The landscape around Jangsan ri in Sinyang County is typical of rural areas of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). An intensely cultivated river valley is fringed by barren mountains. Fields of corn edge up the steep hillsides and in the valley below, maize cobs are drying on the roofs of identical two room homes.
Across DPRK food security is a priority. Every available patch of land is used for agricultural production. According to data gathered by the UN in 2016, 18 million people in DPRK are food insecure (81% of households) and 10.5 million are considered to be undernourished.
In Jangsan ri, greenhouses funded by the Red Cross are helping to transform the community. Fifty tons of high value vegetables such as cucumbers, tomatoes, chillies and lettuce are grown throughout the year in eight poly-tunnels. This produce is not only improving nutrition in the community, it is also being sold or traded so that the greenhouses can be financially self-sustaining.
Red Cross volunteer Jo Kum Ju works as a manager on the project. Her husband is disabled and she faced difficulties in looking after the family alone.
"Taking care of a child alone was not easy. I went to the Red Cross and told them I had some education in agriculture and they gave me the job", she says.
She supervises production in the greenhouses and also trains people from neighbouring ri's who are interested in starting their own greenhouse enterprise.
Jo Kum Ju also arranges vegetable deliveries for local people who are considered to be particularly vulnerable. They include the elderly and disabled and families with large numbers of dependants.
Four years ago Jangsan ri was amongst a number of communities across the country selected to be part of the Red Cross Integrated Community Development Programme which takes a holistic approach towards tackling many of the humanitarian and development challenges faced by rural communities in DPRK.
Inclusion in the programme depends on a communities' vulnerability to natural disasters and its socio economic status.
When Kim Song Il first arrived in Dongyang ri, Yangdok County, almost ten per cent of the population regularly suffered from waterborne diseases.
"Ten years ago the old water storage system was completely destroyed during heavy floods. People resorted to collecting water from shallow wells and the local river", he explains.
Now, a low cost gravitational water system funded by the Red Cross has benefited the entire community. Ji Yong Jin, a Red Cross volunteer and head of the Community Project Committee that maintains the system, proudly explains how the mountain stream is directed through a soil and sand filtration system into an underground water tank. The water is then fed by gravity, directly into 100 homes sitting in the village 2,000 metres below.
“Before, each household had water buckets and a carrying yoke which they used to fetch water but now they're not using them anymore. The incidence of waterborne disease has decreased from 10% to 3%,” explains Ji Yong Jin.
In the front yard of Pak Yong Hyi's house a carpet of bright red chillies is drying in the sun. Chickens scratch in the dirt and three large pigs grunt contentedly in their pens. The mother of four explains the difficulties she faced before the new water system was installed.
"When we came back late after work. It was very difficult to fetch water, I had to go back and forth from the well to fill 12 buckets. The problems grew worse when it was raining as the water became contaminated. Many of us got stomach diseases, elderly people especially were suffering".
Pak Yong Hyi's 16 year-old daughter, Ji Guk Hua, is an active Red Cross Youth member. Every day she exchanges her school uniform for a DPRK Red Cross volunteer’s jacket and with her fellow volunteers she learns how to use music and performance to promote health education messages.
Ji Guk Hua ventures out into the village to meet a group of local women and children who have assembled in the centre of the village. She starts explaining ways to prevent communicable diseases such as diarrhea. With the aid of information cards she educates the group about good hygiene and sanitation practises, such as hand-washing, that will maintain the health of their families.
"By doing health promotion I help the community people to have better health and by doing this I also gain better knowledge about health issues. I want to become a doctor", says Ji Guk Hua.
The hillsides surrounding Dongyang ri are teeming with people. The entire commune has come out in an effort to safeguard the bare earth hills. Deforestation is a common problem in many parts of DPRK, leading to soil erosion and landslides in the rainy season.
Volunteers are working together. Some are carrying saplings up the steep slope from the local tree nursery, others are digging shallow holes on the hill side and carefully bedding in the saplings ensuring that they are well watered.
Ten species of tree seedlings are grown at the nursery which is funded by the Red Cross. Some are grown for firewood while others produce fruits or are used for their medicinal properties. In the spring 200,000 larch tree seedlings are planted along with 100,000 tree cuttings and 20 kilograms of chestnut and pear tree seeds.
Ri Hwa Gon is head of the nursery. "Some of the trees grow very fast and their roots help to avoid mudslides when it is raining heavily. If we plant a lot of trees we can use the wood for fuel and the fruits can be distributed to the schools and kindergartens."
A major component of the Integrated Community Development Programme is focused on reducing disaster risk and building the resilience of communities.
In Hamju County, hundreds of volunteers from Bulgunbyol ri are hard at work in the Yo Ui Chon riverbed. Almost every year the river rises at least four metres and bursts its banks, flooding the surrounding farmland and damaging hundreds of homes.
The local community here has identified five risk areas along the long embankment. For two months an average of 40 people will work here every day, carrying boulders from the river bed to reinforce the bank. Others will be gathering rocks for a series of five huge cement covered barriers which are designed to divert the flow of the river away from the riverbank.
With funding from the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) the Red Cross is providing cement, iron and other raw materials to construct the barriers. The community provides the labour needed to shift the huge volume of stones and carry out the construction work.
Ri Song Chol, head of the Community Programme Management Committee, explains how vital the project is to protect villages in the area.
"If we have flooding here three communities will be affected. In total 5,500 hectares of farmland and about 1,600 homes will be damaged or destroyed".
The Integrated Community Development programme not only provides direct benefits to vulnerable communities, it also provides an important vehicle for developing the capacity of the DPRK Red Cross Society.
“We want to be the leading humanitarian organization, particularly in the field of disaster management”, says Ri Ho Rim, Secretary General of the DPRK Red Cross Society.
“To build a strong National Society, we want to increase the number of volunteers and the quality of their services so that one day we can achieve independence and be self-supporting”.
Text: Hilkka Hyrkkö - Finnish Red Cross, Patrick Fuller - IFRC
Photography: Benjamin Suomela - Finnish Red Cross, Patrick Fuller - IFRC
For further information: https://www.ifrc.org
