Locals of Bani Mawhoub village in Amran governorate in Yemen’s north have been suffering from the difficulty of moving from one area to another one for years. Life in such remote villages is extremely harsh. The roads are dangerous and it takes hours and great efforts to reach the nearest markets and health centres.
“The mountainous roads are very rugged and people were afraid of using vehicles along the roads,” says Fakher Al-Deen Saleh. “Sadly, many accidents have happened.” Fakher is a 30-year-old resident of Bani Mawhoub village. He remembers an accident his brother had: “One day while I was working in another village, I received a call from a family member telling me that my brother had lost control of his motorbike. He was going to buy some daily basics from the district when his motorbike ran down the hill to the main street and hit a house. The motorbike was totally destroyed – it was his only source of income.”
The roads were so unsafe that drivers from other districts used to refuse to come to the village to hospitalise a patient or a pregnant woman regardless how much money they were offered.
Like Fakher’s brother, one of the villagers was driving his car along the road when he lost control and fell down the hill. Luckily, he survived that horrible accident, but his car was damaged beyond repair. No cars came to the village after that. Animals were the best means of transport for people and goods, while women in particular had to carry flour and water on their heads. Patients were carried in blankets to the main road and pregnant women resorted to traditional methods when delivering their babies rather than going to a health centre. The villagers’ dream was to have safe, paved roads.
In response to their wishes, with funding from the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, CARE intervened with a cash for work project. CARE has paved 800 metres of roads, and 454 workers have benefitted from this project which has created temporary employment for the poorest households.
