Can each of us become an environmental activist in the area where we live? A new aspect of volunteering is being focused on by an NGO in Iraq, which has been helped by climate change to become one of the world's most water-stressed countries.
A new app
The “Humat Dijlah” association, which is an NGO that cares about protecting water resources, seeks enhancing efforts of monitoring through the near launching of a new mobile application called “Aura”, which is the ancient name of the Sumerian city of Ur. The application allows activists and volunteers to add what they monitor of environmental matters like the water quality and its levels, in order that the association would start later on working on verification of those data.
Talking to “Green Arabic”, Nosair Baqer, the executive chef of the “Humat Dijlah” association, pointed out that the application project aims at organizing environmental monitoring through participation of community, seeking to create a correct environmental awareness and contribute to pressure on decision makers to eliminate sources of pollution and risks result from it.
Serious social impacts
The executive chef of the association pointed out the social impacts of water scarcity, especially in the middle of Al-Ahwar in south Iraq, as the migration of people from rural areas to cities, adding that this phenomenon began a long time ago in Iraq, which put enormous pressure on urban areas.
According to a survey published by the Norwegian Refugee Council in 2023, 60% of Iraqi farmers have had to reduce the amount of water they use in agriculture, or reduce the area they cultivate due to drought exacerbated by climate change.
Risk of suicide
But, it is not limited to losing crops or having to migrate from one area to another, as the executive chef of the association pointed out one of the cases it monitored, where a livestock breeder committed suicide after the heads he was raising died due to drought.
Another crisis, pointed out by him, is that Iraq does not have the necessary infrastructure to exploit the rainy periods, which have increased in frequency due to climate change factors.
Credit: FAO
“Humat Dijlah” execute another project as well to enhance management of water resources in Nineveh Governorate, located in the north of the country, where Baqer points out that the association has prepared a map of the risks that threaten water resources and ways to manage them, and that it is working with farmers to raise their awareness about preserving water resources.
One of the sessions included in the project, which was broadcast on the organization’s official Facebook page, included a lecture for groups of women in the region about rationalizing water consumption.
Another category that the organization is targeting is students, to raise their environmental awareness and enable them to make a difference that leads to adopting the necessary measures to protect water and the environment.
Arts and Sports is a key supporter.
Speaking to us, Baqer pointed out the various ways in which the association has worked to raise awareness of environmental issues, including relying on arts and sports, referring to the football tournament that the foundation recently organized in the city of Tal Afar in Nineveh Governorate, which included environmental awareness messages.
The association also organized a number of caricature and photographic exhibitions that convey environmental issues, including the “Marshes and the Journey of Life and Death” exhibition, which it organized in 2022, in cooperation with the Nature Iraq Organization.
