In the following edited interview, conducted in person in Paris, Phillips discusses the overall goals and the far-reaching power of Baldwin’s works and words.

SWAN: Let’s start with the centenary and why this festival, why it’s taking place in France.

Tara Phillips: La Maison Baldwin was founded in the south of France, and it was intended to provide both writers’ residencies and writers’ conferences. Then the founder moved to Paris in 2022 and left the organization. So, the centennial seems like the perfect opportunity to reclaim the organization and reintroduce it on new footing.

And so that’s why we thought it was important to do a centennial event, and we also wanted to be aligned with the family who had already been thinking about the centennial in early 2023. We were trying to build a relationship with them, and it just made sense that we were all thinking about this as a way to collectively honour his legacy.

(Note: Baldwin’s family held a centennial celebration at the Lincoln Center in New York on Aug. 7, at which Phillips spoke.)

SWAN: How will the family be involved in the Paris festival?

TP: Well, on the first day, there’s a welcoming reception, and I will invite Trevor Baldwin, James Baldwin’s nephew, to say a few words. But then on the following day, we’ll have the very first panel, called “La Maison Baldwin”, and it’s about the idea of home, both literally and also as in the Black literary tradition. Trevor will participate on that panel as somebody who knew his Uncle Jimmy, and can give some insight into the idea of home for James Baldwin. He was a Harlem man, but he lived all over the world, and his idea of home is pretty complex. And what I’m discovering as I get to know more and more members of the family is that a lot of them have this wanderlust and live in different parts of the world. So, that will be a way to engage a familial voice on that issue, particularly for Black people.

SWAN: Is the festival open to the general public?

TP: There’s a festival fee, but anybody can attend. James Baldwin’s followers and admirers are so diverse: you have the Black community, the literary community, the activist community, the LGBTQ+ community, you have students, academics, artists. The idea was to create an experience that would appeal to all those types of people, but always with the idea of centering James Baldwin.

SWAN: What are some of the other aspects of the event?

TP: We’ll have a welcome reception, and that’s going to be sponsored by the US Embassy. It will be just a moment to come together and celebrate the fact that we’re in Paris and to kick things off. Then we will start the next day with a keynote speaker (author Robert Jones, Jr.) and multiple panel discussions where we’ll be thinking about Baldwin and reflecting on the theme of the festival: Baldwin and Black Legacy, Truth, Liberation, Activism.

SWAN: How did the theme come about?

TP: It came about as the centennial committee brainstormed words that came to mind when we thought about Baldwin and his work and his impact. You know, he spoke truth, also in his writing. And for many people, it liberated them. He gave us the language to liberate us from conceptions of ourselves, or our perceptions of the world, and perceptions of our humanity. And that liberation motivates activism for many of us. That’s how we came to that theme.

SWAN: And continuing with the various elements of the festival, there will be an art exhibition?

TP: Yes, we’ll have an exhibition that will be running during the week. It’s called Frontline Prophet. Those works are by Sabrina Nelson, curated by Ashara Ekundayo and Omo Misha. It’s this brilliant collection of art sketches that Sabrina initially did in 2016 at the James Baldwin conference (held at the American University of Paris), and it’s returning, coming full circle.

SWAN: The festival will also have writing workshops (for an additional fee). Please tell us about those.

TP: We will have a fiction track and a creative nonfiction track. These are separate as not all festival participants will be joining.

But if you’re a writer and you want to have a curated experience with some successful writers, we have Deesha Philyaw (author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) doing the fiction workshop, and Brian Broome (author of the memoir Punch Me Up to the Gods) is doing the creative nonfiction. And that will be happening for folks who want to have that experience.

SWAN: In addition, there’s a big move to engage students, youth…

TP: Yes, there will be a student activism workshop. We want to engage young people with Baldwin’s work and tap into their own sense of activism. You know, these are such interesting times to be young, right? There have always been things happening in history, in our world, but because of social media, because we have access to see everything all the time, I think young people are engaged in a a very different way than they probably would have been without these mediums. And they’ve been the ones to kind of reinvigorate Baldwin’s language and works in a lot of ways.

So, we wanted to give them a space where they could explore the idea of activism through leadership, through creativity and through community. For those three days, they will have their own space together to look at some of Baldwin’s works, to engage with each other and talk with each other. We’re partnering with the Collectif Baldwin (a local organization) on that. I actually think this is the most important part of the festival.

SWAN: Where will the students be coming from?

TP: We basically would like to see students from everywhere who have the time or interest to attend. But we also think it’s very important that there’s a presence of French students as well because what I’m discovering, particularly as a I make more connections here in Paris, is that there is so much to be learned from Baldwin in the context of France and their relations around racism and cultural identity. So, to be able to engage French students in this conversation would be to discuss their own activism. After the workshop, they will also do a presentation – on what they learned and on how they can take Baldwin into the future.

SWAN: Let’s talk about your background coming into this. What is your personal relationship with Baldwin’s work?

TP: It’s interesting because I don’t remember the first time I ever really read James Baldwin. I know I don’t remember reading him when I was in high school – I remember reading Richard Wright and Lorraine Hansberry. But I was in high school in the Eighties before there really was an infusion of black literature, so it was hard to come by.

Then, I ended up reading The Evidence of Things Not Seen, which was interesting to read because it wasn’t the ones he’s known for. It was about the Atlanta Child Murders, which were happening around the same time that I was a kid. There’s something about being immersed in that specific topic and getting it from his perspective that was really interesting for me.

Then he would pop up in my psyche over the years, and now he kind of haunts me because I’m constantly doing this work. And the connection for me, with respect to taking on this work, is that I have moved to Paris as a Black American (in 2018), and I started writing then, and I could just really connect to his sense of freedom coming here. I mean, being in the United States as a Black American and then also as the mother of a Black son, there’s just a weight that you carry, and people who don’t have our experience, they don’t understand what it’s like, and they don’t understand how persistent it is: how you can try to live a life of joy, and of peace, and of intellectual curiosity and all of these things as a Black American, but there’s always a moment when you’re kind of smacked back to the reality of, like, our positioning in society and our history. His words became so important to me, especially after George Floyd’s murder. Baldwin just understood. He had the language.

Another connection for me, and I’ve written about this, is that my father’s name is James and my father was born in Harlem and grew up there, like Baldwin. Turns out that they both went to the same high school but 20 years apart. I think about my dad’s connection to Harlem, his Harlem pride, and how he left because things got so bad in the Sixties and Seventies. He moved my whole family out because he wanted something better for us. And in some ways, I feel that that was James Baldwin’s understanding: another black Jimmy from Harlem saying: “I’ve got to get out of here if I’m going to be true to my own humanity and live the life that I need to live.”

SWAN: In light of all this, what are your hopes for the festival overall?

TP: My hopes for the festival are that it’s really seen and viewed as a celebration of James Baldwin. That’s why I’ve been really keen on calling it a “festival” and not a “conference” because a conference tends to suggest an academic event, with people sitting and providing an analysis of his work, and what I’m hoping is: let’s just celebrate Uncle Jimmy and what he has given us.

Let it just be a party of writers and artists and creatives and scholars, just experiencing one another and Paris, and why this place was important for him and his own experience and development as a human. And let’s just celebrate young people, and their potential and their possibilities, which I think Baldwin really cared about. He had a word for everybody, you know. And it’s funny because Duke University Press has donated 300 copies of Little Man, Little Man, which Baldwin wrote for his nephew, and I love that this is a children’s book… this is what it’s really about – passing on the word for another generation. – AM / SWAN

By Umar Manzoor Shah
SRINAGAR, India, Aug 21 2024 – Brij Mohan, a 37-year-old farmer from Deoria, a modest village in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh, has a story of resilience and transformation. Mohan, the lone breadwinner for his family, has two children, the eldest just 10 years old.

A year ago, Mohan grew cabbage on his 3-acre farm, but severe water scarcity limited him to cultivating the crop just once a year under difficult conditions. With minimal irrigation facilities, Mohan’s farm yielded no more than Rs 40,000 annually (about USD 600).

“I had no shortage of land, quality seeds, or fertilizers. But the lack of water was a major obstacle to my livelihood. The late arrival of monsoons and limited water from government-sponsored irrigation schemes nearly pushed me to abandon farming. I was pushing my family towards starvation,” Mohan told IPS News.

Many members of the farming community are in Mohan’s situation, struggling with water scarcity that leaves their lives and fields high and dry.

Manga Ram, who lives just a mile from Mohan, has a similar story. He cultivates brinjal on his 4-acre land but faces meager water supplies that render his otherwise cultivable land barren mid-season.

“I can’t blame the government for everything. I know there’s a water shortage throughout the region. Farmers are craving water everywhere. But the losses were unbearable,” Ram told IPS.

He added that last year he expected a harvest worth over Rs 90,000 (USD 1,200) but barely made half that amount.

“The saplings didn’t get enough water, turning into dry twigs and leaving my hopes of a profitable harvest in ruins,” Ram recalls.

Brij Mohan with a bundle of brinjals. Experts have encouraged water harvesting and the reuse of waste water for the local farming community.

The End of Imagination

According to government estimates, 72 of 75 districts (96 percent) in Uttar Pradesh, including Rampur, recorded below-normal rainfall this year. Data from India’s Meteorological Department shows that in 59 districts, rainfall was “very low,” with a significant deficiency of less than 60% of the recommended precipitation.

“Even major districts like Meerut and Allahabad received insufficient water for farming. How could we expect this remote area to get government help? Farming was becoming increasingly difficult, as was sustaining our families and providing a good life for our kids,” says farmer Suneel Singh.

Another farmer, Ram Dayal, describes the dire situation: “I have a 2-acre plot of land where I grow tomatoes. There wasn’t enough rain, and the government’s efforts to provide irrigation facilities were minimal. Our resources were too poor to rely on. We were praying for God’s help, or it was the end of imagination for us,” Dayal told IPS News.

Last year, a team of non-governmental agencies visited the area to understand the farmers’ issues. They learned about the severe water shortage that was turning fertile fields barren. The local village heads and NGOs brought in scientific experts who proposed water harvesting and wastewater reuse for the farming community.

During surface irrigation, excess water draining from the fields, known as irrigation tailwater, is primarily considered agricultural wastewater. A certain amount of tailwater drainage is necessary to ensure proper water penetration and irrigation efficiency.

The experts recommended building artificial ponds to collect water cheaply, such as by digging trenches lined with polythene sheets. Water could be stored for 4–5 days, enabling farmers to grow crops on small plots.

Following the guidance, farmers like Suneel, Ram Dayal, and Mohan dug 3-foot-deep pits with 8×6 foot dimensions and carved channels to divert wastewater into the pits. This method allowed them to collect and use wastewater for irrigation, watering their crops twice daily and protecting them from the scorching heat.

“I can now cultivate at least three crops a year. I grow cabbage, cauliflower, and brinjal, which was previously impossible,” says Mohan.

He is hopeful that his profits will double in the future, allowing him to provide a comfortable life for his family. “I want my children to get an education but continue farming. Earlier, I was worried about their future. Now I am not,” Mohan said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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