Daily Star - Japan Donates $56,350 For Nabatieh Water Sanitation Facility

BEIRUT: The Japanese Embassy pledged Tuesday to fund a water sanitation facility for children and elderly residents in the southern town of Nabatiyeh during a signing ceremony in Beirut.
Japan’s Ambassador to Lebanon Koichi Kawakami and president of the Women’s Progress Association (WPA) Salwa Ali Ahmad signed a grant contract worth $56,350 for a project that will allow Nabatiyeh citizens easy-to-access sanitary water for the first time.
“It is not the first time the Japanese Embassy has helped the organization. It has already granted the organization many aids and donations,” said the WPA president.
“The aids of the Japanese Embassy reach all of Lebanon not just the south. In the name of the organization and the children’s parents I greatly thank the Japanese government and the Japanese Embassy,” she added.
The project is part of Japan’s Grant Assistance for Grass-roots Human Security Project (GGP), an initiative which has seen over $9 million handed out across Lebanon for social development schemes.
“The project will establish a water reservoir in the center of Nabatiyeh to catch rainwater then filter it, mainly for sanitation,” said Katasuaki Takahashi, Japan’s Economic Cooperation attache.
“Most people at [WPA] are buying water from June to October because they don’t have access to public water.”
The embassy estimates that 200-300 people will use the facility which it hopes will be completed within six months.
Previous recent GGP initiatives saw the donation of three fire engines to municipal rescue services in Tripoli, audiovisual equipment to drop-out students to Armenian communities in Burj Hammoud and providing heating systems for an orphanage in Nabatiyeh.