The European Commission is to fund a self-help health programme for women refugees in Ethiopia. A grant of 236,100 ECU will be channelled through the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) for a project that will last 10 months.Women are often in a majority in displaced populations, but little work has been done on targeting relief action in ways that help them take care of themselves and their children.
The Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters will carry out this pilot project in the field. It will work in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, and the aims of the programme are:
- to involve local communities in planning and implementing relief services
- to design and carry out training in primary health care and nutrition
- to design a methodology that relief agencies can apply elsewhere.
This project is part of ECHO's disaster preparedness programme. This year, ECHO is spending over 5.0 million ECU on projects that will develop expertise and low-cost technologies for managing crises.
