SSD is a non-profit, nongovernmental, non religious, humanitarian organization established in Ethiopia in 2003 under the leadership of Eng. Gebreyes Haile. Ato Gebreyes is a true visionary who has been involved in irrigation based humanitarian development for more than 40 years!

 

The vision for SSD, supported by the Board of Directors, is seeing the rural poor farming and pastoral communities of Ethiopia self sustained and independent of others.

 

The mission for the organization is to contribute toward the development of Afar Pastoralists through the implementation of integrated development programs based on security of water supply for irrigation.

 

SSD believes that irrigation based development interventions can rapidly increase resilience to recurring drought and achieve food security at the household level in rural Ethiopia.

 

Through the leadership of Ato Gebreyes, SSD has enabled miraculous transformations in the arid expanses of the Afar Region of Ethiopia's Great Rift Valley. Almost 90% of the population of the Afar Regional State live in rural areas depending on cattle breeding and small livestock for their subsistence livelihood. Since 2003 the Afar people have begun the transition from eking out an existence as pure nomadic pastoralists to settling in self-sustaining, permanent communities and becoming sedentary farmers. There is food in the house and for the animals as well!

Although Ato Gebreyes and his team have been developing irrigation schemes throughout the region and beyond for many years, the most recently implemented irrigation projects are the harnessing of the Aura and Alelesebula Rivers. The soil of the region is of volcanic origin, rich and until very recently never cultivated. The climate in the region is hot and dry, with intermittent rains. With the introduction of irrigation, all the elements are there to produce abundant harvests 3 times a year!

Over the last two years more than 200 hectares of land has been cultivated providing vegetables, grains and fodder for the animals; enough to support 1000 pastoralists and their animals. The irrigation infrastructure has been handed over to the community to manage and maintain and SSD is on site at the next project location.

Over the next 5 years SSD will facilitate the construction of 5 more irrigation projects that when completed will transform the lives and livelihoods of thousands more impoverished and desperate Afar pastoralists.

Along with the provision of water diversion structures, SSD trains the local population in horticulture, introduces strategies to improve the production of their animals, nutrition, sanitation, and community capacity through leadership training, the empowerment of women and the importance of education, particularly girls.