Brief Elafweyn Town history

Elafweyn is the second largest town in Sanaag Province and is located 95km Southwest of Erigavo, the capital city of Sanaag Province in Somaliland. First settled in 1940, it became a town in 1972 and officially recognized as a district in 1974. It governs 33 villages spread around 12,675 Square km with a total population of 64,000. Elafweyn’s climate is mostly very dry flat arid land with very little water. However, during the rainy season in Spring (Gu), between March and May, the town comes to life with lots of green and waterfalls.

The name Elafweyn literally means "A well with big mouth", which is the reason people settled in the town originally and their main source of water, until DRC built water tanks.

 When DRC first approached the residents in the town and asked what kind of help they needed for the town's development, the residents unanimously agreed on water as their first priority. They also came up with ideas for how they wanted DRC to help, which was to build them water tanks to catch rain water.

 

Population: 1600 households (it is estimated households have an average of 6 people, which makes the town's population 9600)
Economy: Livestock, small businesses, farming, frankincense export.

 Current CDRD Projects in Elafweyn

1. Water catchment – 20 families (completed 2011 May) + previous 20 families(completed 2009).
2. High School - (2 rooms, 90 students)
3. Toilets
4. Revolving fund (given mainly to women to run small businesses)
5. Agriculture tools and seeds
6. Jail

In Elafweyn, we are working with the Water Catchment and School beneficiaries as they are the most recently completed projects and Water Catchment affects all the town's residents. We are also collaborating with the Community Development Committee to help us spread the message.